The Lady Viscountess Maidstone told me she saw (as it were) a fly of fire, fly round about her in the dark, half an hour before her lord died:  he was killed at sea, and the like before her mother-in-law the Countess of Winchelsea died, (she was then with child).

A Dutch prisoner at Wood-bridge, in Suffolk, in the reign of K. Charles ii. could discern Spirits; but others that stood by could not.  The bell tolled for a man newly deceased.  The prisoner saw his phantom, and did describe him to the Parson of the parish,* who was with him; exactly agreeing with the man for whom the bell tolled.  Says the prisoner, now he is coming near to you, and now he is between you and the wall; the Parson was resolved to try it, and went to take the wall of him, and was thrown down; he could see nothing.  This story is credibly told by several persons of belief.

* Dr. Hooke, the Parson of the parish, has often told this story.

There is a very remarkable story of an apparition, which Martin Luther did see.  Mentioned in his “Commensalia” or Table-Talk, which see.

Those that are delirious in high fevers, see (waking, men, and things that are not there).  I knew one Mr. M. L. that took opium, and he did see (being awake) men and things that were not present, (or perhaps) not in being.  Those whose spleens are ill affected have the like phantasies.  The power of imagination is wonderful.

      “De seipso duplicate.”

Cardanus, Synes.  Somniorum, lib. ii. cap. 12.  “In somniis mortis est signum, quia duo fiunt, cum anima separatur a corpore.  Est & signum morbi in ipsis agrotantibus, nec tum aliud quicquam significat.”

      **Of One’s being divided into a Two-fold person.

In dreams it is a sign of death, because out of one are then made two, when the soul is separated from the body.  And it is a sign of the disease in sick men, nor signifies it any thing else at that time.

As concerning apparitions of a man’s own self, there are sundry instances, some whereof, I shall here set down.

The Countess of Thanet (Earl John’s Lady) saw as she was in bed with her Lord in London, her daughter my Lady Hatton, who was then in Northamptonshire, at Horton Kirby; the candle was burning in her chamber.  Since, viz. anno 1675, this Lady Hatton was blown up with gunpowder set on fire by lightning, in the castle at Guernsey, where her Lord was Governor.*

* See Mr. Baxter’s Treatise of Spirits

The beautiful Lady Diana Rich, daughter to the Earl of Holland, as she was walking in her father’s garden at Kensington, to take the fresh air before dinner, about eleven o’clock, being then very well, met with her own apparition, habit, and every thing, as in a looking-glass.  About a month after, she died of the small-pox.  And it is said that her sister, the Lady Isabella Thynne, saw the like of herself also, before she died.  This account I had from a person of honour.