2°* S. N« 98., Nov. 14. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



393 



thej' have happilj' begun, they'll fill the world with 

 wonders. And 1 doubt not but posterity will find many 

 things that are now but Rumours, verified into practical 

 Kealities. It may be some ages hence a voyage to the 

 southern unknown tracts, yea possibly the Moon, will not 

 be more strange than one to America. To them that 

 come after us, it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of 

 wings to fly into the remotest regions as now a pair of 

 boots to ride a journey. And to confer at the distance of 

 the Indies by sympathetic conveyances may he as usual to 

 future times as to us in a literary correspondmce." — C. xix. 

 p. 182. 



But the passage to wliich I more particularly 

 allude is in the 21st chapter, which is headed — 



" Another instance of a supposed impossibility which maj' 

 not be so. Of conference at a distance by impregnated 

 needles. . . . But yet to advance another instance. 

 That men should confer at very distant removes by an 

 extemporarj' intercourse is a reputed impossibility, yet 

 there are some hints in natural operations that give us 

 probabilitj' that 'tis feasible, and may be compast without 

 unwarrantable assistance from Dajmoniack correspond- 

 ence. That a couple of needles equally toucht by the 

 same magnet being set in two Dyals exactly proportion 'd 

 to each other, and circumscribed by the letters of the 

 alphabet, may effect this magnate hath considerable au- 

 thorities to avouch it. The manner of it is thus repre- 

 sented. Let the friends that would communicate take 

 each a Dyal ; and having appointed a time for their 

 sj'mpathetic conference, let one move his impregnate 

 needle to any letter in the alphabet, and its affected 

 fellow will precisely respect the same. So that would I 

 know what my friend would acquaint me with, 'tis but 

 observing the letters that are pointed at by my Needle, 

 and in their order transcribing them from their sympa- 

 thized index as its motion directs: and 1 may be assured 

 that my friend described the same with his, and that the 

 words on my paper are of his inditing. Now, though 

 there will be some ill contrivance in a circumstance of 

 this invention, in that the thus impregnate needles will 

 not move to, but avert from each other (as ingenious Dr. 

 Browne in his Pseudodoxia I'Jpidemica hath observed), yet 

 this cannot prejudice the main design of this way of 

 secret conveyance, since 'tis but reading counter to the 

 magnetic informer, and noting the letter which is most 

 distant in the abecedarian circle from that which the 

 needle turns to, and the case is not alter'd. Now, though 

 this desirable effect possibly may not yet answer the 

 expectation of inquisitive experiment, yet 'tis no despicable 

 item, that by some other such way of magnetick efficiency it 

 may hereafter with success be attempted, when Magical \_sic'\ 

 Histor_v shall be enlarged by riper inspections, and 'tis 

 not unlikelj' but that present discoveries might be im- 

 proved to the performance." 



I dare say Glanvill, if he ever talked to ordi- 

 nary people in this st^le, was looked on as little 

 better than mad. But, as he himself has observed 

 in another passage, we can say, " the last ages 

 have shewn us what Antiquitj never saw, no, not 

 in a Dream." (C. xix. p. 188.) J. W. Phillips. 



Haverfordwest. 



CLERICAL WIZARDS. 



(2°* S. iv. 268.) 



The only account which I can find of the clergy- 

 man who was hanged for commanding his faoiihar 



to sink a ship is in The Omnium, by William 

 Clubbe, LL.B., Vicar of Brandeston, Suffolk. 

 Ipswich, 1798. A country-printed miscellany, of 

 no remarkable merit, is likely to become scarce, so 

 I transcribe all that it contains on the question : 



" I know of but few houses which still retain the horse- 

 shoe on the threshold of the door, and not one in my own 

 parish, where one might suppose, from the following au- 

 thentic anecdote, the dread and belief in them [witches] 

 would have kept their ground to the latest. As this his- 

 tory of mj' predecessor calls upon the reader for no small 

 degree of faith, I give it verbatim from my parish re- 

 gister, as recorded by the principal gentleman of the 

 place, who lived upon the spot and very near the time 

 of this extraordinary transaction. 



" • 6 Mali, 1596, John Lowes, Vicar. 



" * After he had been vicar here about 50 years, he was 

 executed, in the time of the long rebellion, at St. Ed- 

 mond's Bury, with 60 more, for being a wizard. Hop- 

 kins, his chief accuser, having kept the poor old man, 

 then in his eightieth year, awake for several nights, till 

 he was delirious, and then confessed a familiarity with 

 the Devil, which had such weight with the jury and his 

 judges, viz. Serjeant Godcold, old Calam%', and Fairclough, 

 as to condemn him in 1645, or the beginning of 1646.' 



" Mr. Revett, the principal gentleman of the place 

 above alluded to, in answer to inquiries upon this sub- 

 ject, writes thus: — ' I have it from them who watched 

 with him, that they kept him awake several nights to- 

 gether, and ran him backward and forward about the 

 room till he was out of breath : then they rested him 

 a little, and then they ran him again ; and this they did 

 for several days and nights together, till he was quite 

 weary of his life, and scarce sensible of what he said or 

 did. ' They swam him at Framlingham, but that was no 

 true rule to try him by, for they put in honest people at 

 the same time, and the}' swam as well as he.' 



" Mr. Lowes, it appears, upon his trial, maintained his 

 innocence to the last. The confession extorted from him 

 in his state of delirium was this very strange one: — 

 ' That two imps attended him ; that the one was alwa3's 

 putting him upon doing mischief; that once being near 

 the sea, and seeing a ship in full sail, this mischievous 

 imp requested to be sent to sink it ; that he consented to 

 the importunity, and saw it, without any other apparent 

 cause, immediately sink before him.' The concluding 

 anecdote of my unfortunate predecessor is this . — ' That 

 being precluded Christian burial from the nature of his 

 offence, he composedly, and in an audible voice, read the 

 service over himself in his way to execution.' " — Pp. 43 — 

 46. 



I shall be very glad to be referred to any other 

 account of this case, and also to that of the other 

 clergyman who caused the great blight in 1643, 

 of which I cannot find any trace. Hopkins, Jun. 



Garrick Club. 



[An account of the case of John Lowes will be found in 

 An Essay concerning Witchcraft, by Francis Hutchinson, 

 D.D., 1718, p. 66. ; also in Baxter's World of Spirits, 

 16'J1, where the name is spelt I^wis. Hopkins's cruel 

 mission is thus humorously noticed in Hudibras, Part ii. 

 Cantoiii. 11. 139— 154. : — 



" Has not this present parliament 

 A leger to the devil sent. 

 Fully empower'd to treat about 

 Finding revolted witches out? 

 And has not he, within a year, 

 Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire ? 



