ll say, swear, and stiffly maintain, though he be
discreet and wise, judicious and learned, that he hath seen them, they
account him a timorous fool, a melancholy dizzard, a weak fellow, a
dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn him, laugh him to scorn, and yet
Marcus of his credit told Psellus that he had often seen them. And Leo
Suavius, a Frenchman, _c. 8, in Commentar. l. 1. Paracelsi de vita longa_,
out of some Platonists, will have the air to be as full of them as snow
falling in the skies, and that they may be seen, and withal sets down the
means how men may see them; _Si irreverberatus oculis sole splendente
versus caelum continuaverint obtutus_, &c., [1134]and saith moreover he
tried it, _praemissorum feci experimentum_, and it was true, that the
Platonists said. Paracelsus confesseth that he saw them divers times, and
conferred with them, and so doth Alexander ab [1135]Alexandro, "that he so
found it by experience, when as before he doubted of it." Many deny it,
saith Lavater, _de spectris, part 1. c. 2_, and _part 2. c. 11_, "because
they never saw them themselves;" but as he reports at large all over his
book, especially _c. 19. part 1_, they are often seen and heard, and
familiarly converse with men, as Lod. Vives assureth us, innumerable
records, histories, and testimonies evince in all ages, times, places, and
[1136]all travellers besides; in the West Indies and our northern climes,
_Nihil familiarius quam in agris et urbibus spiritus videre, audire qui
vetent, jubeant_, &c. Hieronymus _vita Pauli_, Basil _ser. 40_, Nicephorus,
Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomenus, [1137]Jacobus Boissardus in his tract _de
spirituum apparitionibus_, Petrus Loyerus _l. de spectris_, Wierus _l. 1._
have infinite variety of such examples of apparitions of spirits, for him
to read that farther doubts, to his ample satisfaction. One alone I will
briefly insert. A nobleman in Germany was sent ambassador to the King of
Sweden (for his name, the time, and such circumstances, I refer you to
Boissardus, mine [1138]Author). After he had done his business, he sailed
to Livonia, on set purpose to see those familiar spirits, which are there
said to be conversant with men, and do their drudgery works. Amongst other
matters, one of them told him where his wife was, in what room, in what
clothes, what doing, and brought him a ring from her, which at his return,
_non sine omnium admiratione_, he found to be true; and so believed that
ever after,