OP MEN AND AVOEMEN. . 71 



Mr. William Gauntlett, of Netherhampton, born at Amesbury, told me that since his remembrance 

 there were digged up in the churchyard at Amesbury, which is very spacious, a great number of 

 huge bones, exceeding, as he sayes, the size of those of our dayes. At Highworth, at the signe of the 

 Bull, at one Hartwells, I have been credibly enformed is to be seen a scull of a vast bignesse, scilicet} 

 half as big again as an ordinary one. From Mr. Rich. Brown, Rector of Somerford Magna. (At 

 Wotton in Surrey, where my brother enlarged the vault in which our family are buried, digging 

 away the earth for the foundations, they found a complete skeleton neer nine foot in length, the skull 

 of an extraordinary size. J. EVELYN.) 



George Johnson Esq. bencher of the Middle Temple, digging for marie at Bowdon Parke, Ano. 

 1666, the diggers found the bones of a man under a quarrie of planke stones : he told me he saw 

 it He was a serious person, and fide dignus. 



At Wishford Magna is the inscription, " Hie jacet Thomas Bonham, armiyer, quondam Patronm 

 istius Eccksue, qui quidem Thomas obiit vicesimo nono die Maii, Anno Domini MCCCCLXXIII (1473) ; et 

 Editha uxor ejus, guce quidem Editha obiit vicesimo sexto die Apiilis, Anno Ifm MCCCCLXIX. (1469). 

 Quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen." They lye both buried under the great marble stone 

 in the nave of this church, where is the above said inscription, above which are their pourtraictures 

 in brasse, and an escucheon now illegible. Beneath this inscription are the small figures of nine 

 young children in brasse. This Mr. Bonham's wife had two children at one birth, the first time : 

 and he being troubled at it travelled, and was absent seven yeares. After Ms retume she was 

 delivered of seven children at one birth. In this parish is a confident tradition that these seven 

 children were all baptized at the font in this church, and that they were brought thither in a kind of 

 chardger, which was dedicated to this church, and hung on two nailes, which are to be seen there 

 yet, neer the bellfree on the south side. Some old men are yet living that doe remember the 

 chardger. This tradition is entred into the register booke there, from whence I have taken this 

 narrative (1659). [See the extract from the register, which is signed by " Roger Powell, Curate 

 there," in Hoare's Modern Wilts. (Hundred of Branch and Dole) p. 49. J. B.] 



On Tuesday the 25th day of October, Anno Dfii 1664, Mary, the wife of Jolm Waterman, of 

 Fisherton Anger, neer Salisbury, hostler, fell into travel!, and on Wednesday, between one and two 

 in the morning, was delivered of a female child, with all its parts duly formed. Aboute halfe an 

 hour after she was delivered of a monstrous birth, having two heades, the one opposite to the other ; 

 the two shoulders had also [each] two armes, with the hands bearing respectively each against the 

 other ; two feet, &c. About four o'clock in the afternoon it was christened by the name of Martha 

 and Mary, having two pretty faces, and lived till Fryday next The female child first borne, 

 whose name was Elselet, lived fourteen days, and died the 9th of November following : the mother 

 then alive and in good health. 



[This narrative is accompanied by a description of the internal structure of the lusus naturae, as 

 developed in a post mortem examination ; which " accurate account," says Aubrey, " was made by 

 my worthy and learned friend Thorn. Guidot, Dr. of Physick, who did kindly communicate it to me 

 out of his collection of medicinall observations in Lathi."] 



Dr. Wm. Harvey, author of the Circulation of the Blood, told me that one Mr. Palmer's wife in 

 Kent did beare a child every day for five daies together. 



A wench being great with child drowned herself in the river Avon, where, haveing layn twenty- 



