"[3]
In another essay Addison shows that he is strongly inclined to
believe in the existence of spirits, though he repudiates the
ridiculous superstitions which prevailed in his day;[4] and Sir
Roger de Coverley frankly confesses his belief in witches. Defoe,
in the preface to his _Essay on the History and Reality of
Apparitions_ (1727) states uncompromisingly:
"I must tell you, good people, he that is not able to
see the devil, in whatever shape he is pleased to
appear in, he is not really qualified to live in this
world, no, not in the quality of a common inhabitant."
Epworth Rectory, the home of John Wesley's father, was haunted in
1716-17 by a persevering ghost called Old Jeffrey, whose exploits
are recorded with a gravity and circumstantial exactitude that
remind us of Defoe's narrative concerning the ghostly Mrs. Veal
in her "scoured" silk. John Wesley declares stoutly that he is
convinced of the literal truth of the story of one Elizabeth
Hobson, who professed to have been visited on several occasions
by supernatural beings. He upholds too the authenticity of the
notorious Drummer of Tedworth, whose escapades are described in
chapbooks and in Glanvill's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (1666), a
book in which he was keenly interested.
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