The Omen connected with the ancient gentle family of Oxenham, co. Devon,[138] may now be suitably referred to. The following, describing it, is copied from a rare and ancient pamphlet:[139]--“In the parish called Sale Monachorum, in the county of Devon, there lives one James Oxenham, a gentleman of good worth and quality, who had many children, one whereof was called John Oxenham, a young man in the vigour, beauty, and flower of his age, about 22, who was of stature comely and tall, being in height of body sixe foote and a half, a very proper person.... This young gentleman fell sicke, who being visited by many of the neighbours during the time of his sickness, departed this transitory life on the 5th day of September 1635, to whom, two days before he yielded up his soul to God, there appeared the likeness of a Bird with a white breast hovering over him.” The pamphlet in question states that the White Bird also appeared previously to the deaths of Thomasine, Rebecca and Thomasine the younger,[140] facts formally testified to, on the oaths of divers eyewitnesses before the Lord Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Joseph Hall). In Howell’s “Familiar Letters,” a communication dated “July 3, 1632,” states that the writer saw, at a stonecutter’s shop in London, a marble monument commemorating several examples of this curious omen; and gives the following as the inscriptions:-- “Here lies John Oxenham, a goodly young man, in whose chamber as he was struggling with the pangs of death, a Bird with a White Breast was seen fluttering about his bed, and so vanished. “Here lies also Mary Oxenham, the sister of the said John, who died the next day, and the same apparition was seen in the room. “Here lies hard by, James Oxenham, the son of the said John, who dyed a child in his cradle a little after, and such a Bird was seen fluttering about his head a little before he expir’d, which vanish’d afterwards.” At the bottom of the stone there is:-- “Here lies Elizabeth Oxenham, the mother of the said John, who died sixteen years since, when such a bird with a white breast was seen about her bed before her death.”[141] Then come the following remarks:-- “To all these there be divers witnesses both squires and ladies, whose names are engraven upon the stone. This stone is to be sent to a town hard by Exeter where this happen’d. Were you here, I could raise a choice discours with you hereupon. So hoping to see you the next tirm, I rest, etc.” From an old MS. letter of the eighteenth century, written on the fly-leaf of a copy of Howell’s book already referred to, it seems that the appearance of the omen was regarded as a fact at that period. The Letter dated “December 29th, 1741,” contains the following statement:--