To Philip John Miles, Esq., M.P. Lord Of The Ancient Manor Of Abbots' Leigh And Proprietor Of The Mansion Where The Manuscript Hereafter Treated Of Was First Discovered, This Singular But Authentic Transcript, From A Curious Relic Of Those Ancient Superstitions Which In Former Times Were So Enthusiastically Pursued By All Classes Of Society; Is Respectfully Dedicated,

"It Is, I And, right and judicious, most carefully and publicly to disavoe a belief in supernatural visitings; but It will be long before I become either to wife or to bold as to make any such unqualified declaration. I am not weak enough to imagine myself sur-rounded by spirits and phantoms, or jostling through a crowd of spectres as I walk the streets; neither do 1 give credence to all the idle tales of ancient dames or frightened children touching sack matters; but when I breathe the sir, and see the grass grow under my feet, I cannot but feel that He who gives me power to inhale the one, or stand erect upon the ether, has also the power to use, for special purposes, such means and agency as He In his wisdom may see At; and which, in point of fact, are not more incomprehensible to at than the very simpled effects, watch we every day witness arising from unknown causes!

"Philosophers may pore, and In the might of their littleness, and the erudition of their ignorance, develop and disclose, argue and discuss; but, when the sage who sneers at the possibility of ghosts will explain to me the doctrine of attraction and gravitation, why the wind blows, why the tides ebb and flow, or why the light shines (effects perceptible by all men), Men will I admit the justice of his incredulity - then will I join the ranks of the incredulous."

Theodore Hook.