excluded; because their dissertations, treating only upon the minutes as they pass, become useless as those go off. In consideration of which, Time, whose registers they are, gives them a lease in reversion, to continue their works after death. Or, perhaps, a name can make an almanack as well as it can sell one. And to strengthen this conjecture, I have heard the booksellers affirm, that they have desired Mr. Partridge to spare himself further trouble, and only lend them his name, which could make Almanacks much better than himself.1 I should not have given the public, or myself, the trouble of this vindication, if my name had not been made use of by several persons to whom I never lent it; one of which, a few days ago, was pleased to father on me a new set of predictions. But I think these are things too serious to be trifled with. It grieved me to the heart, when I saw my labours, which had cost me so much thought and watching, bawled about by the common hawkers of Grub-Street, which I only intended for the weighty consideration of the gravest persons. This prejudiced the world so much at first, that several of my friends had the assurance to ask me whether I were in jest? to which I only answered coldly, "that the event would shew." But it is the talent of our age and nation, to turn things of the greatest importance into ridicule. When the end of the year had verified all my predictions, out comes Mr. Partridge's almanack, disputing the point of his death; so that I am employed, like the general who was forced to kill his enemies twice over, whom a necromancer had raised to life. If Mr. Partridge has practised the same experiment upon himself, and be again alive, long may he continue so; that does not the least contradict my veracity: but I think I have clearly proved, by invincible demonstration, that he died, at farthest, within half an hour of the time I foretold, [and not four hours sooner, as the above-mentioned author, in his letter to a lord, has maliciously suggested, with a design to blast my credit, by charging me with so gross a mistake.] 2 1 The passage beginning with "Or, perhaps," and ending with "himself," is omitted by Scott. [T. S.] 2 The passage included in the square brackets is not in the first edition, but Faulkner, Hawkesworth, and Scott give it, and Professor Arber places it in square brackets also. [T. S.] A FAMOUS PREDICTION OF MERLIN, THE BRITISH WIZARD. WRITTEN ABOVE A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, AND RELATING TO THE YEAR 1709. WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES. By T. N. PHILOMATH. [WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709.] A FAMOUS PREDICTION OF MERLIN. LAST year was published a paper of Predictions, pre tended to be written by one Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; but the true design of it was to ridicule the art of astrology, and expose its professors as ignorant or impostors. Against this imputation Dr. Partridge has learnedly vindicated himself in his almanack for that year. For a farther vindication of this famous art, I have thought fit to present the world with the following prophecy. The original is said to be of the famous Merlin, who lived about a thousand years ago; and the following translation is two hundred years old, for it seems to be written near the end of Henry the Seventh's reign. I found it in an old edition of Merlin's prophecies, imprinted at London by Johan Haukyns, in the year 1530, page 39. I set it down word for word in the old orthography, and shall take leave to subjoin a few explanatory notes. Seven and Ten addyd to nine, Of Fraunce hir Moe this is the Sygne, Walke sans wetyng Shoes ne Wozen. And Norways Pryd again shall marry. EXPLANATORY NOTES. Seven and Ten. This line describes the year when these events shall happen. Seven and ten make seventeen, which I explain seventeen hundred, and this number added to nine, makes the year we are now in; for it must be understood of the natural year, which begins the first of January. Tamps Ribere twys, &c. The River Thames frozen twice in one year, so as men to walk on it, is a very signal accident, which perhaps hath not fallen out for several hundred years before, and is the reason why some astrologers have thought that this prophecy could never be fulfilled, because they imagined such a thing would never happen in our climate. From Town of Stoffe, &c. This is a plain designation of the Duke of Marlborough: one kind of stuff used to fatten and is called marle, and everybody knows that borough is a name for a town; and this way of expression is after the usual dark manner of old astrological predictions. Then shall the Fyshe, &c. By the fish is understood the Dauphin of France, as their kings' eldest sons are called: 'tis here said, he shall lament the loss of the Duke of Burgundy, called the Bosse, which is an old English word for hump-shoulder, or crook-back, as that Duke is known to be; and the prophecy seems to mean that he should be overcome or slain. By the green berrys, in the next line, is meant the young Duke of Berry, the Dauphin's third son, who shall not |