"It was a trim worke indeede, and a gay world no doubt for some idle
cloister-man, mad merry friers, and lusty abbey-lubbers; when
themselves were well whittled, and their paunches pretily stuffed, to
fall a prophesieing of the woefull dearths, famines, plagues, wars, &c.
of the dangerous days imminent."--Harvey's _Discoursive Probleme_,
Lond. 1588.
Among the sly hits at our nation, which abound in the lively pages of the
Sieur d'Argenton, is one to the effect that an Englishman always has an old
prophecy in his possession. The worthy Sieur is describing the meeting of
Louis X. and our Henry II. near Picquini, where the Chancellor of England
commenced his harangue by alluding to an ancient prophecy which predicted
that the Plain of Picquini should be the scene of a memorable and lasting
peace between the two nations. "The Bishop," says Commines, "commença par
une prophétie, dont," adds he, _en parenthèse_, "les Anglois ne sont jamais
despourveus."[1] Even at this early period, we had thus acquired a
reputation for prophecies, and it must be confessed that our chronicles
abound in passages which illustrate the justice of the Sieur's sarcasm.
From the days of York and Lancaster, when, according to Lord Northampton
"bookes of beasts and babyes were exceeding ryfe, and current in every
quarter and corner of the realme,"[2] up to the time of Napoleon's
projected invasion, when the presses of the Seven Dials were unusually
prolific in visions and predictions, pandering to the popular fears of the
country--our national character for vaticination has been amply sustained
by a goodly array of prophets, real or pretended, whose lucubrations have
not even yet entirely lost their influence upon the popular mind. To this
day, the ravings of Nixon are "household words" in Cheshire; and I am told
that a bundle of "Dame Shipton's Sayings" still forms a very saleable
addition to the pack of a Yorkshire pedlar. Recent discoveries in
biological science have given to the subject of popular prophecies a
philosophical importance beyond the mere curiosity or strangeness of the
details. Whether or not the human mind, under certain conditions, becomes
endowed with the prescient faculty, is a question I do not wish to discuss
in your pages: I merely wish to direct attention to a neglected and not
uninteresting chapter in the curiosities of literature.
In delving among what may be termed the popular religious literature of the
latter years of the Commonwealth, and early part of the reign of Charles,
we become aware of the existence of a kind of nightmare which the public of
that age were evidently labouring under--a strong and vivid impression that
some terrible calamity was impending over the metropolis. Puritanic
tolerance was sorely tried by the licence of the new Court; and the pulpits
were soon filled with enthusiasts of all sects, who railed in no measured
terms against the monster city--the city Babylon--the bloody city! as they
loved to term her: proclaiming with all the fervour of fanaticism that the
measure of her iniquities was well nigh full, and the day of her extinction
at hand. The press echoed the cry; and for some years before and after the
Restoration, it teemed with "warnings" and "visions," in which the
approaching destruction is often plainly predicted. One of the earliest of
these prefigurations occurs in that Leviathan of Sermons, _God's Plea for
Nineveh, or London's Precedent for Mercy_, by Thomas Reeve: London, 1657.
Speaking of London, he says:
It was Troy-novant, it is Troy le grand, and it will be Troy
l'extinct."--P. 217.
{80} And again:
"Methinks I see you bringing pick-axes to dig downe your owne walls,
and kindling sparks that will act all in a flame from one end of the
city to the other."--P. 214.
And afterwards, in a strain of rough eloquence:
"This goodly city of yours all in shreds, ye may seek for a threshold
of your antient dwellings, for a pillar of your pleasant habitations,
and not find them; all your spacious mansions and sumptuous monuments
are then gone.... Wo unto us, our sins have pulled down our houses,
shaken down our city; we are the most harbourlesse featlesse people in
the world.... Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air nests, but we
have neither; our sins have deprived us both of couch and covert. What
inventions shall ye then be put to, to secure yourselves, when your
sins shall have shut up all the conduits of the city, and suffer only
the Liver conduit to run[3]; when they allow you no showers of rain,
but showers of blood; when ye shall see no men of your incorporation,
but the mangl'd citizen; nor hear no noise in your streets but the
crys, the shrieks, the yells and pangs of gasping, dying men; when,
amongst the throngs of associates, not a man will own you or come near
you," &c.--Pp. 221. _et seq._
After alluding to the epidemics of former ages, he thus alludes to the
coming plague:
"It will chase men out of their houses, as if there was some fierce
enemy pursuing them, and shut up shop doors, as if execution after
judgment was served upon the merchants; there will then be no other
music to be heard but doleful knells, nor no other wares to be born up
and down but dead corpses; it will change mansion houses into
pest-houses, and gather congregations rather into churchyards than
churches.... The markets will be so empty, that scarce necessaries will
be brought in, a new kind of brewers will set up, even apothecaries to
prepare diet drinks."--P. 255.
The early Quakers, like most other religious enthusiasts, claimed the gift
of prophecy: and we are indebted to members of the sect for many
contributions to this branch of literature. Humphrey Smith was one of the
most celebrated of the vaticinating Quakers. Little is known of his life
and career. He appears to have joined the Quakers about 1654; and after
enduring a long series of persecutions and imprisonments for the sake of
his adopted creed, finally ended his days in Winchester gaol in 1662. The
following passage, from a _Vision which he saw concerning London_ (London,
1660). is startling[4]:
"And as for the city, herself and her suburbs, and all that belonged to
her, a fire was kindled therin; but she knew not how, even in all her
goodly places, and the kindling of it was in the foundation of all her
buildings, and there was none could quench it.... And the burning
thereof was exceeding great, and it burned inward in a hidden manner
which cannot be described.... All the tall buildings fell, and it
consumed all the lofty things therein, and the fire searched out all
the hidden places, and burned most in the secret places. And as I
passed through her streets I beheld her state to be very miserable, and
very few were those who were left in her, who were but here and there
one: and they feared not the fire, neither did the burning hurt them,
but they walked as dejected mournful people.... And the fire continued,
for, though all the lofty part was brought down, yet there was much old
stuffe, and parts of broken-down desolate walls, which the fire
continued burning against.... And the vision thereof remained in me as
a thing that was showed me of the Lord."
Daniel Baker, Will Lilly, and Nostradamus, I shall reserve for another
paper.