114 0« Popular Uluftons. 



the theory. It was a queftion among philofophers of the 

 laft century, how the raining of frogs could be explained; 

 for that frogs were rained nobody prefumed to doubt, be- 

 fore Rhedi. Marci roundly affirmed that the ideas of frogs 

 were brought down by the rain, and that they put on a 

 covering of mud, after their defcent. This rain of ideas 

 is a thought that would have been much celebrated in a 

 poet. Sterne has hit on fomething like it, but the conge- 

 lation of words, which furhiflies the fubjedl of two very 

 amufing papers in the Tatler, is a ftretch of fancy capable 

 of making any poet's fortune. What additional reafon, 

 fince the time of Cicero, for that obfervation, nihil tarn 

 abfurde did pojjit, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philo/ophorum ! 

 That fingular and beautiful appearance, the Fata Mor- 

 gana, was a happy confirmation of Marci's hypothefis. 

 He fuppofed it to confift of the ideas of dead animals. 



Dr. King, in his ufeful Tranfaftions, takes notice of 

 a fliower of fiflies, in Kent, recorded in No. 243 of the 

 Philofophical Tranfaftions. 



(Y) p. 103. When this paragraph was written, the 

 author did not expeft to find his fentiments fo fpeediiy 

 confirmed, by the public performance of a folemn exorcii'm, 

 in one of the firft citico of this kingdom. On the thir- 

 teenth of June, 1788, George Lukins of Yatton in So- 

 merfetlhire, was exorcifed in the temple chuich, at Briltol, 

 and delivered from the pofleffion of feven devils, by the 

 efforts of fevcn clergymen. An account of his deliverance « 

 was publifhed in feveral of the public papers, authenticated 

 by the Rev. Mr. Eafterbrook, vicar of the temple church 

 in Briftol, from which I extraft a few particulars. 



Lukins was firft attacked by a kind of epileptic fit, 

 when he was going al>out afting Chriftmas plays, or mum- 

 meries ; this he afcribed to a blow given by an invifible 

 hand. He was afterwards feized by fits, during which, he 

 declared with a roaring voice that he was the devil, and 

 fung different fongs in a variety of keys. The fits always 



began 



