514 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 135. 



must be considered as pretty strong evidence of 

 authorship. 



In the Spectator, No- 441 ., when introducing the 

 hymn " The Lord my Pasture," &c., Addison ob- 

 serves — 



" As the' poetry of the original is very exquisite, I 

 shall present my readers with the following translation 

 of it." 



With respect to this composition Bishop Hurd 

 remarks, that Addison's 



" True judgment suggested to him that what he drew 

 from Scripture was best preserved in a pure and simple 

 expression, and the fervour of his piety made that sim- 

 plicity pathetic." 



No doubt seems to have crossed the Bishop's mind 

 as to the authorship. Sometimes Addison thought 

 fit to throw a little mystery over these hymns. In 

 Spectator, No. 489., after alluding to Psalm cvii. 

 V. 23., " They that go down to the sea," &o. (which 

 Addison says gives a description of a ship in a 

 storm, preferable to any other that he has met 

 with), he subjoins his " divine Ode made by a Gen- 

 tleman on the conclusion of his travels," " How are 

 Thy servants blest," &c. 



The verses 4 to 8 are said to refer to the storm 

 which Addison himself encountered on the Medi- 

 terranean, after he embarked at Marseilles in 1700. 



The hymn " When rising from the bed of death," 

 Spectator, No. 513, "a thouglit in sickness," is con- 

 tained in a supposed letter from a Clergyman, viz. 

 one of the club, " who assist me in my speculations." 



Tickell, in his exquisite elegy, so worthy of its 

 subject, when asking, 



*' What new employments please the unbody'd mind?" 

 adds, 



" Or mixed with milder cherubim to glow, 

 In hymns of love, not ill essayed below." 

 Were not the very hymns which we are speaking 

 of in Tickell's mind ? 



Addison's piety, we may well gather from his 

 writings, was, as Mr. Macaulay observes, of a 

 cheerful character. The feeling which predo- 

 minates in all his devotional papers, is that of 

 gratitude ; do we not find it also strikingly de- 

 veloped in his hymns? We all remember the 

 beautiful lines, 



" Ten thousand thousand precious gifts 

 My daily thanks employ, 

 Nor is the least a cheerful heart, 

 That tastes those gifts with joy." 



Let Bishop Ken and Addison retain their divine 

 hymns — dear as they are, and let us hope ever 

 will be, to man, woman, and child — whilst the 

 English language is read or spoken. IIow greatly 

 is their sublimity heightened, and their beauty en- 

 hanced, when we associate with them the purity of 

 character and the assemblage of virtues which dis- 

 tinguished their excellent authors ! 



J. H. Mahkland. 



WITCHCRAFT — MRS. HICKES AND HEE DAUGHTEH. 

 (Vol. v., p. 394.) 



The particulai-s your correspondent asks for 

 have not been furnished ; but on what authority, 

 to move the previous question, does tlie alleged 

 fact of such a trial and execution at Huntingdon 

 in 1716 for witchcraft, stated by Mr. Wills, and 

 adopted by the Quarterly Rev., rest ? Mr. Wills 

 (Sir Roger de Coverley, Notes, p. 126.) mentions 

 also the execution of two women at Northampton 

 for witchcraft just before the Spectator began 

 to be published (March ], 1710-11), but gives 

 no reference to any original source to support 

 his statement. On the other hand, Hutchinson, 

 the first edition of whose Essay concerning Witch- 

 craft was published in 1718, and the second in 

 1720, who gives a chronological table of facts, 

 informs us that the last execution in England for 

 witchcraft was that at Exeter of Susan Edwards, 

 Mary Trembles, and Temperance Lloyd in 1682 

 (vid. Essay, p. 41., 1st edit.). He was too pains- 

 taking a writer to be in ignorance of cases which 

 had occurred so recently; and he had the assistance, 

 in collecting his materials, of the two chief justices 

 Parker and King, and Chief Baron Bury, to whom 

 the work is dedicated. Through their means he 

 must have been informed of what had taken place 

 on the circuits, if any cases of witchcraft on which 

 convictions had arisen had actually come before 

 the judges. When it is remembered what atten- 

 tion was directed to the trial of Jane Wenham in 

 1712, who, though condemned, was not executed, 

 and on whose case a great number of pamphlets 

 were written, it can scarcely be supposed that in 

 four years after two persons, one only nine years 

 old (I take the account in Mackay's Popular De- 

 lusions, vol. iii.), should have been tried and 

 executed for witchcraft without public attention 

 being called to the circumstance. I may add 

 that in the Historical Register for 1716, which 

 notices in the domestic occurrences all trials of 

 interest, there is no mention of such a case ; and 

 that in two London newspapers for 1716, which I 

 have in a complete series, though enumerating 

 other convictions on the circuit, I have equally 

 searched without success. As it is a matter of 

 considerable historical interest to ascertain accu- 

 rately when the last execution for witchcraft took 

 place in England, I should be glad if any of your 

 correspondents would refer me to the authority 

 on which the statements of the trials circ. 1710 

 and in 1716 are founded. Mr. Wright, I observe, 

 does not notice them, and his words are — 



" The case of Jane Wenham is the last instance of a 

 witch being condemnefl by the verdict of an English 

 jury." — Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, vol. ii. p. 326. 



Jas. CB0SSI.Er. 



