Replies to Minor Queries.
_Warnings to Scotland_ (Vol. iv., p. 233.).--Thomas Dutton, Guy Nutt,
and John Glover, who published the _Warnings to Scotland_, were three of
the French prophets who went as missionaries, first to Edinburgh and
afterwards to Dublin. I have a continuation in manuscript, in a very
thick 4to., of the printed book. They appear to have been succeeded at
Edinburgh by James Cunningham and Margaret Mackenzie. Cunningham was the
grandson of the murdered Archbishop of St. Andrews, and prophecied
himself into the Tolbooth, his warnings from which place, with the
autograph of the prophet, are contained in a volume entitled, _Warnings
of the Eternal Spirit pronounced by the Mouth of James Cunningham during
his Imprisonment in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh_, Lond. 1712, 12mo. pp.
547. 131. In the very curious and amusing account of the French prophets
given in Keimer's _Brand pluck'd from the burning, exemplify'd in the
unparall'd Case of Samuel Keimer_, Lond. printed by W. Boreman, 1718,
Dutton, Nutt, Glover, and Cunningham, are frequently mentioned. "Thomas
Dutton," he says, "was an eminent prophet, a sober ingenious man, by
profession a lawyer, who wrote a letter against John Lacy's taking E.
Gray." "Guy Nutt, a prophet, a formal whimsical man, who goes in plain
habit, but not owned by the people called Quakers." Of Glover he gives
an extraordinary account, p. 54., but which will scarcely admit of
quotation. He observes, p. 115., that Glover acted the Devil "under
agitations, five people standing upon him, as commanded by the spirit,
he all the while making grimaces mixt with a strange mocking, yanging
noise to the affrightment of the believers." Whether the prophet
produced an abiding impression at Edinburgh by these _yanging noises_ I
know not, but in England the sect continued for many years. I have a
collection of the manifestations of one of them, Hannah Wharton,
published in 1732, 12mo. She appears to have preached and prophecied at
Birmingham. I may here observe, that Keimer's tract above mentioned
contains a very interesting letter from Daniel Defoe, which has not been
noticed by his biographers. Keimer was one of the numerous publishers
for Defoe. He afterwards went to America, and we find him frequently
noticed in the autobiography of Dr. Franklin.