Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

What a curious book would be Our Prophets and Enthusiasts! The literary and biographical records of the vaticinators, and the heated spirits who, after working upon the fears of the timid, and exciting the imaginations of the weak, have flitted into oblivion! As a specimen of the odd characters such a work would embrace, allow me to introduce to your readers Thomas Newans, a Shropshire farmer, who unhappily took it into his head that his visit to the lower sphere was on a special mission.
Mr. Newans is the author of a book entitled A Key to the Prophecies of the Old and New Testament ; showing (among other impending events) The approaching Invasion of England; The Extirpation of Popery and Mahometisme; The Restoration of the Jews, and The Millennium. London: printed for the Author (who attests the genuineness of my copy by his signature), 1747.
In this misfitted key he relates how, in a vision, he was invested with the prophetic mantle:
In the year 1723, in the night, says Mr. Newans, I fell into a dream, and seemed to be riding on the road into the county of Cheshire. When I was got about eight miles from home, my horse made a stop on the road; and it seemed a dark night, and on a sudden there shone a light before me on the ground, which was as bright as when the sun shines at noon-day. In the middle of that bright circle stood a child in white. It spoke, and told me that I must go into Cheshire, and I should find a man with uncommon marks upon his feet, which should be a warning to me to believe; and that the year after I should have a cow that would calve a calf with his heart growing out of his body in a wonderful manner, as a token of what should come to pass; and that a terrible war would break out in Europe, and in fourteen years after the token it would extend to England.
In compliance with his supernatural communication, our farmer proceeded to Cheshire, where he found the man indicated; and, a year after, his own farm stock was increased by the birth of a calf with his heart growing out. And after taking his family, of seven, to witness to the truth of