Part 21

Arise Evans had a fungous nose, and said, it was revealed to him, that the King's hand would cure him, and at the first coming of King Charles II. into St. James's Park, he kissed the King's hand, and rubbed his nose with it; which disturbed the King, but cured him. Mr. Ashmole told it me.

In the year 1694, there was published,

"A true Relation of the wonderful Cure of Mary Mallard, (lame almost ever since she was born) on Sunday the 26th of November 1693."

With the affidavits and certificates of the girl, and several other credible and worthy persons, who knew her both before and since her being cured. To which is added, a letter from Dr. Welwood, to the Right Honourable the Lady Mayoress, upon that subject. London: printed for Richard Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1694.

A narrative of the late extraordinary cure, wrought in an instant upon Mrs. Elizabeth Savage, (lame from her birth) without using of any natural means.

With the affidavits which were made before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor; and the certificates of several credible persons, who knew her both before and since her cure.

Enquired into with all its circumstances, by noted divines both of the church of England, and others: and by eminent physicians of the college: and many persons of quality, who have expressed their full satisfaction.

With an appendix, attempting to prove, that miracles are not ceased. London, printed for John Dunton at the Raven, and John Harris at the Harrow, in the Poultry. The London divines would have my annotations of these two maids expunged.*

*" This Eliza Savage is still lame. It seems my Lord Mayor of London and Ministers may be imposed on." MS. Note in a copy of the first edition in the Library of the Royal Society.

MAGICK.

IN Barbary are wizards, who do smear their hands with some black ointment,and then do hold them up to the sun, and in a short time you shall see delineated in that black stuff, the likeness of what you desire to have an answer of. It was desired to know, whether a ship was in safety, or no? there appeared in the woman's hand the perfect lineaments of a ship under sail. This Mr. W. Cl. a merchant of London, who was factor there several years, protested to me, that he did see. He is a person worthy of belief.

A parallel method to this is used in England, by putting the white of a new laid egg in a beer glass, and expose it to the sun in hot weather, as August, when the sun is in Leo, and they will perceive their husband's profession.

There are wonderful stories of the Bannians in India, viz. of their predictions, cures, &c. of their charming crocodiles, and serpents: and that one of them walked over an arm of the sea, he was seen in the middle, and never heard of afterwards.

The last summer, on the day of St. John the Baptist, 1694, I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague house, it was 12 o'clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees very busy, as if they had been weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter was; at last a young man told me, that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their head that night, and they should dream who would be their husbands:It was to be sought for that day and hour.

The women have several magical secrets handed down to them by tradition, for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes' night, 21st day of Jannary, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry. Ben Jonson in one of his Masques make some mention of this.

And on sweet Saint Agnes night Please you with the promis'd sight, Some of husbands, some of lovers, Which an empty dream discovers,

Another. *To know whom one shall marry.

You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the right legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone) and as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot.

This knot I knit, To know the thing, I know not yet, That I may see, The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be, How he goes, and what he wears, And what he does, all days, and years.

Accordingly in your dream you will see him: if a musician, with a lute or other instrument; if a scholar, with a book or papers.

A gentlewoman that I knew, confessed in my hearing, that she used this method, and dreamt of her husband whom she had never seen: about two or three years after, as she was on Sunday at church, (at our Lady's church in Sarum) up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit: she cries out presently to her sister, this is the very face of the man that I saw in my dream. Sir William Soames's Lady did the like.

Another way, is, to charm the moon thus: at the first appearance of the new moon* after new year's day, go out in the evening, and stand over the spars of a gate or stile, looking on the moon and say, **

All hail to the moon, all hail to thee, I prithee good moon reveal to me, This night, who my husband (wife) must be.

You must presently after go to bed.

* Some say any other new moon is as good. ** In Yorkshire they kneel on a ground-fast stone.

I knew two gentlewomen that did thus when they were young maids, and they had dreams of those that married them.

Alexander Tralianus, of curing diseases by spells, charms, &c. is cited by Casaubon, before John Dee's Book of Spirits: it is now translated out of the Greek into English.

Moreri's Great Historical, Geographical, and Poetical Dictionary. Abracadabra, a mysterious word, to which the superstitious in former times attributed a magical power to expel diseases, especially the tertian-ague, worn about their neck in this manner.