" Possessed persons, he says, were also clairvoyant,
telling what was being said and done at a far distance; and also spoke
languages which at ordinary times they did not understand, as their
successors, the modern spirit mediums, do. This gift of tongues was one
of the prominent features of the possession of Will Sommers and the
other persons exorcised by the Protestant preacher John Darrell, whose
performances as an exorcist created quite a domestic sensation in
England at the close of the sixteenth century.[1] The whole affair was
investigated by Dr. Harsnet, who had already acquired fame as an
iconoclast in these matters, as will presently be seen; but it would
have little more than an antiquarian interest now, were it not for the
fact that Ben Jonson made it the subject of his satire in one of his
most humorous plays, "The Devil is an Ass." In it he turns the
last-mentioned peculiarity to good account; for when Fitzdottrell, in
the fifth act, feigns madness, and quotes Aristophanes, and speaks in
Spanish and French, the judicious Sir Paul Eithersides comes to the
conclusion that "it is the devil by his several languages."
[Footnote 1: A True Relation of the Grievious Handling of William
Sommers, etc. London: T. Harper, 1641 (? 1601). The Tryall of Maister
Darrell, 1599.]
65. But more interesting, and more important for the present purpose,
are the cases of possession that were dealt with by Father Parsons and
his colleagues in 1585-6, and of which Dr.
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