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. 3, 1861.] by the utterance of which she made herself a name, which endures to this day, in every town and hamlet throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom.

The full title and imprint of the book in question runs thus: “The Life and Death of Mother Shipton. Strangely preserved amongst other writings belonging to an old monastery in Yorkshire, and now published for the information of posterity. London: Printed for W. Harris, and are to be sold by him in Dunnings Alley, without Bishopsgate. 1687.”

The condition of the manuscript when found was not favourable to a fluent perusal, indeed it was almost illegible; but Mrs. R. Head seems to have had an intuitive consciousness that it contained something of importance, so she steeped some best galls in good white wine, distilled the solution, and then, as she says, wetted the ink of the illegible M.S. handsomely, and made the letters as fresh and fair as if they had been newly written. All this, and a good deal more, is set forth in the preface, which the authoress concludes by saying that she might have made it much longer, but was afraid lest—like the citizens of Mindium—she might make her gates too big for her city.

From this MS. then, it appears, that Mrs. Agatha Shipton resided at Knaresborough, near the dropping-well. How she managed to live is somewhat of a mystery, seeing that she was miserably poor, and would neither beg nor work. One day she was sitting alone under a tree when a handsome young gentleman accosted her, and was so smitten with the charms of her person and conversation that he offered marriage on the spot. That she accepted him is not a matter for surprise, and it was arranged that they should meet at the same place on the succeeding day, when he would take her to the halls of his ancestors, where the ceremony could be performed in due state. All this was duly carried out as proposed, but the result was not altogether so favourable to her future welfare as she might reasonably have expected it would be. In the first place, she found herself on the ensuing morning under the same identical tree, clothed in rags in lieu of the rich and gorgeous array she had worn on the preceding evening, and in the next, she had not the least idea in which direction to go in search of her husband. While she was bemoaning her hapless fate the same young gentleman appeared, but the revelation he made to her respecting his position was very far from being of a gratifying nature, and the chief advantage that she derived from her connection with him was power of a very extraordinary character certainly, but not satisfactory in a pecuniary point of view. It was reported of her subsequently that she had been seen when walking alone to stamp on the ground, make motions with her hands, repeat a word three times, whereupon the sky which had previously been clear became dark and gloomy, and “belcht out nothing, for half-an-hour, but flames,—thundering after a most hideous manner.” From this it was inferred that she was a witch, and she was therefore seized and taken before a justice, but she defied that functionary, and exclaiming, “Updraxi, call Styicon Helluox,—a fiery-winged dragon forthwith appeared, took her up, and carried her away from the amazed justice and his attendants,” who are said never to have meddled with her afterwards.

Several instances are mentioned of the terrible things she did to neighbours when by their prying into her affairs they sent her off on the “rampage,” but I shall refrain from mentioning them for two reasons. I doubt whether they are strictly true, and they lack the refinement which distinguishes all the actions of the sex to which she belonged. Let it suffice to say that she died on the same day that she introduced the amiable infant into the world, whose personal appearance is thus described by her admiring biographer, who, certes, cannot be said to have dipped her brush in the colours of flattery. “Her physiognomy was so misshapen that it is altogether impossible to express it fully in words, or for the most ingenious to limn her in colours, though many persons of eminent qualifications in that art have often attempted it, but without success; therefore, according to the best observations of her, take this true, though not full account of her features and body; she was of an indifferent height, but very morose and big-boned, her hair very long, with very great goggling, but sharp and fiery eyes: her nose of an incredible and unproportionate length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange pimples of divers colours, as red, blew, and mixt, which, like vapours of brimstone, gave such a lustre to her affrighted spectators in the dead time of the night, that one of them confessed several times in my hearing that her nurse needed no other light to assist her in the performance of her duty. Her cheeks were of a black swarthy complexion, much like a mixture of the black and yellow jaundies,—wrinkled, shrivelled, and very hollow, insomuch that as the ribs of her body, so the impression of her teeth were easily to be discerned, excepting only two of them which stood quite out of her mouth in imitation of the tusks of a wild boar, or the tooth of an elephant, a thing so strange in an infant that no age can parallel. Her chin was of the same complexion as her face, turning up towards her mouth, as if there had been a more than ordinary correspondence between her teeth and it. Her neck so strangely distorted that her right shoulder was forced to be a supporter to her head, it being propt up by the help of her chin, in such sort, that the right side of her body stood much lower than the left; like the reeling of a ship that sails with a side winde. Again, her left side was turned quite the contrary way, as if her body had been screwed together piece after piece, and not rightly placed, Her leggs very crooked and misshapen, the toes of her feet turning towards her left side; so that it was very hard for any person to guess which road she intended to stear her course; because she never could look that way she resolved to go.”

This was in her youthful days; she grew more ugly as she grew older, so it is asserted, but this is rather difficult to believe.

Being without a mother, and the exact position of her father’s domicile not being ascertainable,