lly took their departure. [Dr. H. More's Continuation of Glanvil's
Collection of Relations in proof of Witchcraft.]

Many years elapsed before the true cause of these disturbances was
discovered. It was ascertained, at the Restoration, that the whole was
the work of Giles Sharp, the trusty clerk of the commissioners. This
man, whose real name was Joseph Collins, was a concealed royalist, and
had passed his early life within the bowers of Woodstock; so that he
knew every hole and corner of the place, and the numerous trap-doors
and secret passages that abounded in the building. The commissioners,
never suspecting the true state of his opinions, but believing him to
be revolutionary to the back-bone, placed the utmost reliance upon him;
a confidence which he abused in the manner above detailed, to his own
great amusement, and that of the few cavaliers whom he let into the
secret.

Quite as extraordinary and as cleverly managed was the trick played off
at Tedworth, in 1661, at the house of Mr. Mompesson, and which is so
circumstantially narrated by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, under the title
of "The Demon of Tedworth," and appended, among other proofs of
witchcraft, to his noted work, called "Sadducismus Triumphatus." About
the middle of April, in the year above mentioned, Mr. Mompesson, having
returned to his house, at Tedworth, from a journey he had taken to
London, was informed by his wife, that during his absence they had been
troubled with the most extraordinary noises. Three nights afterwards
he heard the noise himself; and it appeared to him to be that of "a
great knocking at his doors, and on the outside of his walls." He
immediately arose, dressed himself, took down a pair of pistols, and
walked valiantly forth to discover the disturber, under the impression
that it must be a robber: but, as he went, the noise seemed to travel
before or behind him; and, when he arrived at the door from which he
thought it proceeded, he saw nothing, but still heard "a strange hollow
sound." He puzzled his brains for a long time, and searched every
corner of the house; but, discovering nothing, he went to bed again. He
was no sooner snug under the clothes, than the noise began again more
furiously than ever, sounding very much like a "thumping and drumming
on the top of his house, and then by degrees going off into the air."

These things continued for several nights, when it came to the
recollection of Mr. Mompesson that some time