QUAKERS' ATTEMPT TO CONVERT THE POPE.
(Vol. iii., p. 302.)
I have never met with any satisfactory account of this singular Quaker aggression. Perhaps it may be a contribution towards one if you can find room for some notice of a tract in my possession. It is entitled, A Narrative of some of the Sufferings of J. P. in the City of Rome. London, printed for Thomas Simmons, at the Bull and Mouth, near Aldersgate, 1661, 4to., pp. 16. This narrative of John Perrot's does not, however, give any particulars respecting his going to Rome, or the proceedings which led to his captivity there, but begins with the words—
"When I was cast into Prison, because I loved the souls of my enemies," &c.;
and after eight pages, chiefly occupied by inflated description of his sorrows, from which one obtains no facts, he tells us that God took pity on him,
"And raised up his little babe, my dear Brother Thomas Hart, to set his tender soul nearer unto my sufferings, and made him take my burdens on his back, and the yoak of my tribulation on his neck, and made him sup of my sore sorrows, and drink of the bleedings of my grief,'—
and so he goes on; but we do not learn what Thomas Hart did, except that he comforted John Perrot in his confinement.
"Moreover," he says, "the everlasting mercies of my God did stir up the bowels of other two of his tender babes, named in the tent Jane Stokes and Charles Baylie, to come to visit me whilest I was as forsaken of all men."
They persevered, he tells us,