Your correspondent N. D.'s papers (Vol. ii., p. 459., and Vol. iii., p. 64)
have reminded me of another remarkable instance of fecundity related by the
well-known civil engineer JAN ADRIAENSZ. LEEG-WATER, in his _Kleyne
Chronycke_, printed at Amsterdam in 1654:
"Some years since," says he, p. 31., "I was at _Wormer_, at an inn near
the town-hall: the landlady, whose name was _Frankjen_, told me of the
Burgomaster of _Hoorn_, who in the spring went over the (Zuyder?) sea
to buy oxen, and going into a certain house he found seven little
children sitting by the fire, each with a porringer in its hand, and
eating rice-milk, or pap, with a spoon; on which the Burgomaster said
'Mother, you are very kind to your neighbours, since they leave their
children to your care.' 'No,' said the woman, they are all my own
children, which I had at one birth; and if you will wait a moment, I
will show you more that will surprise you.' She then fetched seven
other children _a birth_ older: so she had fourteen children at two
births. Then the woman said to the Burgomaster, 'I am now _enceinte_,
and I think in the same way as before: if you come here next year, call
upon me again.' And so, the next year, when the Burgomaster went over
the sea, he called upon the woman and the woman had again brought forth
seven children at a birth. Thus the woman had at three births
twenty-one children."