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<DATE>2010-01-04</DATE>
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<NAME>Mona Logarbo</NAME>
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<ITEM>Proofed and reviewed as part of batch B091020.pdcc.</ITEM>
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<BIBNO T="oclc">42475244</BIBNO>
<VID>151400</VID>
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<P>THE True and mo&s;t miraculous Narrative, of a Child born WITH <HI>TWO TONG&V;ES,</HI> At the lower end of <HI>Ea&s;t-Smithfeild,</HI> in the Suburbs of <HI>London, &amp;c.</HI></P>
<P>Who three dayes after his Birth, was heard plainly, and expre&s;ly to cry out, <HI>A King, a King, a King,</HI> Which it hath ever &s;ince continued, to the ad|miration of all that hear it.</P>
<P>As al&s;o its being &s;ent for by divers Per&s;onages of the Greate&s;t Dignity, and many Honorable Ladies in the Cities of <HI>London</HI> and <HI>We&s;tmin&s;ter,</HI> who not contented to behold, and but one time to hear it, have &s;ent their Coaches for it again and again.</P>
<P>Together with the many various Interpretations and Con&s;tructi|ons that every where are made of it.</P>
<Q><BIBL>Horat. Serm. Lib. 1.</BIBL>
<P>Nec &s;i quid miri fecit Natura, Deos id<LB>
Tri&s;tes ex alto coeli dimitere tecto.</P></Q>
<P>Printed for <HI>R. Harper</HI> neer the <HI>Ho&s;pital</HI> Gate in <HI>Smithfield,</HI> 1659.</P>
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<HEAD>The True and mo&s;t Miraculous Narrative of a Childe born with <HI>Two Tongues,</HI> At the lower End of <HI>Ea&s;t-Smithfield,</HI> in the Subburbs of <HI>London,</HI> &amp;c.</HEAD>
<HEAD TYPE="sub">Who Three Dayes after his Birth, was heard plainly and expre&s;sly to cry out <HI>a King, a King, a King;</HI> Which it hath ever &s;ince continued, to the Admiration of all that hear it.</HEAD>
<P>_TO have two Tongues is commonly the property of a Di&s;&s;embler, that is to &s;ay, to have two Hearts, and one Tongue; for though the tran&s;gre&s;&s;ion of the Heart be layed to the di&s;&s;imulation of the Tongue; the Tongue is not &s;o much guilty of it, as is the Heart, that doth &s;ign, and dictate to it. It is the property of a Wi&s;e man to have his Tongue in his Heart, (&s;aith the wi&s;e&s;t of men;) but if every man &s;hould have as many Tongues to expre&s;&s;e his thoughts, as he hath a heart that con&s;pires with his head to contrive them, how many Mon&s;ters would there be in Nature?</P>
<P>But though the Tongue be oftentimes a Di&s;&s;embler, yet Truth it &s;elf (for the honour of the Tongue) will not have it to be di&s;&s;embled; that the Tongue is a mo&s;t Nece&s;&s;ary In&s;trument, and attended with as much won|der, and prophecy, when God peculiarly doth plea&s;e to move it, as it is with lyes, and vanities, when God doth leave it to it &s;elf. We will de&s;cend by degrees to
<PB N="2" REF="4"><!-- PDF PAGE 16 -->the ob&s;ervation of this Truth, and we will indevour to be as plain as po&s;&s;ibly we can, for we know to whom we write.</P>
<P>The fir&s;t double Tongue that ever was in the World, was the Tongue of the Devil, when in the form of a Serpent he courted <HI>Adam</HI> and <HI>Eve,</HI> to tran&s;gre&s;&s;e the Commandement of the Almighty. <HI>Adam</HI> before was as entire in his Tongue, as he was in his Innocence; There was then in the World but one Language. and there nee|ded but one tongue to expre&s;s that Language. Deceit was not known in Nature, unle&s;&s;e it was only in the Nature of the Serpent, into which Nature the Devil did transform him&s;elf, and having tempted Man to &s;in by a &s;ecret tincture, and an Infection of as much Ambit<GAP DESC="illegible" REASON="missing" EXTENT="1 letter">on as crawling Corruption, he hath ever &s;ince made Man almo&s;t as &s;erpentine as him&s;elf.</P>
<P>Man being thus infected with a double Tongue from the Devil, behold a puni&s;hment proportioned to the Nature of his Offence. It was the double or the for|ked Tongue of the Serpent that tempted Man to &s;in, and God will revenge it with his forked Thunderbolts, which indeed had &s;unk mankind into the Pit of eternal darkne&s;&s;e, had he not in this wilderne&s;&s;e of affliction been releived with the Sight of a better Serpent, who after the immortal honour of his ignominious Death, by the won|der of cloven Tongues which appeared like Fire, did te&s;tifie unto him the wonder of his Re&s;urrection, &s;o &s;a|ving unto Mankind, that <HI>who&s;oever calleth on his Name &s;hall be &s;aved.</HI></P>
<P>The <HI>I&s;raelites</HI> heretofore for their murmuring, had been bitten with fiery Serpents, the &s;ins of their Tongues being puni&s;hed with the Teeth of the Serpents, their murmuring Tongues being like fiery Serpents, by which their &s;ins were cha&s;ti&s;ed and expounded.</P>
<P>And as the Brazen Serpent was lifted up in the Wil|derne&s;&s;e,
<PB N="3" REF="4"><!-- PDF PAGE 16 -->&s;o was the Son of Man lifted upon the Cro&s;&s;e, and conferred the gift of Cloven Tongues on tho&s;e that loved him, that all Nations might partake as well of the ble&s;&s;ing, as they heard of the wonder of his Re&s;urrection.</P>
<P>In the Contemplation of this I &s;tand amazed, I find a Wheel turned in a Wheele, a Sphere wrapt in a Sphere, e&s;pecially when after this guift of a Cloven Tongue, I do read: That it &s;hall come to pa&s;&s;e in the la&s;t dayes, that the Lord will poure out his Spirit on all fle&s;h, and their Sons and their Daughters &s;hall prophecy: And on my Servants, and on my Hand-maids, &s;aith the Lord, I will poure out of my Spirit in tho&s;e days, and they &s;hall prophecy.</P>
<P>The Bea&s;ts who had cloven Feet, were accounted clean in the Old Law, and we find the Cloven Tongues to be the my&s;tical Tokens of much happine&s;&s;e to come in the new. They were the Interpreters of the Sheet which St. <HI>Peter</HI> &s;aw, and what it contained before the four corners of it were knit together. They were the Pro|phets that foretold the Go&s;pel of Salvation, which &s;hould be preached now as well unto the Gentiles as to the Jews.</P>
<P>This is in&s;erted, to take off the Imputation which the World doth commonly fa&s;ten on double Tongues, not that they are guiltle&s;&s;e, for a double Tongue, and a double Heart, go oftentimes together. A double Tongue for the mo&s;t part is a fal&s;e Tongue, and the Devil is the Father of lyes, and may have a Cloven Tongue, as well as a Cloven Foot. But the Child of whom we come now to &s;peak, hath not as it &s;eems a double Tongue, nor a cloven, or a divided Tongue, but two Tongues, one lapped over the other, and is as wonderful in his Lan|guage, both in the earline&s;&s;e, and the Sen&s;e of it, as he is in the Supernumerary Member.</P>
<P><HI>Michael Scotus</HI> in his Book <HI>De &s;ecretis Naturae,</HI> di&s;|cour&s;eth
<PB N="4" REF="5"><!-- PDF PAGE 17 -->why &s;ome Men have &s;ix Fingers, and why many men have one Thumb joyned to another, which is not of the &s;ame length and bigne&s;&s;e, but &s;ub&s;ervient to the other; In this he gives you uncontrouled Rea&s;ons, to &s;a|tis&s;ie the exuberance of Nature. The great Schollar <HI>Fracan&s;torfius,</HI> who wrote many yeers after him, is more full and cleer in his di&s;qui&s;itions on this Subject; If I do remember my &s;elf rightly, it is in the very &s;ame place or very neer unto it, where he gives you his Rea&s;ons why <HI>David</HI> being an old Man, was advi&s;ed by a Coun&s;el of his Phy&s;icians to take a young Maid into his Bed; But I have yet never heard of any Phylo&s;opher that &s;howeth Rea&s;ons why a man hath two Tongues, nor of any Hi&s;torian who declareth that ever any one hath had them.</P>
<P>True it is, I have heard many a man to &s;ay, that his own Wife, or his next Neighbours VVife, hath a thou&s;and Tongues, which mode&s;tly I conceive is not &s;o much, by rea&s;on of the Number of &s;o many Tongues, as by the perpetual motion of one Tongue. And this indeed is the noy&s;e and the complaints of every day, and every wind doth blow them over the face of the VVorld, that now they are no &s;ooner heard, then di&s;regarded: but for an Infant to be born with two Tongues, and to &s;peak almo&s;t as &s;oon as it was born, is a wonder in earne&s;t, a wonder as well to be &s;een, as heard, and the great wonder which I come now to declare unto you.</P>
<P>In the Subburbs of <HI>London,</HI> in the lower end of <HI>Ea&s;t-&s;mithfield,</HI> at a place called <HI>Knockfergus,</HI> a young woman was brought to bed with a Child that was born with two Tongues, the one in &s;ome mea&s;ure covering the other, but the lower Tongue appearing to be the more natural, for it &s;eemeth to be more firme and longer than the other. The father of it is a poor man, and of a poor trade, but &s;uch a one that the be&s;t Lady in the
<PB N="5" REF="5"><!-- PDF PAGE 17 -->Land, when &s;he is plagued with Corns, would be glad of his A&s;&s;i&s;tance. Having a &s;harp Knife, and a good dex|terity in this, he doth get a rea&s;onable Sub&s;i&s;tence to live in a hard world, and being a good Corn-cutter, he doth make his harve&s;t, and thriftily brings it home, as well in Winter as in Summer. His Name is <HI>John Clarke,</HI> and he liveth at the next door to the Sign of the <HI>Soldier</HI> and <HI>Trumpet</HI> at <HI>Knockfergus.</HI> His Wife is a great Pains-taker, and well beloved among&s;t her neighbours, who were many of them with her, at the time of her delivery, and did a&s;&s;i&s;t her in her Childing throwes.</P>
<P>Three dayes after &s;he was brought to bed, many of her neighbours came to give her a vi&s;it, and &s;ome of them were witne&s;&s;es at the Chri&s;tning of her Child, who&s;e Name was <HI>John,</HI> after the Name of his Father; loo|king &s;tedfa&s;tly on the Child and ki&s;&s;ing it, the Child did open its mouth, and they plainly di&s;cerned that it had two Tongues, which they were loath to di&s;cover to the mother, who for all &s;he gave it &s;uck, had not then the lea&s;t knowledge of it.</P>
<P>Mrs. <HI>Nicholls</HI> her next Neighbour whi&s;pering to the Midwife, who&s;e name is Mrs. <HI>Silk,</HI> concerning it, and the other Neighbours marvelling at it, and de&s;ired that for the pre&s;ent it might be kept in private among&s;t them|&s;elves, becau&s;e they were loath to di&s;quiet the mother, who began to take a little re&s;t after her hard Travail, with &s;uch melancholy News, the Child began to wayle, and to cry out, <HI>A King, A King, A King;</HI></P>
<P>If they were &s;urpri&s;ed with wonder to &s;ee two Tongues, how may we think, they were now tran&s;ported to hear one of them to &s;peak, and to &s;peak &s;uch a word, &s;o un|expectedly and di&s;tinctly.</P>
<P>In a &s;ilence full of amazement, they did now look on one another, the &s;peaking Child had made the Women
<PB N="6" REF="6"><!-- PDF PAGE 18 -->dumb, which more then all the Bels in the Town ringing at once, or the ratling of the brazen pans can doe when the Moon is in labour: Being all of them for a little re|&s;pit of time thus hu&s;ht as midnight, the Child began to &s;peak again, and to repeat tho&s;e-Words it did expre&s;s be|fore, which the Mother hearing, did call for the Child, and did partake of the Wonder with them; they en|tred into Councel, and concluded that in regard the Name and Authority of a King had been aboli&s;hed by the Par|liament, it was not fit it &s;hould be divulged; the Mother, therefore did de&s;ire them that they would not make any mention of it, which they pron&s;i&s;ed to perform; but what muzzle can &s;ilence the tongue of a woman?</P>
<P>From whi&s;pers at the fir&s;t, it began to grow into open Reports, and the more they did promi&s;e to &s;uppre&s;s it, the more it was divulged; how&s;oever the Mother (as &s;he &s;aith her &s;elf) did tamper with the Child, and as much as &s;he could to make it &s;en&s;ible of her, &s;he did forbid it to &s;peak in that Name, which neither &s;he, nor others that did attempt it could ever effect.</P>
<P>In a &s;hort time the Child with two tongues, and the words in the mouth of it were famous in the City, and divers Gentlewomen of the City did &s;end their Coaches for the mother and the Child, who ever now and anon, would cry out <HI>A King, a King, a King;</HI> and if there were any company about it, that it did not like, it will put forth its hand and cry <HI>Away, away&punc;</HI></P>
<P>This being rumour'd in the City, great Ladies and many per&s;onages of honour at <HI>Clerken-well</HI> have &s;ent for the Mother and Child, who not knowing what to make of it, have neverthele&s;s been beneficial to the poor Mother of it. It is ob&s;erveable, that whereas other Children go forward, this Child do what they can goes backward.</P>
<P>The Age of the Child being three quarters of a yeer.</P>
<TRAILER>FINIS.</TRAILER>
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