LETTER XXVIII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE,/<Z. 8, 1776. 



DEAR SIR, It is the hardest thing in the world to shake 

 off superstitious prejudices : they are sucked in as it were 

 with our mother's milk ; and, growing up with us at a time 

 when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting 

 impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitu- 

 tions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage 

 ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower 

 people retain them their whole lives through, since their 

 minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and there- 

 fore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the 

 occasion. 



Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter 

 on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be 

 suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too 

 gross for this enlightened age. 



But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do 

 well to remember, that no longer ago than the year 1751, 

 and within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on 

 two superannuated wretches, crazed with age, and over- 

 whelmed with infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft ; 

 and, by trying experiments, drowned them in a horse- 

 pond. 



In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, 

 at this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams 

 and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly shew that, 

 in former times, they have been cleft asunder. These 

 trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held 



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