to her to
hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room full of people at
a time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs.
Bargrave's own mouth.

This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied, as I
am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter
of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain
or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority
and sincerity alone, would have been undoubted in any other case.

TO THE READER

The origin of the foregoing curious story seems to have been as
follows:--

An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition
of a work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist
church in Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of "The
Christian's Defense against the Fear of Death, with several directions
how to prepare ourselves to die well." But however certain the prospect
of death, it is not so agreeable (unfortunately) as to invite the eager
contemplation of the public; and Drelincourt's book, being neglected,
lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency, he
applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such means as were then, as
well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world) in rescuing
the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect
seemed about to consign it.

De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and
ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the _Critic_: for who
but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to
bear witness in favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a
matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the
transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The
narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a _Justice of Peace_ at
Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the
discourse is attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in
Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave
lives." The Justice believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a
spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy--and the kinswoman
positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is related
and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as
may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to
in