Appendix. 223
in London had been "also wyth him," Harvey, who was
then dwelling in Saffron Walden, sent to the poet a " pleasant
and pitthy discourse of the earthquake," detailing all that
happened within his knowledge. The shock, "making a
great loude noyse & much adoo," appears to have been
strongly felt by all in the room with him, " affrighting the
ladies and causing the table to move and rattle," upon which
he sent out a man into the town and learnt that " the very
like had behappened the next Towne too, being a farre
greater & goodlyer Towne " ; and he speaks of it later as
having been also felt in " many neighbour Townes & villages
about us." It it most probable that the " goodlyer Towne "
referred to is Newport, which was then the market-town to
Saffron Walden. A curious and lengthy treatise upon earth-
quakes in general follows the detailed description of his
experience of the shock, in which he includes the erroneous
explanations and ideas of the ancients as well as of his own
time.
The other record furnished by Mr. Christy occurs in the
MS. " Commonplace book of Ed. Symonds of Black Notley,
in the county of Essex." The MS. is in the possession of
Mr. Shirley, of Ettington Hall, Warwickshire, and gives " an
account of an earthquake at Witham, in the county of Suffolk,
on Sept. 8th, 1692." We have not been able to see the MS.
referred to, but there can be no doubt that the Witham
spoken of is the Essex town, to which Black Notley is an
adjacent village, there being no place of the same name in
Suffolk. The shock is probably the same as that recorded at
Colchester (p. 11) and Coggeshall (p. 12).