tue, or to assist him; resolving the difficulties which he
might find in reading holy books, or giving him good counsel upon his
own affairs. He usually rapped at his door at three or four o'clock in
the morning to awaken him; and as that person mistrusted all these
things, fearing that it might be an evil angel, the spirit showed
himself in broad day, striking gently on a glass bowl, and then upon a
bench. When he desired to do anything good and useful, the spirit
touched his right ear; but if it was anything wrong and dangerous, he
touched his left ear; so that from that time nothing occurred to him
of which he was not warned beforehand. Sometimes he heard his voice;
and one day, when he found his life in imminent danger, he saw his
genius, under the form of a child of extraordinary beauty, who saved
him from it.

William, Bishop of Paris,[286] says that he knew a rope-dancer who had
a familiar spirit which played and joked with him, and prevented him
from sleeping, throwing something against the wall, dragging off the
bed-clothes, or pulling him about when he was in bed. We know by the
account of a very sensible person that it has happened to him in the
open country, and in the day time, to feel his cloak and boots pulled
at, and his hat thrown down; then he heard the bursts of laughter and
the voice of a person deceased and well known to him, who seemed to
rejoice at it.

The discovery of things hidden or unknown, which is made in dreams, or
otherwise, can hardly be ascribed to anything but to familiar spirits.
A man who did not know a word of Greek came to M. de Saumaise, senior,
a counselor of the Parliament of Dijon, and showed him these words,
which he had heard in the night, as he slept, and which he wrote down
in French characters on awaking: "_Apithi ouc osphraine ten sen
apsychian_." He asked him what that meant. M. de Saumaise told him it
meant, "Save yourself; do you not perceive the death with which you
are threatened?" Upon this hint, the man removed, and left his house,
which fell down the following night.[287]

The same story is related, with a little difference, by another
author, who says that the circumstance happened at Paris;[288] that
the genius spoke in Syriac, and that M. de Saumaise being consulted,
replied, "Go out of your house, for it will fall in ruins to-day, at
nine o'clock in the evening." It is but too much the custom in
reciting stories of this kind to add a few circumstances by wa