Variety of Information in the Old Almanacs.

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the honourable city of London; among these we find Jerusalem, Mexico, and the famous city of Calicut.' Nineveh and Babylon also take their place in this table, and we smile to read that the latter is just 2710 miles off. But geographical knowledge was very unsettled then; still, that the trader and the farmer should seek to know aught about these far-off lands shows how widely the spirit of inquiry had spread. The astronomical tables are mostly very full. In several, the method of determining the rising of the star, of taking the altitude of the sun, and of drawing the meridian line, are given. The various changes in the heavenly bodies are frequently noted, too, without the slightest allusion to their benign or sinister aspect on our mundane affairs; while the phrase, often used, that beautiful planet Venus,' seems to show that even the almanac-maker of those days felt that the stars were indeed the poetry of heaven,' and a beauty no less than a mystery.

In one curious respect we find the writer far in advance of the time, for Daniel Browne, well-willer to the mathematics,' in the year 1607, actually gives a double numbering of the days of the year, one column being headed the English accompt,' and the other beside it the Roman accompt,' and in the latter, January 1st figures as the 11th, thus anticipating by nearly a hundred and fifty years the adoption of the new style. We find in some of these very full directions for drawing leases, and other legal forms, and lists of law officers. It is suggestive to see among these, names that have filled a page in history. Some of the country almanacs have a singularly ample list of saints' days, including numerous Saxon names. There are numerous church directions, too; not improbably these circulated among the Catholic population of the northern parts. The stringency of the rules of the English church at this time is suggestively indicated in many of the almanacs, which give, appended to the list of law terms, the times of marriage for this year.' In Vaux, 1608, we have this curious notification. Weddings comes in ' 13th January, and goes out again the 23rd. It comes in again April 4th, and goes out again 1st daye of May. It comes in again the 23rd, and goeth out again the 27th daye of November.'" In passing, we may observe that the growing Puritan feeling in London seems to be indicated by the very scanty list of saints' days which most of them published there include.

After an interval of some thirteen years, during which none seem to have been preserved, we open a very thick volume, containing the almanacs for 1630-a full score of them. Many old acquaintances meet us here-White and Wodehouse, with their lists of wholesomes, and rules for sowing and planting;

Daniel Browne, and his new-style kalendar; and Jeffery Neve, still celebrating 'gallant May;' and Hopton teaching the sons, just as he had taught their fathers, the value of the 'groat a day,' if duly managed. There are, however, some new adventurers into this field of literature. Richard Allestree, whose prognostications respecting the weather are given with Murphy-like minuteness, and whose poetical announcements are all carefully ended 'sermonwise. Thus, in April

"Tellus awakes from sleep, and now is seen,

In spite of winter, clad again in green.

Wake, sluggish man! lest thou be taken napping,
By Satan's dormitives thy sense entrapping."

The religious character of these new almanacs is indeed. strongly marked-another proof we think of the still increasing Puritan tendencies of London. Ranger, who abounds in medical directions, sums up his gloomy catalogue of diseases likely to occur, with the remark, from these, but especiallie from the speckled leprosie of the soule, the good Lord deliver us.' Hewlett, in a dissertation prefixed to his almanac, says, 'the dumb creatures set forth God's glory, and perform obedience to their 'Creator; they never cease to do their duty and office set, yet 'man, alas! for whom all these creatures were made, is ever start'ing aside from the Lord his maker.' As may be expected much of the religious moralizing is very commonplace; the poetry, too, which abounds in these later almanacs, is mostly prosing enough. We must, however, here make an exception in favour of Evans' almanac, the fullest of information of any, and containing some really fine poetry. Here is the conclusion of the address to the Ruler of the universe':

'In glory Thou in Heaven art, in mercy here below,

In judgment with the demon-crew, the seas Thy wonders show;
Yet sea, nor earth, nor heavens hie, Thy essence can contain,
Thou art, hast bin, and ever shalt, I AM of might remain.
It is not wealth, nor Ophir-gold that can enrich our need,
Nor pleasing dainties that we take that can our bodies feed;
It is Thy blessing from above, Thy strong protecting arm,
That feeds, protects Thy children dear, from penury and harm.
Eternal King! immortal God! all kingdoms are Thine own,
Thy power, Thy wisdom, and Thy might, to us doth make Thee known;
All honour, glory, praise, and laud, be rendered Thee by men,
Unto Thy sacred majesty, for evermore, Amen!'

Who could possibly imagine that the publisher-perhaps the composer, too, of these noble lines-was one of the most dis

'Evans' Almanac for 1630-The Political Almanacs. 351

reputable of a disreputable fraternity, the astrologers of Shoelane. And yet so it was; for John Evans, philomath,' of Gunpowder-alley, in that too famous locality, was the excellent wise man who studied the black art,' and who had the credit of initiating no less celebrated a personage than Master William Lilly into the arts and mysteries of 'setting a figure and casting nativities, but who also had the reputation of being covetous, fraudulent, and dreadfully addicted to drinking; and then, as his pupil naively tells us, was so abusive and quarrelsome that he was seldom without a black eye or some mischief or other.' Little would the reader believe this, as he turned over 'Evans' Almanac for 1630,' a manual so well written-in some parts even so eloquently written; so full of good advice, too, and so full of general information. But Evans, as we further learn from Lilly's very minute account, had received a university education, was a Master of Arts, and in orders. He had formerly had a parish in Staffordshire, but being in a manner enforced to fly for some 'offences very scandalous committed by him in these parts, he 'came to try his fortune in London.' And we have little doubt that his almanac proved a 'good get-penny,' as the phrase then was; for in addition to ample lists of things wholesome and unwholesome,' and 'things to be avoided,' we have one of 'meates good (bad, we should rather think,) to beget melancholie-a visitation which sorely frightened our forefathers, although they were scarcely able to define what they meant by it. Brawne, hare's flesh, salt meates,' and 'thicke wines,' are among these, but strangely enough, he adds, beef. The medical directions are very full for each month, and one that occurs under August, seems to corroborate the opinion which has been held by some medical writers, that the plague, in its earlier and milder approaches, was a species of influenza: this is, 'take heed of sudden colds, for nothing sooner breedeth the plague. The prognostications of the coming seasons are very precise; and the meteorological observations are really excellent; there are also some slight attempts at political prophecy, but evidently with great caution-vague hints of coming trouble in Protestant Germany, but explicit notification of the overthrow of the Turk.'

But the time was drawing on-it was even at hand, when the political almanac should almost supersede every other, and when the astrologer should play in England well nigh as important a part as he did in Wallenstein's army. A very curious additional chapter in the history of the Parliamentary war might be written on the almanac-makers who, up to the eve of Naseby fight, promised misguided Charles undoubted victory, or nerved the arm of the stout Parliament soldier by prophecies that he should

smite down Baal. A different class many of these seem to have been from their earlier brethren. Some occupying a rather higher station, and some apparently respectable enough. Such Booker seems to have been, whom even his rival Lilly acknowledges as a very honest man;' and although we cannot hold Lilly himself in any high esteem, still, that he was respectable in his station, and possessed a small independent property, we know.

It was not want which drove William Lilly into that 'profession, to which, according to his friend, worthy, credulous Elias Ashmole, he was so great an ornament, but desire for knowledge, awakened, as he tells us, by the discourse of a justice of peace's clerk, as they stood one Sunday talking before service— it were well had they been more suitably employed-about learned men; nay, one so great a scholar that he could make an almanac, which to me then was strange. One speech begot another, till at last he said he could bring me acquainted with one Evans in Gunpowder-alley,' the very respectable personage to whom we have already introduced the reader. To Evans they went during the following week, but he having been 'drunk the night before, was upon his bed, if bed it could be 'called whereon he then lay.' The miserable sot was however roused up, and after some compliments' agreed to take the wondering young man as a pupil; and so rapid was his progress that in seven or eight weeks he could set a figure perfectly.' But Lilly did not forthwith commence almanac-making; he seems at first to have contented himself with the meaner pursuits of astrology, and to have questioned the stars not on the fate of men and kingdoms, but as to the whereabouts of silver cups or purses unaccountably missing. Having a competency bequeathed him by his old mistress-the cunning young serving-man had persuaded her to marry him-and having taken a second wife, a dreadful termagant, as he ruefully tells us, he retired to Hersham in 1636, and there resided until the commencement of the civil wars; doubtless from the loopholes of his retreat casting many a shrewd look on the growing confusion of the times,' and balancing in his mind to which party he should give in his adhesion. Not very quickly did he decide. Edgehill had been fought with doubtful advantage on either side; then the first battle of Newbury had confirmed the hopes of the Royalists, and Charles, though an exile from his capital, was holding his court at Oxford. But then the Parliament was still a name of power; it had brought the Primate of all England to its bar, and was proceeding vigorously in its work of reformation. Still the wary astrologer hesitated; and not until the spring of 1644, when

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353

although the king's affairs seemed more favourable than heretofore, the Scots army had entered England, and the hopes of the Puritan party began to revive, did he quit his country retreat, 'perceiving,' as he honestly enough says, 'that there was money to be got in London.'

There were many almanac-writers there already, prophesying success to the Parliament, while old Master William Hodges' at Wolverhampton, and Captain Wharton at Oxford, were as confident that the stars were on the side of royalty. So with much caution, though with an evident leaning toward the Parliament, Lilly put forth in April, 1644, his Merlinus Anglicus Junior. This is a small thin quarto pamphlet, containing predictions for the eight remaining months of the year; some of them vague enough. Thus: if our armies be near, there will be blows.' 'Observe who is in danger at the latter end of May, or at the conjunction of Saturn and Mars on the 31st.' He further remarks, under July, that the first week will prove bloody enough ;' likely enough, with fighting going on in the west, and the south, and the north. Merlinus was, however, most favourably received; the first impression was sold off in less than a week, and Lilly having presented a copy unto the then Mr. Whitelocke,' he by accident was reading thereof in the House of Commons. One looked upon it, and so did many,' and in the sequel the members of the honourable House became interested in the work and the author. John Booker,' however, who had already constituted himself interpreter-general of the stars to the Parliament, and who unfortunately was licenser of all mathematical books,' was not best pleased to encounter a successful rival; so he made many objections, but our shrewd Sidrophel' was more than a match for the guileless John Booker. He complained of him to some of the members, and they gave me orders forthwith to reprint it as I would.' The stars certainly smiled upon Lilly's début as almanac-maker, for, only two months after the appearance of his Merlinus, London was startled with what he calls 'supernatural sights and apparitions,' but which seem to have been the Northern lights. Forthwith a pamphlet with a most obscure woodcut, in which we may discover something like three suns, and some very nondescript stars, came forth, full of astrological jargon, but pointing at some eventual success of the Parliament forces. What could be more opportune. Gainsborough was relieved ere July closed, while Marston Moor on the 3rd of September proved beyond all question that the very prince of astrologers was William Lilly.

The high standing of Merlinus Anglicus was now thoroughly established, and eagerly was it sought after for the eventful year