DARRELL. 117 living towards the close of the year 1600 ; but when he died we have not been able to learn. He published several pieces against the papists. Jonx DARRELL, A. B.-He was minister at Nottingham, but a person in some respects of very peculiar sentiments. He believed, that by fasting and prayer evil spirits might be cast out of persons possessed. Dr. Hey lin, defaming his memory, says, that he set up the trade of lecturing at Not- tingham, without any layrful calling; and, to advance his reputation, pretended to cast out devils.. Mr. Strype, also, with a design to reproach the puritans as a body, observes, that when the open practices of the puritans for setting up their discipline did mot prevail, some of their ministers had recourse to a more secret method, by doing something which looked little less than miraculous. They pretended, by fasting and prayer, to cast out devils; by which the multitude became so amazed, and were led so to venerate them, that they were the more readily inclined to submit to their opinions and ways. This was a practice borrowed from the papists, to make their priests revered, and to confirm the laity in their superstitions.+ From these base insinuations, we might be led to suppose, that some plot of considerable magnitude was laid by the puritans, to conjure the ignorant multitude into a belief of their dis- cipline, and the practice of nonconformity : but all this vapour and smoke at once vanishes, and we only hear of the principles and practice of a solitary individual, in connexion with two or three others of less note, but of similar sentiments. What we have to say is not intended as a defence of Mr. Darrell's peculiarities. He appears to have been a weak, but zealous and honest man ; and, therefore, undeserving of the cruel usage which he received from Archbishop Whit- gift and others. But because he was a puritan, and a sufferer for nonconformity, it will be proper to give an impartial statement of facts. The learned historian observes, that, in the year 1586, Mr. Darrell professed to cast a devil out of one Katharine Wright, a young woman about seventeen years of age, living in Derbyshire. But the evil spirit afterwards re- turning into her, he cast out eight other devils, with which * }list, of Pres. p. 348. f Strype's Whitgift, p. 492.
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