WITCHCRAFT. The following curious letter is copied from a manuscript preserved in the British Museum: From Mr. Manning, dissenting teacher at Jo. Morley, Esq. Halstead. (6 SIR, Halstead, August 2, 1732. "THE narrative wh I gave you relation to witchcraft, and which you are pleased to lay your commands upon me to repeat, is as follows: There was one master Collett, a smith by trade, of Haveningham in the County of Suffolk, formerly servant in Sir John Duke's family, in Benhall in Suffolk, who, as 'twas customary with him, assisting the maide to churne, and not being able, (as the phrase is) to make the butter come, threw an hot iron into the churn under the notion of witchcraft in the case, upon which a poore labourer, then employed in carrying of dung in the yard, cryed out in a terrible manner, they have killed me, they have killed me; still keeping his hand upon his back, intimating where the paine was, and died upon the spott. Mr. Collett, with the rest of the servants then present, took off the poore man's cloathes, and found, found, to their great surprize, the mark of the iron that was heated and thrown into the churn, deeply impressed upon his back. This account I had from Mr. Collett's own mouth, who being a man of unblemished character, I verily believe to be matter of fact. I am, Sir, Your obliged humble servant, SAM. MANNING.” Harleian Man. 1686. COMMON PRAYER BOOK. "In the third year of the reign of Edward the Sixth, the compilers of the Common Prayer Book were Dr. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Redman, Dean of Westminster. Dr. Cox, Almoner to King Edward VI. Harleian Ms. 6866. The above is inserted principally to direct the reader's attention to a book not so well known as it deserves, the lives of the above distinguished characters by Samuel Downes, These Lives of the Compilers of the Liturgy by Downes are also prefixed to Sparrow's Raționale. THEALMA AND CLEARCHUS, A Pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse, written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq. an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser. London: Printed for Benj. Tooke, at the Ship, in S. Pauls Church Yard. 1683. THIS is a book of extreme rarity. It is rendered remarkable by having been published by Isaac Walton, who highly commends the author. Chalkhill is said to have been a friend of Spenser. Isaac Walton has inserted two Ballads, written by his friend, John Chalkhill, in his "Complete Angler." One is called Corydon's Song; the subject subject of it is The Pleasures of the Country, and begins thus: "Oh the sweet contentment the countryman doth find!" See Hawkins's edition, p. 83. The other Ballad is on the Fisher's Life. See p. 227 of the same edition: it begins, "Oh the gallant Fisher's Life!" Both these have much merit in their way. In a small History of Winchester, in two volumes 12mo. printed in 1773, and written by Thomas Warton, though published without a name, is the following Epitaph on Chalkhill, by which it appears that he was a Fellow of Winchester College. It is represented to be in the South Cloister, on a black marble against the wall. H. S. E. Joan. Chalkhill, A.M. hujus Collii annos 46. Socius, Vir quod vixit solitudine et silentio, Temperantia et Castitate, Orationibus et Eleemosynis, Contemplatione et Sanctimonia Ascetis vel primitivis par: qui cum a parvulo in regnum Coelorum viam fecit, Octagenarius tandem rapuit 20 die Maii, 1679. Tom. I. p. 140. It is true, however, that Walton, in his preface to Thealma and Clearchus, which I have subjoined, speaks of Chalkhill as then dead. This preface preface is dated May 7, 1678. But the poem itself was not published till 1683, when Walton himself was ninety years old: it is not improbable, therefore, that there is an error in the date, or else in the copy of the epitaph. Either of these things are more probable than that there should be another John Chalkhill just at that period, of a character so much corresponding to the interesting description of Walton. What Mrs. Cooper, in her Muses Library, says of this poem, is as follows: "He (Chalkhill) died before he could perfect even the fable of his Poem, and by many passages in it, I half believe he had not given the last hand to what he has left behind him. However, to do both him and his editor justice, if my opinion can be of any weight, tis great pity so beautiful a relique should be lost; and the quotations I have extracted from it will sufficiently evidence a fine vein of imagination, a taste, far from indelicate; and both language and num bers uncommonly harmonious and polite." Muses Library, p. 315. A stanza in the latter of Chalkhill's Songs, introduced by Walton in his "Complete Angler," (see Hawkins's edition, p. 229,) has been elegantly translated into Latin, by Dr. Johnson. I give the two stanzas, that the reader may have the whole before him. If |