Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/36

 30

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. IL JULY s. wie.

but the figure placed there eventually is credited with being a representation of our national saint."

IP not the statue always taken to be that of King George II. ? Certainly, the books of reference say so, and generally quote the four familiar lines, of which the last is : Instead of the Church, made him head of the steeple.

The cost of the statue was said to have been borne by a loyal brewer and M.P. ; and I think the ascription to St. George of England will be new to most. W. B. H.

THE WITCHES OF WARBOYS. (12 S. i. 283, 304, 414.)

AT the last reference (414) Hotten's ' Hand- book to the Typography [&c.] of England and Wales' [1863], is an incorrect descrip- tion. It was a ' Handbook of Topography.' Hotten's item No. 2190 :

" WARBOYS WITCHES of 1593. Nicholson (Rev. Isaac), against Witchcraft. Account of Anne Izzard, witch of WARBOYS, 8vo, scarce, 1808,"

is, I think, also an incorrect description.

I have four copies of Nicholson's book before me. The full title is :

A | SERMON | against | WITCHCRAFT, | preached in the | PARISH CHURCH OF GREAT PAXTON, I in the County of Huntingdon, | July 17, 1808, | with | a brief account of the circumstances | which led to | Two atrocious attacks on the Person of Ann Izzard, | as a reputed witch. By the Reverend

Isaac Nicholson. A.M. ! Curate | London : |

Printed for J. Mawman, Poultry, | 1808.

One of the copies is without the title-page, and was, I am told, Hotten's copy. There is a preface of ix pp. which commences :

" A brief Account of the Attack on the Person of Ann Izzard, and the Circumstances which led to it

"In the year 1593. an indelible mark of infamy was stamped upon the inhabitants of Warboys, in tbe County of Huntingdon, for their folly and wickedness in carrying to trial, and afterwards to execution, three of their unfortunate parishioners,

for the alleged offence of witchcraft but the

following statement of facts, will convince them of their mistake, and, allowing for the difference of science and civilization, will shew that Great Paxton, in the same county, is more than upon a level with Warboys for ignorance, credulity, and bar- barity."

I conjecture from this that Hotten may have seen only these few introductory lines, and so wrongly entered it in his list. The '.'n.N.B.' calls the 'Handbook' "this most laborious and best known compilation," and Hotten, having so many hundreds of pamphlets, &c., to record, may not in a

few cases have fully examined the whole- of the contents of each volume.

A few special copies of the sermon have attached to them an abstract. The title further helps us in elucidating this matter :

An ABSTRACT

of

THE PROCEEDINGS had against

Joseph Harper, James Staughton, Thomas Braybrook, Mary Amey, Fanny Amey,

Alice Browne, Edward Briers, Mary Hook,

and

Mary Fox, for assaulting ANN IZZARD

of GREAT PAXTON

in the

County of Huntingdon,

on the 8th and 9th of May, 1808,

under the pretence of her being

A WITCH. By Isaac Nicholson, A.M., Curate.

London : Printed for J. Mawman, Poultry.

1810.

The sermon was reviewed in The Monthly Repository, vol. iii. No. xxxv. November, 1808. Chap, xviii. in Saunders's ' Legends and Traditions of Huntingdonshire,' 1888, is devoted to the circumstances ; and \Vry- croft's Almanac for 1903 reprints most of the sermon, and gives a photograph of Paxton Hill, where the incident happened. The Rev. Isaac Nicholson was curate of Great Paxton, Little Paxton, and Toseland from about 1799 to 1825, and vicar 1825. A M.I. in Great Paxton Church records that he " Died Dec. 27, 1839, in the 59th year of his age."

He wrote several sermons and books, &c., which I possess, but none, so far as I know, about the Witches of Warboys, the only reference to them being the few lines quoted in the preface to the sermon, so I concluded Hotten was mistaken in his item 2190 and did not include it in my bibliographical note.

In turning over an early volume of ' N. & Q.' I notice that Dr. Johnson referred to the Witches of Warbois in his edition of Shakespeare (5 S. xii. 8).

Cirencester.

HERBERT E. NOBBIS.

ROBERT SOUTHEY (12 S. i. 469, 518). Southey's maternal grandparents were Edward Hill and Margaret Bradford. For generations, the grandson writes, the Hills " had lived and died respectably and con- tentedly upon their own lands in the beau- tiful vale of Ashton." This, he explains,