1 (return) [ Some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely later, even within this year or two. To say the truth there are difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which he pleases.]
2 (return) [ Eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance; but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms to make ourselves the better understood. ]
3 (return) [ This is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the theaters. One of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive them with his wand into the other world.]
4 (return) [ Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not be surprised at this happening to spirits.]
5 (return) [ A particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to themselves.]
6 (return) [ We have before made an apology for this language, which we here repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those passions to the body which belong to the soul.]
7 (return) [ That we may mention it once for all, in the panegyrical part of this work some particular person is always meant: but, in the satirical, nobody.]
8 (return) [ These ladies, I believe, by their names, presided over the leprosy, king’s-evil, and scurvy.]
9 (return) [ This silly story is told as a solemn truth (i.e., that St. James really appeared in the manner this fellow is described) by Mariana, 1.7, Section 78.]
10 (return) [ Here part of the manuscript is lost, and that a very considerable one, as appears by the number of the next book and chapter, which contains, I find, the history of Anna Boleyn; but as to the manner in which it was introduced, or to whom the narrative is told, we are totally left in the dark. I have only to remark, that this chapter is, in the original, writ in a woman’s hand: and, though the observations in it are, I think, as excellent as any in the whole volume, there seems to be a difference in style between this and the preceding chapters; and, as it is the character of a woman which is related, I am inclined to fancy it was really written by one of that sex.]
11 (return) [ Here ends this curious manuscript; the rest being destroyed in rolling up pens, tobacco, &c. It is to be hoped heedless people will henceforth be more cautious what they burn, or use to other vile purposes; especially when they consider the fate which had likely to have befallen the divine Milton, and that the works of Homer were probably discovered in some chandlers shop in Greece.]
