those others who were not so simple, and knew a good deal better, took excellent good care that the notion of her inspiration should be well nursed. Religious mania is generally the product of outside influences acting upon a diseased body and an ill-balanced mind; and it may be suspected, since the crisis in the affairs of the Church was then the chief topic in the mouths of all men, that Elizabeth had been influenced by the talk she heard, and by the preaching of the then rector of Aldington, Richard Masters. In her trances and somnambulistic exploits and in her ravings the ordinary people thought her possessed of evil spirits; but Richard Masters declared she had always been a devout girl, and he now professed, when called to her bedside, to have heard her say “very godly certain things concerning the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments.” This, in the view of the Church, was inspiration. Masters journeyed to London, and at Lambeth Palace acquainted the old and failing Archbishop Warham with this strange portent, and was encouraged to keep diligent account of all her utterances. And then Elizabeth Barton suddenly recovered, and was in the scullery again, cleaning pots and pans and dishes. We may picture the disappointment Masters experienced, on his return, to find his prodigy become suddenly so commonplace. But it was too late for this poor Elizabeth to be allowed to return obscurely to her domestic duties. Cobb’s house was besieged by the curious, who came merely to look at her, and by the superstitious, who had heard she could prophesy, and by the ailing, who thought that a laying on of hands would cure them.