Denton.
_Cæsarius, &c._--No facts have yet occurred to convince me but that all
prophecies are stuff; by no means excepting those which Dr. Gregory
printed in _Blackwood for 1850_, and from which (more strange) he is
unweaned in 1851. Seeing that you have reprinted (Vol. iv., p. 471.) the
prophecy falsely ascribed to that ancient Latin father, Cæsarius
Arelatensis, I beg leave to mention that I published in the _British
Magazine for 1846_ an historical and chronological explanation of that
modern forgery, as well as of the far more ancient predictions ascribed
to Queen Basina. Thomas of Ercildoun was anterior in date to the
pseudo-Cæsarius, and borrowed the idea of _his_ French revolution from
Basina's, if, indeed, that prophecy be authentically from his pen, of
which the proofs are very slender. See it quoted in Walter Scott's
_Poet. Works_, vi. p. 236., ed. 1820.
I wish to be informed in what sense, and for what reason, Walter Scott
in the same page calls the prophecy-man Robert Fleming, "Mass Robert
Fleming."