Ady, in his “Candle in the Dark, or Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft,” Lond., 1656, says, “An old woman in Essex who was living in my time, she had lived also in Queen Mary’s time, and had learned thence many popish charms, one whereof was this: every night when she lay down to sleep she charmed her bed, saying— ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, The bed be blest that I lye on.’ And this she would repeat three times, reposing great confidence therein, because (as she said) she had been taught it when she was a young maid by the churchmen of those times.” In a MS. collection of notes on superstitions made by John Aubrey, which is in the British Museum, Aubrey enters— “A PRAYER USED WHEN THEY WENT TO BED. “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on, And blessed guardian angels keep Me safe from dangers whilst I sleep.” Aubrey adds, “I remember before the civil wars people when they heard the clock strike were wont to say, ‘God grant that my last howre may be my best howre.’” Robert Chambers, in his “Popular Rhymes of Scotland,” does not speak of this prayer as used north of the Tweed at bed-time, but says: “A curious instance of far-descended nonsense is to be found in another puerile rhyme:— ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Haud the horse till I loup on; Haud it fast, and haud it sure, Till I get over the misty muir.’ Boys in Scotland say this in the course of their rollicking sports.” This singular charm, rather than prayer, is given in a mediæval magical treatise, “The Enchiridion of Pope Leo,” which was printed at Rome in 1660. It is there called “The White Paternoster,” and runs thus in French— “Petit Patenôtre blanche que Dieu fit, que Dieu dit, que Dieu mit en Paradis. Au soir m’allant coucher, je trouves trois Anges à mon lit couchés, un aux pieds, Deux au chevet, la bonne Vierge Marie au Milieu, qui me dit que je me couchis, Que rien ne doutes.… Qui la dira trois fois au soir, trois fois au Matin, gagnera le Paradise à la fin.” Under the name of “The White Paternoster” it is referred to by Chaucer in the “Miller’s Tale”— “Lord Jhesu Crist, and Seynte Benedyht, Blesse this hous from every wikked wight, Fro nyghtes verray, the White Paternoster, Where wonestow now, Seynt Petre’s soster.” “Nyghtes verray” is probably a night-were, the hobgoblin. “Were” is an old Saxon word for man, and the night-man is the ghost. In White’s “Way to the True Church,” Lond., 1624, White complains of “the prodigious ignorance” which existed among his parishioners when he entered upon his ministrations. He gives what he considers to be the “White Paternoster,” or a form of prayer used before going to bed.