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.