324 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



risen up from it. From an examination of all 

 the circumstances of this case, it has been 

 generally supposed that an internal combustion 

 had taken place; that the lady had risen from her 

 bed to cool herself, and that, in her way to open the 

 window, the combustion had overpowered her, 

 and consumed her body by a process in which no 

 flame was produced which could set fire to the 

 furniture or the floor. The Marquis Scipio Maffei 

 was informed by an Italian nobleman who passed 

 through Cesena a few days after this event, that 

 he heard it stated in that town, that the Countess 

 Zangari was in the habit, when she felt indisposed, 

 of washing all her body with camphorated spirit 

 of wine. 



So recently as 1 744, a similar example of spon- 

 taneous combustion occurred in our own country, 

 at Ipswich. A fisherman's wife, of the name of 

 Grace Pett, of the parish of St. Clement's, had 

 been in the habit for several years of going down 

 stairs every night, after she was half undressed, 

 to smoke a pipe. She did this on the evening of 

 the 9th of April, 1744. Her daughter, who lay 

 in the same bed with her, had fallen asleep, and 

 did not miss her mother till she awaked early in 

 the morning. Upon dressing herself, and going 

 down stairs, she found her mother's body lying 

 on the right side, with her head against the grate, 

 and extended over the hearth, with her legs on 

 the deal floor, and appearing like a block of wood 

 burning with a glowing fire without flame. Upon 

 quenching the fire with two bowls of water, the 

 neighbours, whom the cries of the daughter had 

 brought in, were almost stifled with the smell. 

 The trunk of the unfortunate woman was almost 



