THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 
more modern exhibiter of bees ; and we may justly say of 
him now, — 
— — — — — Thou, 
Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 
Shouldst Wildmanhe — — -— — 
When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant 
village, where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at 
manliood. 
Sklborne, Dec, 12, 1775. 
LETTEE LXX. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
It is the hardest thing in the world to sliake off superstitious 
prejudices : tliey are sucked in, as it were, with our mother's 
milk ; and, growing up with ns at a time when they take the 
fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become 
so interwoven into our very constitutions, that the strongest 
good sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. ]S"o 
wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole 
lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal 
education, and therefore 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 en- 
lightened age. 
But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, Avould do w^ell to 
remember, that no longer ago than the year 1751, and within 
twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two superannuated 
w^-etches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with infirmities, on 
a suspicion of witchcraft ; and, by trying experiments, drowned 
them in a horse-pond. 
