6
To the Reader.
IN ushering into the world such a performance as this, it may be necessary to give our readers some account of the life of the person who left the following little work for the benefit and instruction of the world, a person whose fame, though not recorded among the roll of those whose heroic actions have trumpeted them to the world, yet her discerning eye and her knowledge in prescience, render her not unknown to the generality of those who devote any attention to this interesting study.
Mrs. Bridget, vulgarly called Mother Bridget, lived—in her peregrinage through this life—in a kind of cave, or rather a hollow formed by nature above ground with the assistance of a little art, and comprising an exceeding warm shelter from the air; company of all sorts resorted to her, nobility, gentry, tradesmen, mechanics, men, women, girls and boys of all degrees and classes.
Our heroine was born on the spot where she lived and from the most juvenile part of her life betokened an early propensity to prescience, which showed she had it instincted in her by nature. Her parents dying when she was young, left her to ramble abroad at her will; and she supported herself chiefly by begging. It was then strongly remarked in her, that she made observations on person’s features and manners; she would sit up whole nights when the atmosphere was clear, and seemed as intent on considering the stars, as the greatest astrologers would be with their glasses; this kind of study gave her a great knowledge of the weather, the alteration of the air,
