is something almost touching in the excessive
delight with which very moderate jests were
hailed by former generations!

His old enemy, gout, turning to dropsy,
proved fatal to our physician on the second of
July, fifteen hundred and sixty-six, in his
"climacterical" year of sixty-three. Some stress
was laid on the fact of his having foretold his
own decease, by writing upon an ephemerides
of that date, "Hic prope mors est" (hereabouts
is death); but as this was written at
the end of June, and realised on the second of
July. it was probably more the augury of a
physician than an astrologer.

His quaint epitaph in the Franciscan church
at Salon may be rendered thus:

"Here lie the bones of the most famous
Nostradamus, one who among men hath deserved,
in the opinion of all, to set down in writing, with
a quill almost divine, the future events of the
universe, caused by the celestial influences. O
posterity, do not grudge at his rest.

"Anna Pontia Genella wishes to her most
loving husband the true happiness."

There followed a fierce contest concerning
his character and predictions. His enemies
boldly accused him of necromancy and habitual
intercourse with the powers of darkness—
ridiculing the idea that he could have derived his
prescience from judicial astrology, inasmuch
as that science is acknowledged not to descend
to minute circumstances, such as proper names,
the nature of hurts, &c., in which our author
largely deals. They pointed to the absence of
any unusual sanctity of life or manners, as
satisfactory proof that Nostradamus was not
indebted for his singular knowledge to the
express favour of God. And, finally, the Lord
Florimond de Raimond—a "very considerable
author," of whose works we have been unable
to procure a copy—in a few emphatic sentences,
handed over the deceased physician to the very
devil himself.

On the other hand, the sage himself, in his
curious "luminary " epistle, addressed to his
son Cæsar, expressly condemns the art magic—
warning him against uniting its study in any
manner with that of astrology—and relating
how he himself, having some misgiving as to
the root of the inspiration under which he had
penned a certain treatise, "did burn abundance
of writings;" and adds, "Also, my son, I
entreat thee not to bestow thy understanding on
such fopperies, which dry up the body and
damn the soul. Chiefly abhor the vanity of the
execrable magic, forbidden by the sacred
Scriptures and by the canons of the Church; in the
first of which is excepted judicial astrology, by
which and by the means of Divine inspiration,
with continual supputations, we have put in
writing our prophecies."

Upon these "supputations" (calculations) a
good deal must necessarily turn; but as they
are purely human, and within the range of any
student, there needs a divine light upon ihe
judgment, in order to deduce from them proper
inferences.

Such a light, there is reason to believe,
Michael Nostradamus, bending in solitude over
these attractive studies, imagined had been
vouchsafed to him—not for any merit or fitness
in himself, earnestly deprecating the sacred
name of prophet, and confessing himself the
greatest sinner in the world, subject to all
human afflictions, weak, fallible, and easily
deceived, but as the result of the honesty with
which he had rejected fantastical imaginations,
seeking, in wisdom's waters, the incorruptible
metal alone.

That a long course of solitary study of this
nature, involving an abstraction from worldly
things, may predispose certain natures to
receive impressions as supernatural which are
due to the aforesaid supputations alone, may be
easily conceived. When, therefore, any remarkable
event justified his prediction (which, past
all question, was frequently the case), Michael
must have been more than the weak being he
professed himself, not to be disposed to perceive
in it an indication of the Divine foreknowledge,
sometimes dispensed, as in the instances of
Balaam, Caiaphas, &c., through the most
unlikely and unworthy instruments.

The prophecies of Nostradamus, commencing
in March, fifteen hundred and fifty-five, extend
to the year of grace three thousand seven
hundred and ninety-seven, embracing a period of
considerably more than two thousand years.
As the dates are rarely to be fixed, except by
inference, here is room for the "shoe of
Theramenes" to be tried on many a foot until the
right be found. Let us essay a quatrain or
two.

A high wind shall forerun considerable, but
indistinct, disturbances:

When the litter shall be overthrown by a gust of
    wind,
And faces shall be covered with cloaks,
The commonwealth shall be troubled with a new
    kind of men,
Then white and red shall judge amiss.

An easy solution of the "new kind of men" was
found in Luther and Calvin, then commencing
the Reformation. For "white and red" read
France and Spain.

Here is an unlucky business. Let us hope,
if it have not already occurred (and history is
silent on the matter), that the electric
telegraph may defeat it altogether:

One coming too late, execution shall be done.
The wind being contrary, and letters miscarry,
The conspirators, fourteen of a sect (set),
By the red-haired man the undertaking shall be
made.

It is, at all events, satisfactory to have heard
it affirmed, on authority, that the present
practitioner at the Old Bailey has grey hair and a
white beard.

Let Austria look to her possessions in Italy:

Within a while a false frail brute shall go
From low to high—being quickly raised;
For he that shall have the government of Verona
Shall be unfaithful and slippery.