In both these accounts we have the story at second hand. The Hon. Charles Barker, LL.D., was rector of Kenn at the time, and during his tenure of the rectory, Mrs. Oxenham erected a monument in the church to her father and mother. But who was the J. Short, Middle Temple, who wrote the above letter to George Nares, jun., Albury? And what is more to the point, how came it to be dated December 24th, 1741, when Mr. William Oxenham, whose death it records, died on 10 December, 1743? Discrepancies and anachronisms meet us at every point in the story of the Oxenham omen.
In the Gentleman's Magazine of the year 1794, the following paragraph occurs recording the death of one of the Oxenhams: "13th (January) at Exeter, aged 80, Mrs. Elizabeth Weston … the youngest daughter of William Oxenham, Esq., of Oxenham. The last appearance of the bird, mentioned by Howell and Prince, is said to have been to Mrs. E. Weston's eldest brother on his death-bed." Who said it? What was the authority?
In Mogridge's Descriptive Sketch of Sidmouth, is given a letter relative to the death of a Mr. Oxenham at Sidmouth:—
"My dear Sir,
"I give you, as well as I can recollect, the story related to me by a much respected baronet of this county. He told me that, having read in Howell's Anecdotes of the singular appearance of a white bird flying across, or hovering about the lifeless body of divers members of the Devonshire Oxenham family, immediately after dissolution, and also having heard the tradition in other quarters, wishing rather for an opportunity of refuting the superstitious assertion than from an idea of meeting with anything like a confirmation; having
