[81] T. G. C., in Notes and Queries, vol. vii. p. 177.
[82] In his History of Blackpool, pp. 333-4.
[83] Speet, spit, or spittle, are names in Lancashire for a spade.
[84] L. B., in Notes and Queries, vol. viii. p. 613.—Bibliographical Notice of the Works of the Learned and Rev. Divine, John White, D.D., &c. London, 1624; in Chet. Soc. Books, vol. xxxviii. p. 52.
[85] There is another curious volume, which professes to contain a fourth book of Agrippa; but it is spurious. It includes five treatises—viz., 1. Henry Cornelius Agrippa's Fourth Book on Occult Philosophy and Geomancy; 2. The Magical Elements of Peter de Abano; 3. The Astronomical Geomancy of Gerard Cremonensis; 4. Isagoge, or the Nature of Spirits, by Geo. Victorius Villinganus, M.D.; and 5. Arbatel of Magick. Translated into English by Robert Turner, Philomathées. (London, 1665, 8vo, pp. 266.) Another version of this book appeared in 1783, 8vo. It would lead us too far to describe the strange contents of this book, which contains long lists of the names of good and evil spirits, and symbols representing their characters; also symbols of the archangels and angels, their sigils, planets, signs, &c.
[86] See Roby's Traditions of Lancashire.
[87] (Lord Burghley's Papers, vol. ii., p. 771.) The death of Edward Earl of Derby, "with whom (says Camden) the glory of hospitality hath in a manner been laid asleep," took place on the 24th October, 1572.
MIRACLES, OR MIRACULOUS STORIES.
An age of credulity is naturally rich in miracles. Superstition is ever prone to explain the mysterious, or to account for the questionable, by hunting for some supernatural cause; and hence the popular love for and strong faith in the miraculous. No church erected before the Reformation but had its miraculous legend; no well or spring of a remote antiquity but had its tradition, either connected with its origin or with its marvellous and miraculous powers of healing. The miracle of a past age, preserved to the present in the form of a legend, is equally entitled to a place in our Folk-Lore.