518 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 213. 



Emblematical Repi-esentation falling into my hands; 

 and, pursuing my inquiries, I found this was but 

 one of some half-dozen visionary works from 

 the same pen. In his View of the Glory of the 

 Messiah's Kingdom, we have the origin of his 

 taking upon himself the prophetic character ; it is 

 entitled : 



" A Brief Account of an Extraordinary Revelation, 

 and other Things Remarkable, in the Course of God's 

 Dealings with Alexander Clark, Gardener, at Dum- 

 crief, near Moffat, Anandale, in the Year 1749." 



*« In the month of August, 1 749," says he, " at a 

 certain time when the Lord was pleased to chastise me 

 greatly in a bed of affliction, and in the midst of my 

 great trial, it pleased the Almighty God wonderfully 

 to surprise me with a glorious light round about me ; 

 and looking up, I saw straight before me a glorious 

 building in the air, as bright and clear as the sun : it 

 was so vastly great, so amiable to behold, so full of 

 majesty and glory, that it filled my heart with wonder 

 and admiration. The place where this sight appeared 

 to me was just over the city of Edinburgh ; at the 

 same instant I heard, as it were, the musick bells of 

 the said city ring for joy." 



From this period, Clark's character became 

 tinged with that enthusiasm which ended in his 

 belief that he was inspired ; and that in publish- 

 ing his — 



" Signs of the Times : showing by many infallible 

 Testimonies and Proofs out of the Holy Scripture, 

 that an extraordinary Change is at Hand, even at the 

 very Door," — 



he was merely " emitting what he derived directly, 

 by special favour, from God ! " 



" The Spirit of God," he says on another occasion, 

 " was so sensibly poured out upon me, and to such a 

 degree, that I was thereby made to see things done in 

 secret, and came to find things lost, and knew where to 

 go to find those things which were lost !" 



This second sight, if I may so call it, set our 

 author upon drawing aside the veil from the pro- 

 phetic writings ; and his view of their mystical 

 sense is diffused over the indigested and rambling 

 works bearing the following titles : 



"A View of the Glory of the Messiah's Kingdom." 



1763. 

 " Remarks upon the Accomplishment of Scripture 



Prophecy." 



" A Practical Treatise on Regeneration," 1764. 



" The IMystery of God opened," &c. Edinburgh, 1768. 



" An Emblematical Representation of the Paradise of 

 God, showing the Nature of Spiritual Industry in 

 the Similitude of a Garden, well ordered, dressed, 

 and kept, with Sundry Reflections on the Nature 

 of Divine Knowledge, 1779." 



In his Address to the Friendly Society of Gar- 

 deners, Clark gives some account of his worldly 

 condition ; of his early training in religious habits ; 



his laborious and industrious devotion to his pro- 

 fession, with which he seems to have been greatly 

 enamoured, although poorly paid, and often in 

 straits. Subsequently to the great event of his life 

 — his vision — our subject appears to have come 

 south, and to have been in the employment of 

 Lord Charles Spencer at Han worth in Middlesex. 

 Like most of the prophets of his day, Clark was 

 haunted with the belief that the last day was ap- 

 proaching; and considering himself called upon 

 to announce to his acquaintance and neighbours 

 that this " terrible judgment of God was at hand," 

 he got but contempt and ridicule for his pains : — 

 more than that, indeed, for those raising the cry 

 that he was a madman, they procured the poor 

 man's expulsion from his situation. Under all 

 these discouraging circumstances, he maintained 

 his firm conviction of the approaching end of time : 

 so strongly was his mind bent in this direction, 

 that " I opened the window of the house where I 

 then was," says he, " thinking to see Christ coming 

 in the clouds ! " 



" I was three days and three nights that I could not 

 eat, drink, nor sleep ; and when I would close my eyes, 

 I felt something always touching me ; at length I heard 

 a voice sounding in mine ears, saying ' Sleep not, lest 

 thou sleep the sleep of death :' and at that I looked 

 for my Bible, and at the first opening of it I read 

 these words, which were sent witli power, ' To him 

 that overcometh,' " &c. 



Poor Clark, like his prototype Thomas Newans, 

 laboured hard to obtain the sanction of the hier- 

 archy to his predictions : 



" I desire no man," he says, " to believe me without 

 proof; and if the Reverend the Clergy would think 

 this worth their perusal, I would very willingly hear 

 what they had to say either for or against." 



The orthodoxy of the " Reverend the Clergy" was 

 not, however, to be moved ; and Alexander Clark 

 and his books now but serve the end of pointing 

 a moral. With more real humility and less pre- 

 sumption, there was much that was good about 

 him ; but letting his heated fancies get the better 

 of the little judgment he possessed, our amiable 

 enthusiast became rather a stumbling-block than a 

 light to his generation. J. O. 



AMCOTTS PEDIGREE. 



(Vol. viii., p. 387.) 



Although I may not be able to furnish your 

 inquirer with a full pedigree of this family, my 

 Notes may prove useful in making it out. 



From a settlement after marriage in 1663, of 

 Vincent Amcotts of Laughton, in the county of 

 Lincoln, gentleman, I find his wife's name to be 

 Amy ; but who she was is not disclosed. It ap- 

 pears she survived her husband, and was his 



