owever, a
superstitious man, and, being an observant naturalist, had paid great
attention to the notes of birds, and the remarkable variations between
the day and night notes of the same species. He suspected these strange
unearthly sounds to be made by some gregarious birds on the wing; but
{483} the darkness was impenetrable, and he gazed upwards in vain. The
noises, meanwhile, were precisely those which he had heard ascribed to
the _Cwn Wybir_, and would have been truly appalling to a superstitious
imagination. His quick ear at length caught the rush of pinions, and, in
a short time, a large flight of curlews came sweeping down to the
heather, so near his head, that some of their wings brushed his hat.
They were no sooner settled, than the _Cwn Wybir_ ceased to be heard.
Mr. Young then recollected having noticed similar nocturnal cries from
the curlew, but had never before encountered such a formidable flying
legion of those birds, screaming in a great variety of keys, amidst
mountain echoes.

ELIJAH WARING.

* * * * *

BARTHOLOMEW LEGATE, THE MARTYR.

An erroneous date, resting on such authorities as Mr. Hallam and Mr. J.
Payne Collier, deserves a note. The former in his _Const. Hist._ (ii.
275. note, second edition), and the latter in the _Egerton Papers_,
printed for the Camden Society (p. 446.), assigns the date 1614 to the
death of Bartholomew Legate at Smithfield. The latter also gives the
date March 13. Now the true date is March 18, 1611-12, as will appear by
consulting--1. The commissions and warrants for the burning of Legate
and Wightman, inserted in _Truth brought to Light, or the Narrative
History of King James for the first Fourteen Years_, 4to. 1651; 2.
Chamberlain's _Letters to Sir Dudley Carleton_, dated Feb. 26, 1611
(1611-12), and March 25, 1612, printed in _The Court and Times of James
I._, vol. i. pp. 136. 164.; and 3. Wallace's _Antitrinitarian
Biography_, vol. ii. p. 534. Fuller, in his _Church History_, gives the
correct date, and states that his "burning of heretics much startled
common people;" "wherefore King James politicly preferred that heretics
hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately waste
themselves away in the prison."

Legate and Wightman were, in fact, the last martyrs burnt at the stake
in England for their religious opinions.

A.B.R.

* * * * *

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON'S PROSE WORKS.

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