Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/328

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL OCT. 19, 1901.

with perhaps more attention than any one else has bestowed upon it since it was printed. What I have discovered as to the drift (one can hardly say meaning) oi the rimes I will now make known to the reader.

The work consists of a series of addresses or discourses which were delivered to a gathering of " Companions " for so the speaker always calls them in the years 1657 and 1658. The rimes of which they consist were extemporaneously composed or at least were supposed to be so composed. The girt of riming extemporaneously is not so com- mon in England as in Italy; but the versi- fication of these addresses is of so loose and easy a kind that it is no great marvel if they were really delivered in the manner they are said to have been. The addresses were taken down by a reporter, who confesses that the lady sometimes spoke so fast that he was unable to follow her.

Perhaps it will be as well, before going further, to give a short specimen of the lady's inspirations. On p. 1 the heading is as fol- lows : "Eighth Month, 11 day, being the first day of the Week, at nine of the Clock, 1657." Then follows the address, of which the first lines are as follows :

The Spirit doth come in the way

That the Spouse did before,

The spouse she doth declare of him,

So doth the Spirit, and more

Over of God the Father too,

And they rejoyce and bring

Tydings unto the world of

Christ the most glorious King ;

The spouse comes with a choice sweet note

Of Christ's most blessed reign

And the Spirit it ever doth

Rejoyce to do the same.

The Spirit extols and lifts him high

And sheweth his great love,

For 'twas his will for sin to die,

And nothing else could move ;

Which made the spouse come forth -with song

Of her beloved pure,

Which must be sung to him alway,

It ever shall endure.

A little of this sort of stuff goes a long way and therefore I will not try the reader'? patience with any more of it. Perhaps th< most remarkable thing about it is that it i much the same sort of doggerel that anothe female, crazed by religious enthusiasm, gave vent to nearly a century and a half later. In fact, thelady of these addresses must have beer in several points an earlier Joanna Southcott and it seems probable that like causes in eacl case must have operated to produce th peculiar form of religious mania which eacl of them displayed.

Upon the whole it seems likely that th author of these addresses I am obliged t(

peak in this roundabout manner, because here is nowhere in the book any indica- ion as to her name was at one time a Quakeress, but for some reason deserted he Friends and attempted to found a sect of ler own. It will have been noticed that the leading of the first discourse is in the Quaker tyle, and (as I have said before) the lady addresses her listeners as "Companions," a erm /evidently suggested by the Quaker term )f " Friends." In one of her addresses the eporter notes that " while this was uttered, .he Quakers, being present, spake, but could not interrupt, for with more power and swift- ness the voice went on as followeth." Further on there is another note :

1 was an eye and ear witness to this psalm against the Quakers, and heard many of their im- pudent Objections: I shall instance some. Three nen came in, sate down in the room ; at the end of jwo hours spake against the truth at the name of Christ, and election, then the voice answered their several Objections, which are in the Psalmn : they said, We were told, she could neither see nor hear, and yet she answers our words and knows we are in jhe room and names me one in the room : at which
 * hey raged higher, and spake against the Kingdom-

Truth ; but the Lord sent down a louder voice that did drown this ; and so swift that the writer could not take all : but as you may read victory, so I can witness that it had victory over them, that they were not able to tarry in the room, but went away raging against the truth in the Psalm."

The lady in one place confesses that her followers were few and uninfluential :

what though we that prize spirit,

An delight in David's psalmn,

Be a small inconsiderable company !

Yet let us fear no harm ;

For in the spirit there is safety,

There is defence most brave,

And, there is none like to it,

With thousands we can engage.

Although we are so few, yet God

Represents thousands nigh,

That shall come forth in rich array,

And make Antichrists seat flye.

As usual with feminine preachers, she dwells much upon the physical perfections of the objects of her devotion, as David, Solomon, and Christ. She was evidently deeply read in the Scriptures, and particularly in the Book of Revelation. Her volubility was evidently phenomenal, and it is no wonder that the poor Quakers mentioned above fled before the storm of it.

Who was this woman preacher 1 ? The world has during the last hundred years become pretty familiar with religious enthusiasts of the feminine gender, but they were not com- mon in the seventeenth century. There must surely be some record of this particular prophetess. Perhaps she is mentioned in some of the many accounts of the doings of