(_From Howell's Letters, 1647_.)

We need not cross the sea for examples of this kind, we have too many (God
wot) at home: King James a great while was loth to believe there were
witches; but that which happened to my Lord Francis of Rutland's children,
convinced him, who were bewitched by an old woman that was servant at
Belvoir Castle, but being displeased, she contracted with the devil, who
conversed with her in form of a cat, whom she called Rutterkin, to make
away those children, out of mere malignity, and thirst of revenge.

* * * * *


A RICH MAN.

"Among the many and various hospitals," says Sir William Temple, "that are
every man's curiosity and talk, that travels their country, I was affected
with none more than that of the aged seamen at Enchuysen, which is
contrived, finished, and ordered, as if it were done with a kind of
intention of some well-natured man, that those who had been their whole
lives in the hardships and incommodities of the sea, should find a retreat
with all the eases and conveniences that old age is capable of feeling and
enjoying. And here I met with the _only_ rich man that I ever saw in my
life--for one of these old seamen entertaining me a good while with the
plain stories of his fifty years voyages and adventures, while I was
viewing the hospital and the church adjoining; I gave him, at parting, a
piece of their coin, about the value of a crown; he took it and smiled,
and offered it me again; but when I refused it, he asked me 'What he
should do with money?' I left him to overcome his modesty as he could; but