1799. ] 
‘But what is this rainbow to that? This 
is without a cloud and lies flat upon the 
fea. Well, this interpretation I made of 
it, that forafmuch as I had earneftly fought 
God for his church that day, and had not 
received an aniwer of comiort, and being 
fad, God thereupon (without any my 
feeking of a figne) prefented before me 
a miraculous rainbow; I took it to be 
fent of God as an anfwer to my_ prayers 
that day, and to bea figne to affure me 
that he would certainly ard miraculoufly 
deliver his church which now lay floating 
upon the feas of affliction, ready to be 
{wallowed up. Upon this interpretation, 
I was io fatished and filled with prefent 
cemiort, being fully perfwaded of the 
truth thereot, that I was never fad after 
upon any fuch occafion ; and when at any 
time fince I have been difconfolate for the 
church, I have prefently reflected mine 
eyes upon my rainbow, and have there- 
with been comforted afrefh, and my heart 
remains fully ettablifhed againtt all doubts 
and fears. I fay my rainbow, as having 
the fole propriety in it, feeing it was feen 
of none but mytelf alone.” 
He remained in this prifon till Novem- 
ber 15, 1640, when he was releafed by 
an order of the Houfe of Commons; and 
on the 22d of the fame month, he and the 
famous William Prynne who had been 
confined in the Ifland of Jerfey for a like 
offence, landed at Dartmouth, from 
whence they proceeded to London. The 
fame parliament that recalled them, de- 
clared the proceedings againit them unjuft, 
and voted them. so0ool. each out of the. 
property fequeftered from the archbifhop 
and other lords of the high commiffion. 
It is natural to fuppofe that Barton’s 
popularity was increafed after his return, 
and he was indeed greatly followed and 
admired as a preacher, but turning inde- 
pendent, moit of the London churches 
were fhut againft him, particularly that 
of Aldermanbury, at the inftance of the 
noted Mr. Edmund Calamy, againft 
whom Burton wrote a pamphlet entitled 
“ Truth fiill Truth, though fhut out of 
Doors.” &c. 
He alfo embroiled himfelf in a fharp 
controverfy with his quondam friends 
and fellow fufferers Prynne and Baftwick 
both of whom were advocates of prefby- 
tery. 
‘That he was very conceited will appear 
from the curious extra&t trom his own 
*< narrative” given above; but in the fame 
erformance he goes to an extraordinary 
feagth of affurance, in making himéelf no 
Jefs than one of the two witnefles pre- 
Charge againft the French. 
363 
disted in the Revelations of St. John, who 
are to lie dead three days anda half: and 
he even challenges to himlelf the char2éter 
of a prophet on this occalion. ‘* Why 
fhould I here,”? he fays, ‘* conceale that 
fecech [ ufed to fome minifters at Coven- 
try in my paNage to Lancafter caftle, who 
berg fad at my departure, I faid unto 
them, ‘¢ Come, be not fad, for three years 
and a half hence we fhall meet again and 
be merry.”> And truly (abfit invidia 
verbo) reckoning from the 4th of June, 
1627, wlhereon we were cenfured in the 
fLar chamber to perpetuall imprifonment ; 
it was juft three years and a half when we 
returned from exile, even in the laft moneth 
of the three years and a half, myfelf being 
fent for the very firft day of that moneth.”” 
Speaking of the promifed reftoration of 
the witnefies, he thus boldly applies it to 
himfelf: ** Here let the reader {till remem-~ 
ber that this treatife was written before my 
return from banithment, and fo towards 
London on that Saturday the folenmitie 
thereof was fo confpicuous and glorious, 
as it doth.without any other application 
even naturally apply itfelf, as it were the 
moft proper fulfilling of this prophecie, 
if either wee confider the manner of that 
return or the effeét it wrought in the adver- 
faries thereof, which cauled in them ex- 
tream indignation and rage, even unto 
gnawing of their tongues and gnafhing of 
their teeth; and yet feare fo potfeffed them 
that all their power and policy could not 
help.’ Prefixed to the narrative of his 
own life, is his portrait, apparently by 
Hollar, which, if a likenefs, fhews him to 
have beenafour and forbidding character. 
He was buried January 7th, 1647. 
J. WATKINS, 
ore 4 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, 
‘is the Britifh Critic of February laft, 
an extract is given of Mr. Canning’s 
{peech, of Dec. 11, 1798, in which that 
gentleman fays, that <* when the town of 
Sion in Switzerland capitulated to the 
French, the «women after being brutally 
violated, were thrown alive into the 
flames.” This is an aét fo abominably 
favage and unnatural, that I hope, for 
the honour of human nature it never was 
committed by any individual of any 
nation. ‘To difcover whether there are 
any grounds for imputing it tothe French 
on this occafion, ] have carefully read the 
firtt fix numbers of Mallet du Pan’s ** Mer- 
cure Britannique,”” in which he profeffes to - 
give, in detail, an account of all the enor- 
mities perpetrated by the French in that 
country. 
