—­ 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.

This puts me in mind of a dream of old Farmer Good, a neighbour of mine at Broad-Chalk, who being ill, dreamt that he met with an old friend of his, (long since deceased) by Knighton Ashes (in that parish) who told him, that if he rose out of his bed, that he would die.  He awaked, and rose to make water, and was immediately seized with a shivering fit, and died of an ague, aged 84.