SINGULAR PREDICTIONS.—In 1706, John Needs, a Winchester scholar, foretold the deaths of Mr. Carman, chaplain to the College, of Dr. Mews, Bishop of Winchester, and of himself, within that year, to several of his school-fellows, among others, to George Lavington. This declaration exposed him naturally to much raillery in the school, and he was ludicrously styled “Prophet Needs.” Mr. Carman died about the time he mentioned. For this event, however, he had little credit, it being said, that the death of such an old man might reasonably be expected. Within the time prefixed Bishop Mews also died by a strange accident. He was subject to fainting fits, from which he soon recovered by smelling spirits of hartshorn. Being seized with a fit whilst a gentleman was with him, and perceiving its approach, he pointed eagerly to a phial in the window; the visitor took it, and in haste poured the contents down the Bishop’s throat, which instantly suffocated him. As the time approached which Needs had prefixed for his own dissolution, of which he named even the day and the hour, he sickened, apparently declined, and kept to his chamber, where he was frequently visited and prayed with by Mr. Fletcher, second master of the school, and father of the Bishop of Kildare. This gentleman reasoned and argued with the youth, but in vain; for with great calmness and composure the patient resolutely persisted in affirming that the event would verify his prediction. On the day he had fixed, the house-clock being kindly put forward, struck the hour before the real time; he saw through the deception, and told those who were with him, that when the church clock struck he should expire—he did so! * * * * * Mr. Fletcher left a memorandum in writing to the above purpose; and Bishop Trimnell, about the year 1722, having heard this story at Winchester, wrote to New College, of which Mr. Lavington was then Fellow, for further information. His answer was, that “John Needs had indeed foretold that the Bishop of Winchester (Mews) and old Mr. Carman should die that year; but then they being very aged men, he had foretold, for two or three years before, that they should die in that number of years. As to foretelling the time of his own death, I believe he was punctually right.” Dr. Lavington gave the same account to his friends after he was Bishop of Exeter. * * * * * Jonathan Trelawney was a younger son of Sir J. Trelawney, of Petynt, Cornwall; but his elder brother dying in 1680, he inherited the title. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where there is a portrait of him. He was in succession Bishop of Bristol, Exeter, and Winchester; a man of polite manners, competent learning, and uncommon knowledge of the world. * * * * *