Generglyn, March 1656.

To this account of Mr. Davis, I will subjoin what my worthy friend and neighbour Randal Caldicot, D.D. hath affirmed to me many years since, viz.  When any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, there will appear over the water where the corps is, a light, by which means they do find the body:  and it is therefore called the Holy Dee.  The doctor’s father was Mr. Caldicot, of Caldicot in Cheshire, which lies on the river.

ORACLES.

HIERONIMUS Cardanus, lib. 3, “Synesiorum Somniorum”, cap. 15, treats of this subject, which see.  Johannes Scotus Erigena, when he was in Greece, did go to an Oracle to enquire for a Treatise of Aristotle, and found it, by the response of the oracle.  This he mentions in his works lately printed at Oxford; and is quoted by Mr. Anthony a Wood in his Antiquities of Oxon, in his life.  He lived before the conquest, and taught Greek at the Abby in Malmesbury, where his scholars stabbed him with their penknives for his severity to them.  Leland mentions that his statue was in the choir there.

ECSTACY.

Cardanus, lib. 2.  Synes.  Somniorum, cap. 8.

“In Ecstasin multis modis dilabuntur homines, aut per Syncopen, aut animi deliquium, aut etiam proprie abducto omni sensu externo, absque alia Causa.  Id vero contingit consuetis plerunque, & nimio affectu alicujus rei laborantibus; —–­ Ecstasis medium est inter vigiliam & somnium, sicut somnus inter mortem & vigiliam, seuvitam —–­ Visa in Ecstasi certiora insomniis:  Clariora & evidentiora —–­ Ecstasi deprehensi audire possunt, qui dormiunt non possunt”.

Men fall into an Ecstacy many ways, either by a syncope, by a vanishing and absence of the spirits, or else by the withdrawing of every external sense without any other cause.  It most commonly happens to those who are over sollicitous or fix their whole minds upon doing any one particular thing.  An Ecstacy is a kind of medium between sleeping and waking, as sleep is a kind of middle state between life and death.  Things seen in an Ecstacy are more certain than those we behold in dreams:  they are much more clear, and far more evident.  Those seized with an Ecstacy can hear, those who sleep cannot.

Anno 1670, a poor widow’s daughter in Herefordshire, went to service not far from Harwood (the seat of Sir John Hoskins, Bart.  R.S.S.) She was aged near about twenty; fell very ill, even to the point of death; her mother was old and feeble, and her daughter was the comfort of her life; if she should die, she knew not what to do:  she besought God upon her knees in prayer, that he would be pleased to spare her daughter’s life, and take her to him:  at this very time, the daughter fell into a trance, which continued about an hour:  they thought she had been dead:  when she recovered out of it, she declared the vision she had in this fit, viz.