"A quibusdam prædicatur in populis, quod fuerunt germani ex adulterio nati. Quorum mater cum in extremis peccatum suum confiteretur, et Confessor redargueret crimen perpetratum adulterii, quia valde grave esset, et ideo multum deberet dolere, et pœnitentiam agere, respondit illa: 'Pater, scio quod adulterium peccatum magnum est; sed, considerans quantum bonum secutum est, cum isti filii sint lumina magna in Ecclesiâ, ego non valeo pœnitere.'"
However, whilst he records this singular story, Antoninus confesses that he gives little credit to it; for he presently adds:
"Non enim reperitur authenticum; imo, nec fuerunt contemporanei, etsi vicini tempore. Gratianus enim fuit ante alios duos."
And not only were they not cotemporaries, but also it may be worth observing, that they were not even fellow-countrymen.
J. SANSOM.
Replies to Minor Queries.
Warnings to Scotland (Vol. iv., p. 233.).
—Thomas Dutton, Guy Nutt, and John Glover, who published the Warnings to Scotland, were three of the French prophets who went as missionaries, first to Edinburgh and afterwards to Dublin. I have a continuation in manuscript, in a very thick 4to., of the printed book. They appear to have been succeeded at Edinburgh by James Cunningham and Margaret Mackenzie. Cunningham was the grandson of the murdered Archbishop of St. Andrews, and prophecied himself into the Tolbooth, his warnings from which place, with the autograph of the prophet, are contained in a volume entitled, Warnings of the Eternal Spirit pronounced by the Mouth of James Cunningham during his Imprisonment in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, Lond. 1712, 12mo. pp. 547. 131. In the very curious and amusing account of the French prophets given in Keimer's Brand pluck'd from the burning, exemplify'd in the unparall'd Case of Samuel Keimer, Lond. printed by W. Boreman, 1718, Dutton, Nutt, Glover, and Cunningham, are frequently mentioned. "Thomas Dutton," he says, "was an eminent prophet, a sober ingenious man, by profession a lawyer, who wrote a letter against John Lacy's taking E. Gray." "Guy Nutt, a prophet, a formal whimsical man, who goes in plain habit, but not owned by the people called Quakers." Of Glover he gives an extraordinary account, p. 54., but which will scarcely admit of quotation. He observes, p. 115., that Glover acted the Devil "under agitations, five people standing upon him, as commanded by the spirit, he all the while making grimaces mixt with a strange mocking, yanging noise to the affrightment of the believers." Whether the prophet produced an abiding impression at Edinburgh by these yanging noises I know not, but in England the sect continued for many years. I have a collection of the manifestations of one of them, Hannah Wharton, published in 1732, 12mo. She appears to have preached and prophecied at Birmingham. I may here observe, that Keimer's tract above mentioned contains a very interesting letter from Daniel Defoe, which has not been noticed by his biographers. Keimer was one of the numerous publishers for Defoe. He afterwards went to America, and we find him frequently noticed in the autobiography of Dr. Franklin.
JAS. CROSSLEY.