Recueil de ma vie, mes ouvrages et mes pensees. Par Thomas Ignace Marie
Forster.[690] Brussels, 1836, 12mo.
Mr. Forster, an Englishman settled at Bruges, was an observer in many
subjects, but especially in meteorology. He communicated to the
Astronomical Society, in 1848, the information that, in the registers kept
by his grandfather, his father, and himself, beginning in 1767, new moon on
Saturday was followed, nineteen times out of twenty, by twenty days of rain
and wind. This statement being published in the _Athenaeum_, a cluster of
correspondents averred that the belief is common among seamen, in all parts
of the world, and among landsmen too. Some one quoted a distich:
"Saturday's moon and Sunday's full
Never were fine and never _wull_."
{321} Another brought forward:
"If a Saturday's moon
Comes once in seven years it comes too soon."
Mr. Forster did not say he was aware of the proverbial character of the
phenomenon. He was a very eccentric man. He treated his dogs as friends,
and buried them with ceremony. He quarrelled with the _cure_ of his parish,
who remarked that he could not take his dogs to heaven with him. I will go
nowhere, said he, where I cannot take my dog. He was a sincere Catholic:
but there is a point beyond which even churches have no influence.
The following is some account of the announcement of 1849. The _Athenaeum_
(Feb. 17), giving an account of the meeting of the Astronomical Society in
December, 1858, says:
"Dr. Forster of Bruges, who is well known as a meteorologist, made a
communication at which our readers will stare: he declares that by journals
of the weather kept by his grandfather, father, and himself, ever since
1767, to the present time, _whenever the new moon has fallen on a Saturday,
the following twenty days have been wet and windy_, in nineteen cases out
of twenty. In spite of our friend Zadkiel[691] and the others who declare
that we would smother every truth that does not happen to agree with us, we
are glad to see that the Society had the sense to publish this
communication, coming, as it does, from a veteran observer, and one whose
love of truth is undoubted. It must be that the fact is so set down in the
journals, because Dr. Forster says it: and whether it be only a fact of the
journals, or one of the heavens, can soon be tried. The new moon of March
next, falls on _Saturday_ the 24th, at 2 in the afternoon. We shall
certainly look out."
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The following appeared in the number of March 31:
"The first _Saturday Moon_ since Dr. Forster's announcement came off a week
ago. We had previously received a number of letters from different
correspondents--all to the effect that the notion of new moon on Saturday
bringing wet weather is one of widely extended currency. One correspondent
(who gives his name) states that he has constantly heard it at sea, and
among the farmers and peasantry in Scotland, Ireland, and the North of
England. He proceeds thus: 'Since 1826, nineteen years of the time I have
spent in a seafaring life. I have constantly observed, though unable to
account for, the phenomenon. I have also heard the stormy qualities of a
Saturday's moon remarked by American, French, and Spanish seamen; and,
still more distant, a Chinese pilot, who was once doing duty on board my
vessel seemed to be perfectly cognizant of the fact.' So that it seems we
have, in giving currency to what we only knew as a very curious
communication from an earnest meteorologist, been repeating what is common
enough among sailors and farmers. Another correspondent affirms that the
thing is most devoutly believed in by seamen; who would as soon sail on a
Friday as be in the Channel after a Saturday moon.--After a tolerable
course of dry weather, there was some snow, accompanied by wind on Saturday
last, here in London; there were also heavy louring clouds. Sunday was
cloudy and cold, with a little rain; Monday was louring, Tuesday unsettled;
Wednesday quite overclouded, with rain in the morning. The present occasion
shows only a general change of weather with a tendency towards rain. If Dr.
Forster's theory be true, it is decidedly one of the minor instances, as
far as London weather is concerned.--It will take a good deal of evidence
to make us believe in the omen of a Saturday Moon. But, as we have said of
the Poughkeepsie Seer, the thing is very curious whether true or false.
Whence comes this universal proverb--and a hundred others--while the
meteorological observer {323} cannot, when he puts down a long series of
results, detect any weather cycles at all? One of our correspondents wrote
us something of a lecture for encouraging, he said, the notion that _names_
could influence the weather. He mistakes the question. If there be any
weather cycles depending on the moon, it is possible that one of them may
be so related to the week cycle of seven days, as to show recurrences which
are of the kind stated, or any other. For example, we know that if the new
moon of March fall on a Saturday in this year, it will most probably fall
on a Saturday nineteen years hence. This is not connected with the spelling
of Saturday--but with the connection between the motions of the sun and
moon. Nothing but the Moon can settle the question--and we are willing to
wait on her for further information. If the adage be true, then the
philosopher has missed what lies before his eyes; if false, then the world
can be led by the nose in spite of the eyes. Both these things happen
sometimes; and we are willing to take whichever of the two solutions is
borne out by future facts. In the mean time, we announce the next Saturday
Moon for the 18th of August."
How many coincidences are required to establish a law of connection? It
depends on the way in which the mind views the matter in question. Many of
the paradoxers are quite set up by a very few instances. I will now tell a
story about myself, and then ask them a question.
So far as instances can prove a law, the following is proved: no failure
has occurred. Let a clergyman be known to me, whether by personal
acquaintance or correspondence, or by being frequently brought before me by
those with whom I am connected in private life: that clergyman does not,
except in few cases, become a bishop; but _if_ he become a bishop, he is
sure, first or last, to become an arch-bishop. This has happened in every
case. As follows:
1. My last schoolmaster, a former Fellow of Oriel, was {324} a very
intimate college friend of Richard Whately[692], a younger man. Struck by
his friend's talents, he used to talk of him perpetually, and predict his
future eminence. Before I was sixteen, and before Whately had even given
his Bampton Lectures, I was very familiar with his name, and some of his
sayings. I need not say that he became Archbishop of Dublin.
2. When I was a child, a first cousin of John Bird Sumner[693] married a
sister of my mother. I cannot remember the time when I first heard his
name, but it was made very familiar to me. In time he became Bishop of
Chester, and then, Archbishop of Canterbury. My reader may say that Dr.
C. R. Sumner,[694] Bishop of Winchester, has just as good a claim: but it
is not so: those connected with me had more knowledge of Dr. J. B.
Sumner;[695] and said nothing, or next to nothing, of the other. Rumor says
that the Bishop of Winchester has _declined_ an Archbishopric: if so, my
rule is a rule of gradations.
3. Thomas Musgrave,[696] Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was _Dean_
of the college when I was an undergraduate: this brought me into connection
with him, he giving impositions for not going to chapel, I writing them out
according. We had also friendly intercourse in after life; I forgiving, he
probably forgetting. Honest Tom {325} Musgrave, as he used to be called,
became Bishop of Hereford, and Archbishop of York.
4. About the time when I went to Cambridge, I heard a great deal about Mr.
C. T. Longley,[697] of Christchurch, from a cousin of my own of the same
college, long since deceased, who spoke of him much, and most
affectionately. Dr. Longley passed from Durham to York, and thence to
Canterbury. I cannot quite make out the two Archbishoprics; I do not
remember any other private channel through which the name came to me:
perhaps Dr. Longley, having two strings to his bow, would have been one
archbishop if I had never heard of him.
5. When Dr. Wm. Thomson[698] was appointed to the see of Gloucester in
1861, he and I had been correspondents on the subject of logic--on which we
had both written--for about fourteen years. On his elevation I wrote to
him, giving the preceding instances, and informing him that he would
certainly be an Archbishop. The case was a strong one, and the law acted
rapidly; for Dr. Thomson's elevation to the see of York took place in 1862.
Here are five cases; and there is no opposing instance. I have searched the
almanacs since 1828, and can find no instance of a Bishop not finally
Archbishop of whom I had known through private sources, direct or indirect.
Now what do my paradoxers say? Is this a pre-established harmony, or a
chain of coincidences? And how many instances will it require to establish
a law?[699]
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