[Footnote 78: "Day fatality" was especially insisted on by these
students, and is curiously noted in a folio tract, published in 1687,
particularly devoted to "Remarques on the 14th of October, being the
auspicious birth-day of his present Majesty James II.," whose author
speaks of having seen in the hands of "that genera scholar, and great
astrologer, E. Ashmole," a manuscript in which the following barbarous
monkish rhymes were inserted, noting the unlucky days of each month:--
JANUARY Prima dies menses, et septima truncat ut ensis.
FEBRUARY Quarta subit mortem, prosternit tertia fortem.
MARCH Primus mandentem, disrumpit quarta bibentem.
APRIL Denus et undenus est mortis vulnere plenus.
MAY Tertius occidit, et septimus ora relidit.
JUNE Denus pallescit, quindenus foedra nescit.
JULY Ter-decimus mactat, Julii denus labefactat.
AUGUST Prima necat fortem prosternit secunda cohortem.
SEPTEMBER Tertia Septembris, et denus fert mala membris.
OCTOBER Tertius et denus, est sicut mors alienus.
NOVEMBER Scorpius est quintus, et tertius e nece cinctus.
DECEMBER Septimus exanguis, virosus denus et anguis.
The author of this strange book fortifies his notions on "day fatality"
by printing a letter from Sir Winstan Churchill, who says, "I have made
great experience of the truth of it, and have set down Fryday as my own
lucky day; the day on which I was born, christened, married, and I
believe will be the day of my death. The day whereon I have had sundry
deliverances from perils by sea and land, perils by false brethren,
perils of lawsuits, &c. I was knighted (by chance unexpected of myself)
on the same day, and have several good accidents happened to me on that
day; and am so superstitious in the belief of its good omen, that I
choose to begin any considerable action that concerns me on the same
day."]
[Footnote 79: Lilly was at one time a staunch adherent of the
Roundheads, and "read in the stars" all kinds of successes for them. His
great feat was a prediction made for the month of June, 1645--"If now we
fight, a victory stealeth upon us." A fight did occur at Naseby, and
concluded the overthrow of the unfortunate Charles the First. The words
are sufficiently ambiguous; but not so much so, as many other
"prophecies" of the same notable quack, happily constructed to shift
with changes in events, and so be made to fit them. Lilly was opposed by
Wharton, who saw in the stars as many good signs for the Royal Army; and
Lilly himself began to see differently as the power of Cromwell waned.
Among the hundreds of pamphlets poured from the press in the excited
days of the great civil wars in England, few are more curious than these
"strange and remarkable predictions," "Signs in the Sky," and "Warnings
to England," the productions of star-gazing knaves, which "terrified our
isle from its propriety."]