Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/513

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
NOTES.
501

their respective operations on the four temperaments of the human body."—Warton.


Note 89.Page 317.

Many strange stories are related of spirits; among others, let the reader take the following. A young and beautiful girl, of a noble Scottish family, consorted with a spirit, who was discovered in her bed. The clamour flies abroad, the neighbours come in to be spectators of the wonderment, and amongst them the parson of the parish, who was a scholar, and a man of unblemished life and conversation: who seeing this prodigious spectacle, broke out into these words of St. John the Evangelist, Et verbum caro factum est And the Word was made flesh: which was no sooner spoke, but the devil arose, and suddenly vanished in a terrible storme, carrying with him the roofe of the chamber, and setting fire on the bed wherein he had lien, which was in a moment burned to ashes. Shee was within three days after delivered of a monster, such as the father appeared unto them, of so odible an aspect, that the mid wives caused it instantly to be burnt, lest the infamy of the daughter might too