THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEONARD WHEATCROFT. 35 



in the waste of his time, in wakes and fair-going, this most U7i- 

 selfish and fhoughfful act raises him at once above the ordinary 

 level, and places him among the honorable list of public bene- 

 factors.] 



"Upon Oct. 31, I went to Boulsouer againe, it being the 19th 

 time that I had been there since I brought my wife and children 

 from thence. The reason I went so often thither was because I 

 had some goods left there, and moreover, I wrought for Justis 

 Chadwick and some others. 



" Vpon November 23, 1670, I, with severall more of the 

 Parrish of Ashover, went to Derby to give our voats for a knight 

 for ye shire, whose name was William Sacheverill, of Morley ; 

 but there was another stood against him, whose name was 

 Esqr. Varnon. I stayed a whole weeke before ale was dun, in 

 which time I writ this prophesie — 



" Shout out, brave Blades, I am for Cheurill, 

 Let Varnon's friends do what ye can or will, 

 He is our voat, whose voat for us will be, 

 Pleasing to us and to his Maiestee," (Sic. * 



" These verses are in my booke of poetry, with another prophesie 

 of verses which I writ in the year 1678, when he and my Lord 

 Cavendis was chosen againe. I also writ a booke of divinity, 

 called by the name of ' The Bright Starre of Love.' I was 

 one-and-twenty years before I had finished it for the Pres. 



[This work is not extant, nor is it probable that it was ever 

 pubhshed.] 



" Nayther was I negligent in other affairs, for, for many years 

 I writ down in a book all my daly expenses : that was a great 

 trouble to me to looke over againe and behould my vanity and 

 folly. 



[Well done, Leonard ! He did not flinch the unpleasant task 

 of beholding himself in the mirror of his recorded frailties. 

 Retrospection is a duty too often neglected.] 



* (See Journal xviii., p. 48), 



