Volume 1

Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters.

Date:
[1819?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lirfife, that the navigable cuts lately made is the water meant, but whether a prejudice against those useful improvements may not have given rise to this notion, time only can determine. But what brought Nixon most into public notice was, at the time when the battle of Bos-» worth-field was fought between Richard III. and Henry YIL, he stopped his team on a sudden, and, pointing with his whip from one hand to the other, cried, “ Now Richard! Now Henry!” several times; till, at last, he said, “Now Harry, get over that ditch, and you gain the day.” The plough-holder, amazed, related what had passed when he came home, and the truth of the pre¬ diction was verified by special messengers, sent to announce the proclamation of King Henry of England on the field of battle. The messenger who went this circuit related, on his return, the predictions of Nixon concern¬ ing the king^s success. Henry, somewhat sur¬ prised at this information, though he by no means doubted the dispensation of Providence, however contrary to human expectations, sent the same messenger back to find Nixon, and bring him VOL. I, I