-- A minister, who lived by Sir John Warre in Somersetshire, about
1665, walking over the Park to give Sir John a visit, was
rencountered by a venerable old man, who said to him, "prepare
yourself, for such a day" (which was about three days after) "you
shall die." The minister told Sir John Wane and my Lady this story,
who heeded it not. On the morning forewarned, Sir John called upon
the Parson early to ride a hunting, and to laugh at his prediction:
his maid went up to call him, and found him stark dead. This from my
Lady Katherine Henley, who had it from my Lady Warre. But Dr. Burnet,
in the life of the Earl of Rochester, makes it a dream.
This put me in mind of a story in the Legend, &c. of King Edward the
Confessor, being forewarned of his death by a Pilgrim, to whom
St.John the Evangelist revealed it,. for which the King gave the
Pilgrim a rich ring off his finger: and the event answered. The
story is well painted on glass, in a window of the south isle of
Westminster-Abbey, (the next window from that over the door that
opens into the west walk of the cloyster) it is the best window in
the church. Underneath the two figures, viz. of the King and the
Pilgrim, are these following verses, viz.
"Rex cui nil aliud praesto fuit, accipe, dixit.
Annulum, & ex digito detrahit ille suo.
--- Evangelistoe --- villa Johannis.
-- gratia petit."
The verses under the Pilgrim are not legible. This story is in
Caxton's Chronicle.
Dr. --- Twiss, minister of the new church at Westminster, told me,
that his father, (Dr. Twiss, prolocutor of the assembly of divines,
and author of "Vindicitae Graticae") when he was a school-boy at
Winchester, saw the phantom of a school-fellow of his, deceased, (a
rakehell) who said to him "I am damned." This was the occasion of
Dr. Twiss'a (the father's) conversion, who had been before that time,
as he told his son, a very wicked boy; he was hypochondriacal. There
is a story like this, of the conversion of St. Bruno, by an
apparition: upon which he became mighty devout, and founded the
order of the Carthusians.
John Evelyn, Esq., R.S.S., showed us at the Royal-Society, a note
under Mr. Smith's hand, the curate of Deptford, that in
November,1679, as he was in bed sick of an ague, came to him the
vision of a master of arts, with a white wand in his hand, and told
him that if he did lie on his back three hours, viz. from ten to one,
that he should be rid of his ague. He lay a good while on his back,
but at last being weary he turned, and immediately the ague attacked
him; afterwards he strictly followed the directions, and was
perfectly cured. He was awake, and it was in the day-time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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