might spie a huge Marble with a large inscription upon 't, which was thus to my best remembrance:— "Here lies John Oxenham, a goodly young man, in whose Chamber, as he was strugling with the pangs of death, a Bird with White-brest was seen fluttering about his Bed, and so vanished.
"Here lies also Mary Oxenham, the sister of the said John, who died the next day, and the same Apparition was seen in the Room.
"Then another sister is spoke of. Then, Here lies hard by James Oxenham, the son of the said John, who died a child in his cradle a little after, and such a Bird was seen fluttering about his head a little before he expired, which vanished afterwards.
"At the bottom of the Stone ther is—
"Here lies Elizabeth Oxenham, the Mother of the said John, who died 16 yeers since, when such a Bird, with a White-Brest, was seen about her Bed before her death.
"To all these ther be divers Witnesses, both Squires and Ladies, whose names are engraven upon the Stone: This Stone is to be sent to a Town hard by Excester, wher this happend."
It will be noticed that Howell has got all the Christian names wrong, but then, as he states, he gave the inscription from memory. If the date of the letter be correct, 1632, that, as Lysons pointed out, was before the deaths that took place in 1635. But in the first edition of the letters this particular one is undated, and little or no reliance can be placed on the dates that are given; indeed, the bulk of the letters, if not all, were written by Howell when in prison and never had been sent to the persons to whom addressed, any more than at the dates when supposed to be written. Probably in his second edition he dated this
