Woodstock: A Fiction and Literature Classic By Sir Walter Scott! AAA+++

Excerpt:

THE WOODSTOCK SCUFFLE; or, Most dreadfull apparitions that were lately seene in the Mannor-house of Woodstock, neere Oxford, to the great terror and the wonderful amazement of all there that did behold them.

It were a wonder if one unites, And not of wonders and strange sights; For ev'ry where such things affrights Poore people,

That men are ev'n at their wits' end; God judgments ev'ry where doth send, And yet we don't our lives amend, But tipple,

And sweare, and lie, and cheat, and--, Because the world shall drown no more, As if no judgments were in store But water;

But by the stories which I tell, You'll heare of terrors come from hell, And fires, and shapes most terrible For matter.

It is not long since that a child Spake from the ground in a large field, And made the people almost wild That heard it,

Of which there is a printed book, Wherein each man the truth may look, If children speak, the matter's took For verdict.

But this is stranger than that voice, The wonder's greater, and the noyse; And things appeare to men, not boyes, At Woodstock;
Where Rosamond had once a bower, To keep her from Queen Elinour, And had escap'd her poys'nous power By good-luck,

But fate had otherwise decreed, And Woodstock Manner saw a deed, Which is in Hollinshed or Speed Chro-nicled;

But neither Hollinshed nor Stow, Nor no historians such things show, Though in them wonders we well know Are pickled;

For nothing else is history But pickle of antiquity, Where things are kept in memory From stinking;

Which otherwise would have lain dead, As in oblivion buried, Which now you may call into head With thinking.

The dreadfull story, which is true, And now committed unto view, By better pen, had it its due, Should see light.

But I, contented, do indite, Not things of wit, but things of right; You can't expect that things that fright Should delight.

O hearken, therefore, hark and shake! My very pen and hand doth quake! While I the true relation make O' th' wonder,

Which hath long time, and still appeares Unto the State's Commissioners, And puts them in their beds to feares From under.

They come, good men, imploi'd by th' State To sell the lands of Charles the late. And there they lay, and long did waite For chapmen.