The following narrative is not only remarkable in itself: it has a remarkable history. In April, 1720, Daniel Defoe published his 'History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, a gentleman who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight: now living in Exeter Court, over against the Savoy in the Strand.' In August a second edition was called for, of which some copies included a pamphlet which had been printed in June, 'Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertainment of Gentlemen and Ladies': and this pamphlet or 'pacquet' contained our ghost story.
    It has been commonly supposed that Defoe wrote the story himself. But as Defoe asserted, and as Mr. Robbins will prove, it was actually written by the Rev. John Ruddle, of Launceston. The scene of the story can be identified by anyone who chooses to visit the parish of South Petherwin. For its age it is one of the best-authenticated statements of its kind, as it undoubtedly is one of the most striking. We will first print the tale as it stands, and then let Mr. Robbins unfold its history and the evidence bearing on it.—Editor, 'Cornish Magazine.'

    In the beginning of this year, a disease happened in this town of Launceston, and some of my scholars died of it. Among others who fell under the malignity then triumphing, was John Elliot, the eldest son of Edward Elliot of Treherse,¹ Esq., a stripling of about sixteen years of age, but of more than common parts and ingenuity. At his own particular request, I preached at the funeral, which happened on the 20th day of June, 1665. In my discourse (ut mos reique locique postulabat), I spoke some words in commendation of the young gentleman; such as might endear his memory to those that knew him, and, withal, tended to preserve his example to the fry which went to school with him, and were to continue there after him. An ancient gentleman, who was then in the church,² was much affected with the discourse, and was often heard to repeat, the same evening, an expression I then used out of Virgil:—

    The reason why this grave gentleman was so concerned at the character, was a reflection he made upon a son of his own, who, being about the same age, and, but a few months before, not unworthy of the like character I gave of the young Mr. Elliot, was now, by a strange accident, quite lost as to his parent's hopes and all expectation of any further comfort by him.

    The funeral rites being over, I was no sooner come out of the church, but I found myself most courteously accosted by this old gentleman; and with an unusual importunity, almost forced against my humour to see his house that night; nor could I have rescued myself from his kindness, had not Mr. Elliot interposed and pleaded title to me for the whole of the day, which, as he said, he would resign to no man. Hereupon I got loose for that time, but was constrained to leave a promise behind me to wait upon him at his own house the Monday following. This then seemed to satisfy, but before Monday came I had a new message to request me that, if it were possible, I would be there on the Sunday. The second attempt I resisted, by answering that it was against my convenience, and the duty which mine own people expected from me. Yet was not the gentleman at rest, for he sent me another letter on the Sunday, by no means to fail on the Monday, and so to order my business as to spend with him two or three days at least. I was indeed startled at so much eagerness, and so many dunnings for a visit, without any business; and began to suspect that there must needs be some design in the bottom of all this excess of courtesy. For I had no familiarity, scarce common acquaintance with the gentleman or his family; nor could I imagine whence should arise such a flush of friendship on the sudden.
    On the Monday I went, and paid my promised devoir, and met with entertainment as free and plentiful as the invitation was importunate. There also I found a neighbouring minister who pretended to call in accidentally, but by the sequel I suppose it otherwise. After dinner this brother of the coat undertook to show me the gardens, where, as we were walking, he gave me the first discovery of what was mainly intended in all this treat and compliment.
    First he began to tell the infortunity of the family in general, and then gave an instance in the youngest son. He related what a hopeful, sprightly lad he lately was, and how melancholic and sottish he was now grown. Then did he with much passion lament, that his ill-humour should so incredibly subdue his reason; for, says he, the poor boy believes himself to be haunted with ghosts, and is confident that he meets with an evil spirit in a certain field about half a mile from this place, as often as he goes that way to school.
    In the midst of our twaddle, the old gentleman and his lady (as observing their cue exactly) came up to us. Upon their approach, and pointing me to the arbour, the parson renews the relation to me; and they (the parents of the youth) confirmed what he said, and added many minute circumstances, in a long narrative of the whole. In fine, they all three desired my thoughts advice in the affair.
    I was not able to collect thoughts enough on the sudden to frame a judgment upon what they had said, only I answered, that the thing which the youth reported to them was strange, yet not incredible, and that I knew not then what to think or say of it; but if the lad would be free to me in talk, and trust me with his counsels, I had hopes to give them a better account of my opinion the next day.
    I had no sooner spoken so much, but I perceived myself in the springe their courtship had laid for me; for the old lady was not able to hide her impatience, but her son must be called immediately. This I was forced to comply with and consent to, so that drawing off from the company to an orchard near by, she went herself and brought him to me, and left him with me.
    It was the main drift of all these three to persuade me that either the boy was lazy, and glad of any excuse to keep from the school, or that he was in love with some wench and ashamed to confess it; or that he had a fetch upon his father to get money and new clothes, that he might range to London after a brother he had there; and therefore they begged of me to discover the root of the matter, and accordingly to dissuade, advise, or reprove him, but chiefly, by all means, to undeceive him as to the fancy of ghosts and spirits.
    I soon entered into a close conference with the youth, and at first was very cautious not to displease him, but by smooth words to ingratiate myself and get within him, for I doubted he would be too distrustful or too reserved. But we had scarcely passed the first situation, and begun to speak to the business, before I found that there needed no policy to screw myself into his breast; for he most openly, and with all obliging candour did aver, that he loved his book, and desired nothing more than to be bred a scholar; that he had not the least respect for any of womankind, as his mother gave out; and that the only request he would make to his parents was, that they would but believe his constant assertions concerning the woman he was disturbed with, in the field called the Higher-Broom Quartils.³ He told me with all naked freedom, and a flood of tears, that his friends were unkind and unjust to him, neither to believe nor pity him; and that if any man (making a bow to me) would but go with him to the place, he might be convinced that the thing was real, &c.
    By this time he found me apt to compassionate his condition, and to be attentive to his relation of it, and therefore he went on in this way:—
    'This woman which appears to me,' saith he, 'lived a neighbour here to my father, and died about eight years since; her name, Dorothy Dingley, of such a stature, such age, and such complexion. She never speaks to me, but passeth by hastily, and always leaves the footpath to me, and she commonly meets me twice or three times in the breadth of the field.
    'It was about two months before I took any notice of it, and though the shape of the face was in my memory, yet I did not recall the name of the person, but without more thoughtfulness, I did suppose it was some woman who lived there about, and had frequent occasion that way. Nor did I imagine anything to the contrary before she began to meet me constantly, morning and evening, and always in the same field, and sometimes twice or thrice in the breadth of it.
    'The first time I took notice of her was about a year since, and when I first began to suspect and believe it to be a ghost, I had courage enough not to be afraid, but kept it to myself a good while, and only wondered very much about it. I did often speak to it, but never had a word in answer. Then I changed my way, and went to school the Under Horse Road, and then she always met me in the narrow lane, between the Quarry Park and the Nursery, which was worse.'

    'At length I began to be terrified at it, and prayed continually that God would either free me from it or let me know the meaning of it. Night and day, sleeping and waking, the shape was ever running in my mind, and I often did repeat these places of Scripture (with that he takes a small Bible out of his pocket), Job vii. 14: "Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions." And Deuteronomy xxviii. 67: "In the morning, thou shalt say, Would God it were even; and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning; for the fear of thine heart, wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes, which thou shalt see."
    I was very much pleased with the lad's ingenuity in the application of these pertinent Scriptures to his condition, and desired him to proceed.
    'When,' says he, 'by degrees, I grew very pensive, inasmuch that it was taken notice of by all our family; whereupon, being urged to it, I told my brother William⁴ of it, and he privately acquainted my father and mother, and they kept it to themselves for some time.
    'The success of this discovery was only this; they did sometimes laugh at me, sometimes chide me, but still commanded me to keep to my school, and put such fopperies out of my head. I did accordingly go to school often, but always met the woman in the way.'
    This, and much more to the same purpose, yea, as much as held a dialogue of near two hours, was our conference in the orchard, which ended with my proffer to him, that, without making any privy to our intents, I would next morning walk with him to the place, about six o'clock. He was even transported with joy at the mention of it, and replied—'But will you, sure, sir? Will you, sure, sir? Thank God! Now I hope I shall be relieved.' From this conclusion we retired into the house.
    The gentleman, his wife, and Mr. Sam⁵ were impatient to know the event, insomuch that they came out of the parlour into the hall to meet us; and seeing the lad look cheerfully, the first compliment from the old man was,'Come, Mr. Ruddle,⁶ you have talked with him⁷; I hope now he will have more wit. An idle boy! an idle boy!' At these words, the lad ran up the stairs to his own chamber, without replying, and I soon stopped the curiosity of the three expectants by telling them I had promised silence, and was resolved to be as good as my word; but when things were riper they might know all. At present, I desired them to rest in my faithful promise, that I would do my utmost in their service, and for the good of their son. With this they were silenced; I cannot say satisfied.
    The next morning before five o'clock, the lad was in my chamber, and very brisk. I arose and went with him. The field he led me to I guessed to be twenty acres, in an open country, and about three furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not gone above a third part, before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, with all the circumstances he had described her to me in the orchard the day before (as much as the suddenness of its appearance and evanition would permit me to discover), met us and passed by. I was a little surprised at it, and though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, yet I had not the power, nor indeed durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to my pupil and guide, and therefore only telling him that I was satisfied in the truth of his complaint, we walked to the end of the field and returned, nor did the ghost meet us that time above once. I perceived in the young man a kind of boldness, mixed with astonishment; the first caused by my presence, and the proof he had given of his own relation, and the other by the sight of his persecutor.
    In short, we went home: I somewhat puzzled, he much animated. At our return, the gentlewoman, whose inquisitiveness had missed us, watched to speak with me. I gave her a convenience, and told her that my opinion was that her son's complaint was not to be slighted, nor altogether discredited; yet, that my judgment in his case was not settled. I gave her caution, moreover, that the thing might not take wind, less the whole country should ring with what we had yet no assurance of.
    In this juncture of time I had business which would admit no delay; wherefore I went for Launceston that evening, but promised to see them again next week. Yet I was prevented by an occasion which pleaded a sufficient excuse; for my wife was that week brought home from a neighbour's house very ill. However, my mind was upon the adventure. I studied the case, and about three weeks after went again, resolving, by the help of God, to see the utmost.
    The next morning being the 27th day of July, 1665, I went to the haunted field by myself, and walked the breadth of the field without any encounter. I returned and took the other walk, and then the spectrum appeared to me, much about the same place where I saw it before, when the young gentleman was with me. In my thoughts, it moved swifter than the time before, and about ten feet distance from me on my right hand, insomuch that I had not time to speak, as I had determined with myself beforehand.
    The evening of this day, the parents, the son, and myself, being in the chamber where I lay, I propounded to them our going all together to the place next morning, and after some asseveration that there was no danger in it, we all resolved upon it. The morning being come, lest we should alarm the family of servants, they went under the pretence of seeing a field of wheat, and I took my horse and fetched a compass another way, and so met at the stile we had appointed.
    Thence we all four walked leisurely into the Quartils, and had passed above half the field before the ghost made appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and moved with that swiftness that by the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I immediately turned head and ran after it, with the young man by my side; we saw it pass over the stile by which we entered, but no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place, he at another, but could discern nothing; whereas, I dare aver, that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this day's appearance. 1. That a spaniel dog, who followed the company unregarded, did bark and run away, as the spectrum passed by; whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear or fancy which made the apparition. 2. That the motion of the spectrum was not gradation, or by steps, and moving of the feet, but a kind of gliding, as children upon the ice, or a boat down a swift river, which punctually answers the descriptions the ancients gave of their Lemures.
    But to proceed. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but, withal, strangely frightened the old gentleman and his wife, who knew this Dorothy Dingley in her lifetime, were at her burial, and now plainly saw her features in this present apparition. I encouraged them as well as I could, but after this they went no more. However, I was resolved to proceed, and use such lawful means as God hath discovered, and learned men have successfully practised in these irregular cases.
    The next morning being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field next adjoining to the Quartils.⁸ Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the disturbed field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the farther stile. I spoke to it with a loud voice, in some such sentences as the way of these dealings directed me; whereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near, it moved not. I spake again, and it answered, in a voice neither very audible nor intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and therefore persisted until it spake again, and gave me satisfaction. But the work could not be finished at this time; wherefore the same evening, an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side, it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.
    These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded that my senses do deceive me about their proper object, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the Christian religion, I must and will, assert that these things in this paper are true.

THE narrative which has been accustomed to be attributed to Defoe, but which he himself rightly declared to have been 'related by the Rev. Dr. Ruddle, of Launceston in Cornwall, in the year 1665,' merits especial mention in these pages because of its absolutely Cornish origin and development. It has been declared by literary critics to be the best ghost story in the language, and characterised by professed believers in the supernatural as not only one of the most remarkable tales of 'the unseen world' that have been recorded, but as 'bearing the very impress of truth.' This last point is the one which will the most fully be brought out by examination; for, whatever its merits as literature, there can be as little doubting the sincerity as the simplicity with which the relation is given. It deals with a real place and with real people, and its narrator was a man of mark in the Cornwall of his day.
    These points the more need emphasis because of the distortions which have been the fate of the tale as originally in plainest fashion set down. Nothing could be more straightforward than the narrative as written by John Ruddle and published by Daniel Defoe. A young Launceston clergyman, who kept a school in the town, preaches a funeral sermon over a scholar which so impresses a parent present that he is requested to exorcise a ghost, which troubles that parent's son, and with this request he successfully complies. Every name and date in the original can be tested and proved to be correct, and it might have been thought impossible for any erroneous accretion to have been made. But the mere fact that it was a ghost story, and therefore one in which no 'man of common-sense' would confess to believe, appears to have rendered more than one re-teller suspicious to the verge of stupidity. Mrs. Bray, when writing her 'Trelawny of Trelawne,' which deals with the tale, held the opinion, originating with the Rev. F. V. Jago-Arundell, that the name of the sprite could not have been 'Dorothy Dingley^a,' because she had 'never heard of the name in Launceston or the neighbourhood;' and yet a James Dingley^b was instituted to the vicarage of the very parish of South Petherwin, wherein the ghost appeared, in the same reign as the sprite was seen, and assisted Ruddle in his ministrations at Launceston, the name existing in that town and district unto this present^c. In the same heedless fashion, Cyrus Redding, in 'An Illustrated Itinerary of the County of Cornwall,' wrote in 1842 that, while the story was 'told with so much simplicity of truth that it is difficult to believe that the tale is not, as novel writers say, "founded on fact,"' 'no clergyman of the name of Ruddle had been an incumbent in Launceston for 200 years past, at least in St. Mary's Church,' though Ruddle occupied the living of St. Mary Magdalene from 1663 to his death in 1699^d. But there has been worse than carelessness in the matter, for Samuel Drew, in his 'History of Cornwall,' having mistakenly placed the scene of exorcism 'in a field about half a mile from Botaden or Botathen' in the parish of Little Petherick, between St. Columb and Padstow, instead of at Botathan in South Petherwin, Hawker of Morwenstow employed his genius in literary fabrication by inventing a 'Diurnall' of Ruddle, which not merely included this palpable error, but clumsily altered the date of the apparition so as to make it hopelessly disagree with the facts which stand upon record.

    'Facts' as concerning a ghost story would not seem to be customary; but, for the fit comprehending of such a tale, some of the atmosphere of its period must be imbibed, and then both the facts and the inferences will be found to agree. There was nothing unbelievable in itself in a ghost story in the days of Ruddle, for materials in fragmentary fashion exist for a Cornish tale of that time of a kind in which Defoe would have delighted, and which his genius would have made to live. Hidden in the depths of the State Papers of the Commonwealth, and of a date only about ten years earlier than the Botathan apparition, is a baldly grim confession of John Baldock, a seaman on board the battleship 'Tiger,' which is a study in remorse. The repentant sailor told how three years previously he had served in the privateer 'John'—'under Captain Jno. Shipman, of East Cowes, Isle of Wight'—and, putting into Guernsey with some prizes, he went on shore with one William Gibson. After drinking very hard they met an English soldier, whom Gibson stabbed, and the deponent consented to the act 'by washing his hands in the blood.' The dead man was robbed and thrown into a ditch, and the two sailors parted, Gibson to settle down at Fowey and Baldock to join the 'Tiger,' thereon to be so haunted or troubled with the ghost or appearance of the murdered soldier that he could get no rest until he had publicly confessed. Captain Gabriel Saunders, of the 'Tiger,' then engaged in watching the coast between Beachy Head and Newhaven, and searching French fisher-boats and all vessels of which he had suspicion, at once laid his man by the heels, and forwarded the confession to the Admiralty, with the common-sense remark that it was a matter to be tried in the place where the murder was committed. A fortnight later he sent to London a reminder of the circumstance, but there the affair disappears into the night: whether the ghost-haunted Baldock was tried in Guernsey or the murderous Gibson continued to flourish at Fowey remains unrecorded.
    But it was not only a time when the existence of ghosts was an article of faith, but when every other form of what nowadays is roughly labelled 'superstition' was regarded as credible. Ruddle finally laid the sprite of Dorothy Dingley on July 29, 1665, and he wrote his narrative on the following September 4. Now, between those two dates there had occurred in Cornwall an incident, having its own connection with Launceston, calculated to awe every believer in the direct interposition of Providence in human affairs. For on August 16 was gored to death by a bull Thomas Robinson, a Member of Parliament for Helston, who had distinguished himself by zeal in the sending to Launceston Gaol of recalcitrant Nonconformists. One of these, a former incumbent of St. Hilary and subsequent preacher at St. Ives, looking his persecutor full in the face, exclaimed upon committal, 'Sir, if you die the common death of all men, God never spake by me.' And a few weeks later, while on his way for a warrant to despatch to Launceston another clergyman ejected under the Act of Uniformity, the judgment fell upon Robinson—a bull, previously regarded as tame, pushing gently aside with his horns a maid standing near her master, whom he tore to pieces. And that no touch of the supernatural should be lacking, a witch apprehended near Looe subsequently claimed that it was she who caused the animal so to act, because Robinson 'prosecuted the Nonconformists, she being one herself, either a Presbyterian or Baptize.'
    In days when haunted mariners and witch-stricken magistrates furnished material for State Papers—the vast repository of many a romance yet to be told—it was little wonder that a rural clergyman should not merely credit the existence of an apparition but have faith in his power to exorcise it. John Ruddle, though, as he himself says, 'young and a stranger in these parts'—'natu Severianus,' as he is described on his Launceston monument—was not in the least likely to be diffident as to his own abilities. Fresh from Caius College, Cambridge, where he had graduated Master of Arts, he had been instituted to the vicarage of Altarnun on May 24, 1662, upon the presentation of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter; and the incumbency of St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston, becoming vacant by an ejection under the Act of Uniformity, he, as the parish register attests, 'began his ministry at Lanceston at y^e Feast of Our saviours Nativity 1663.' The ejection of his predecessor, William Oliver, had opened the way for Ruddle also to become master of the Launceston Free School, an institution subsidised by the Treasury and under the control of the local Corporation. And in 1665 a veritable annus mirabilis for Ruddle, he figured in the latter capacity in 'The Bishop of Exeter's certificate of the Hospitals and Almshouses, Pluralists, Lecturers, Schoolmasters, Physicians, and Non-Conformists in his Diocese,' now to be seen among the manuscripts at Lambeth Palace. 'There is a free schoole within y^e Borough of Lanceston,' it is therein recorded, 'and y^e Exhibition of about 16 li. yearly is paid out of y^e Kings Audit, and Mr. John Rudle A.M. keepes y^e said schoole being Licensed thereunto;' and it is added that Ruddle was 'well affected to y^e Governmt and a frequenter of publique Prayers'—the latter circumstance being one that should scarcely have surprised the Bishop, seeing that the schoolmaster referred to was the incumbent of two livings.
    Both as clergyman and schoolmaster, Ruddle figures in his own narrative; and it is possible, therefore, to test his accuracy in points of detail. He sets out with two specific assertions—that there was in his school a lad named John Eliot, son of Edward Eliot of Treberse^e (or, as it is more usually called, Trebursye), and that he 'preached at [his] funeral, which happened on the 20th day of June, 1665.' Now, the name of Edward Eliot, of Trebursye, was one not lightly to be used at Launceston, and in connection with a story, he being one of the most prominent of all the neighbouring gentry. He was the third son of Sir John Eliot, the illustrious patriot, into whose family the possession of Trebursye had come through his marriage with the daughter of Richard Gedie^f, one of the victims of Charles I.'s oppression. While in his fatal confinement in the Tower, Sir John Eliot had written to his father-in-law, with whom the ten-year-old lad was staying at Trebursye, 'I hope God will bless him with his growth to overcome the defluxion in his eyes, against which I see no practice does prevail;' and when grandfather and father alike had passed away, and Edward Eliot had seen the troubled times of the Great Rebellion, the local love for his forbears caused him to be returned for Launceston to the Convention Parliament—'by the proper officer,' as it was reported to the House of Commons. But a son of Sir John Eliot was not likely to be in favour at Westminster just then, and the Restoration party ousted him from his seat upon some undiscovered pretext, and gave it to one of Monk's active intriguers, while almost simultaneously the Lords were petitioned by some Cornish widow with a grievance to exempt him and his eldest brother from the General Act of Indemnity until her claim against them had been satisfied. From that time Edward Eliot, save for occasional appointment as a Commissioner of the Subsidy, settled down to a quiet life at Trebursye; and the parish register of South Petherwin^g, in which that estate is situated, attests, as Ruddle relates, that 'John the son of Edward Elliot Esq and of Anne his wife was buried the 20th day of June 1665.'
    It was as Ruddle left South Petherwin church that he encountered the 'ancient gentleman,' who was the father of the ghost-ridden boy, and who, if Edward Eliot had not insisted upon the clergyman spending the remainder of the day at Trebursye, would have carried him off at once to see his son. It will be noted that in the narrative no name is given of either the family or the estate, while even the ghost was indicated only by initials in an early copy of the story locally preserved. The first publication of the former names was by C. S. Gilbert in 1817, when, in his 'Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall,' he mentioned—upon the authority, as he stated, of one of Ruddle's own manuscripts—Bligh as the name of the boy, and Botathan as that of his residence; and there can be little doubt as to the accuracy of this assertion. Thomas Bligh, the then possessor of Botathan, was a very likely person to be at young Eliot's funeral, for he was not only a neighbour, but was at that moment joint holder with Edward Eliot of 'the Deere-parke' in the contiguous parish of St. Thomas-by-Launceston, in which parish, as extant records show, was situate a 'Quarry Park,' in a narrow lane near which the story avers the sprite to have appeared. Moreover, there is still a Higher Broom Field on the estate of Botathan^h; and it was in 'the Higher Broom Quartils' that Dorothy Dingley's apparition was first seen. Tested, indeed, at every available point, the truth of the tale appears, even in such a personal touch as Ruddle's reference to his wife's illness, for there is incontestable evidence in the Launceston parish register that that lady was at the time indisposed, and she died just two years later.
    The belief that Ruddle was the author does not depend, however, even upon the strength of the case from internal evidence or the plain statement of Defoe. There still exists at Launceston a manuscript copy of the story, which corresponds exactly—save for occasional initials in place of names—with that published by Defoe, with the addition of the signature 'John Ruddle' after the date at the end, and the sentence, 'This is a copy of w^t I found written by my father and signed John Ruddle. Taken by me, William Ruddle,' who had become vicar of South Petherwin in 1695, on the presentation of the University of Oxford, and who subsequently was incumbent also of St. Thomas-by-Launceston, the two parishes with which both the Eliot and the Bligh families were intimately connected. This copy bears the following attestation: 'The readers may observe y^t I borrowed y^s remarkable passage of y^e grandson of John Ruddle who had it from his Uncle William Ruddle. I think I'm exact in its transcription. I well knew the s^d John Ruddle to have had (and I daresay deserved) the character of a Learned and eminent Divine, and I also knew his son y^e sayd William Ruddle, a Divine whose character was so bright y^t I have no room to add to its Lustre, and I hereby certify y^t I copyed this from y^e very hand-writing of the sayd William Ruddle. Quinto die Februarii Anno Dni: 1730. James Wakeham.' And this formal style must have been congenial to the writer, for—though, as an Election Committee of the House of Commons once had occasion to be told, Wakeham had been 'outlawed for debt, 13th Anne, 1715, and the outlawry was not reversed'—he mentioned to the same body, in 1724, that 'he served his clerkship to Mr. King, the town clerk.'

    The completeness of the body of proof of the Ruddle authorship leaves nothing, therefore, to be desired; but it may be added that his taste for writing was not exhausted by this effort. It appears from an account book in his own hand, which passed into possession of a present-day successor in the living of Altarnunⁱ, that in 1683 he published a sermon, and was 'by agreement to have, 160 books at 3^d y^e book;' and among those he distributed were '8 to the Mayor and Aldermen of Lanceston, 1 to M^r Dingley, one to Cap^t Blighe'—a combination of names specially worthy of note. Moreover, not only did he write himself, but he was the cause of writing in others. Having married as his second wife the widowed daughter-in-law of the Treasurer for Sequestrations in Cornwall in the days of the paramouncy of Parliament, he became possessed of documents which he put at another author's service. And the Rev. John Walker, in his preface to 'The Sufferings of the Clergy,' thus acknowledged the obligation: ' Such [of the Manuscript Papers] as I have made use of were . . . the Original Account of the Treasurer to the Sequestrators in Cornwall, for the Years 1646, 1647, 1648, and Part of the Year 1649, communicated to me by the Reverend Mr. Ruddle of that County.'
    But how did Defoe become possessed of the Botathan manuscript? This much can be said for certain: he visited Launceston while Ruddle's son, who was obviously proud of his father's feat of exorcism, was a clergyman there, and, though the stay was brief and somewhat agitated, it gave sufficient time to study not only the political aspect of the town but the architectural distinction of the church. In the autumn of 1704, Defoe, as a secret agent of the Minister Harley, undertook a tour in the eastern counties for the purpose of inquiring into the opinions and feelings of the voters in the principal boroughs, to spread 'principles of temper, moderation, and peace,' and to persuade all and sundry that the Government was actuated by these ideas. During the following summer, and a few weeks after a general election, he performed a similar office in the West, and naturally paid special attention to Cornwall. On the very day after he had been in Launceston—August 8, 1705—and while crossing the border into Devonshire, a Crediton justice, not suspecting his true position as a ministerial spy, issued a warrant against him as 'a person of ill fame and behaviour now lurking within some or one of your parishes, tythings, or precincts,' for the offence of 'spreading and publishing divers seditious and scandalous libels and false news to the great disturbance of the peace of this kingdom.' Defoe was too expert a practitioner in the arts of the spy to be greatly troubled by this; and he reported to his employer that 'Providence, and some dexterity of conduct (pardon my vanity), have hitherto rendered all the measures of the [opposing] party impotent and unsuccessful, and yet I have not omitted one part of my work, nor balked one town I proposed to call at, Barnstaple excepted.'
    From a political point of view, this visit to Cornwall was a failure, for, when Defoe presented to Harley 'An Abstract of my Journey with casual Observations on Public Affairs,' all he could report concerning Saltash, Liskeard, Bodmin, and Launceston, the four Cornish boroughs at which he stayed, was, 'There is nothing to be done in these towns, they are wholly guided by the gentlemen, and the townsmen know little, but act just as they are bid. My Lord Granville governs several of them, my Lord Treasurer more. I thought it was throwing away time to stay among them.' But the most expert journalist of his period, the greatest genius in journalism the press has seen, never wasted time anywhere; and, when he came to write ' A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain,' he gave a description of Launceston—'a pretty neat town, situate on a rising ground, great part very old, ragged, and decayed'—which showed how he used both eyes and ears while on his travels. 'There is a fine Image or Figure of MARY MAGDALEN upon the Tower of the Church at LAUNCESTON, to which the Papists fail not to pay Reverence, as they pass by. There is no Tin, Copper, or Lead found hereabouts, as I could hear; nor any Manufacture in the Place. There are a pretty many Attorneys here, who manage Business for the rest of their Fraternity at the Assizes. As to Trade, it has not much to boast of; and yet there are People enough in it to excuse those who call it a populous Place.'
    Defoe, always a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, thus visited the town in which manuscript copies of the Ruddle story were current; and there is no difficulty in assuming that one of these came into his possession, to be used when, in the first flush of 'Robinson Crusoe's' success, his publisher was eager to secure further work from his pen, and when he compiled from various sources 'Mr. Campbell's Pacquet.' The original author thus became lost sight of in the compiler, but the honour of writing the 'Remarkable Passage of an Apparition ' cannot be taken from him now. Only two years after that effort, he poured forth his heart in 'The Husband's Valediction,' still to be seen in his own old church of St. Mary Magdalene, as a memorial to his first wife:—

    The display of Latinity in the ghost narrative had no echo in his first wife's monument, though it had on his own; but it is recalled by some hexameters in the private note-book earlier described. In a more simple style, and conveying a hint that may be useful to many even now, is to be quoted his cure for the gout, forwarded from Launceston in 1678 to a relative at Exeter, and his only other extant composition: 'I am sorry to hear of your Fathers gowt, and would recommend to him for inward medicine his neglected friend Rheubarbe, and for outward application y^e incomparable engine called a Flesh Brushe the gentle use whereof doth infallibly open y^e pores and free y^e part afflicted from y^e venemous matter of y^e gowt and that without weakening y^e joynt which all playstires, oint^mts and poultices are guilty of. Let him take it upon mine and my wifes 8 months experience, but espetialy hers, who for ten together never had so much freedome as since she hath rejected all receits and made use of this little artifice. It is a very soft hand brush made purposely for y^e gowt and scurvey, and by y^e gentle use of it before y^e fire evening and morning in chafeing y^e hands knees ankles &c. causes an easy sweat or at least a warmth whereby y^e transpiracon is much forwarded and by consequence y^e joint relieved.' Whether in the exorcism of a ghost or the elimination of gout, John Ruddle, vicar of Altarnun, incumbent of Launceston, and prebendary of Exeter, was ready with advice and aid; and, as long as our language remains, his tale, buoyed up by the mighty aid of Defoe, will never be lost.

    1. Trebursey, C. S. Gilbert's Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall.
    2. Gilbert adds (Mr. Bligh, of Botathan).
    3. Higher Broomfield—Gilbert.
    4. Gilbert omits brother's name.
    5. Mr. Williams—Gilbert.
    6. Spelt Ruddell by Gilbert.
    7. Gilbert—Talked with Sam.
    8. Gilbert who (Supra) called it Higher Broomfield, here says Quartiles: thus confirming the assertion in our text that the real name was Higher Broom Quartils.

Notes by Chris Bond.
    a. There was, coincidentally, also a Dorothy Dingley, widow, living at Nomansland, in the Manor of Bray, in the parish of Morval, in 1684 (Cornwall Record Office - WM/36).
    b. See Release by way of mortgage for Pawlins Tenement in South Petherwin, 8th May 1691 (Cornwall Record Office - BW/28/4/1,2).
    c. One John Dingley was Mayor of Launceston in 1843 (Cornwall Record Office - BLAUS/479).
    d. See the first two parish registers of St Mary Magdalene, especially notes for 1655 and 1671 (Cornwall Record Office - P118/1/1 & P118/1/2).
    e. See Assignment of lease, 1663 (Cornwall Record Office - BRA833/339).
    f. See the will of Richard Gedy, 1627 (Cornwall Record Office - AD391).
    g. Cornwall Record Office - P211/1/1.
    h. Disappointingly, the South Petherwin Tithe Apportionment contains no field names.
    i. Cornwall Record Office - P4/2/1.

Extracted from the Cornish Magazine, Vol. 1, October 1898, pp283-297, and with the original illustrations from the same.