abdicated. The stars did not mention that.
The King of Prussia also died without a
warning from the stars; though Francis
Moore had ventured to ask on his own
account, "How long will the old king last?"
Our Queen married in February; the
marriage in high life was not announced,
however, in the high quarters which Moore
consults; nor did the Almanack foretell
the birth of the Princess Royal. These
were the events most prominent in the
year 1840 to the minds of Englishmen.
Moore mentioned none of them, but, he said,
"Unfortunately if our statesmen, whether
Whig or Tory or neither, continue to neglect
year after year my warnings, the evil will not
be redressed till they see their mistake and
rue it. It is my duty, however, to persevere,
whether they will hear or whether they will
forbear." So Francis Moore, Physician, did
persevere—in talking most about the places
from which we receive least news, and upon
which he could dilate most safely. " Look at
Persia. The star's tell something of Persia;
but then, the inhabitants of that country are
so stupid, so vain, so unfaithful, and so
ignorant, that benevolent Britons leave her to
her fate." We are very happy to look at
Persia; but we see no event that happened
there of any note in the year 1840. Well,
Mr. Moore, we have looked at Persia. " Look,
again, at Iceland, at which the stars here
glance. "What of Iceland?" Happy Iceland!
beyond the reach of European squabbles,
quiet, harmless, inoffensive, cultivating thy
fields, admiring thy Geysers. "Yes, a very
beautiful apostrophe; but we cannot imagine
what the stars saw that was likely to be
interesting to us when they glanced at
Iceland. They saw Iceland admiring its Geysers.
In fairness we must add that, in this year,
during the life of O'Connell, Mr. Moore was
bold enough to state, on the authority of the
stars, that "Ireland is likely to be somewhat
agitated."

In the year 1841 Moore's Almanack
appeared with a prophecy almost distinct. The
prophet evidently had a notion. In his
hieroglyphic, which he never explains but leaves
always "to the ingenuity of the reader," there
was something that would serve very well for
Walmer Castle, and on the sad November
page we were told that "A great general
stoops to fate; death alone convinces us that
all men are vanity." In the prophecy on the
æestival quarter it said that "The grim king of
terrors is stretching forth his gigantic arms;
he strikes down one of the greatest." Moore
went into italics on the subject, but the stars
were out again, though they luckily could
save their credit by asserting (through
Francis Moore, Physician) that they meant
General Harrison, President of the United
States, who died early in the spring. The
Annual Register tells us of the dissolution of
Parliament and fall of a ministry upon its re-
assembling in the autumn—a fact which the
prophet might in common kindness have
hinted to a nation of electors. Great events
also were taking place in India and China,
about which the prophet might have surely
told us something. On the other hand it
was polite in him to state that "The position
of the presiding star of my fair readers both
in this and the preceding ingress requires
them to be more than usually cautious
against wet feet and evening dews."

For the year 1842 Moore's Almanack,
taking the usual sweep, prophesied ferment
and agitation in India, Mexico, Greece, Russia,
Saxony, &c. "France, Italy, and Greece," he
said, "are uneasy." Except this casual mention
of India, with Mexico, Saxony, and so on,
among agitated places, there was not a ray
from the stars to warn us of the terrible
disasters in Affghanistan, and there was no
hint whatever on the Chinese war, although
it was in the year 1842 that our squadron
entered the Yang-tse-Kiang, and the terms
of a treaty of peace were settled. If the
prophet had looked far enough abroad to
mention in his Almanack for 1842 Otaheite in
the place of Iceland, he would have hauled a
prize in the affair of Queen Pomare. In that
year there were in England the Corn-law
debates, and Sir Robert Peel was burnt in
effigy in our manufacturing towns. That was
the year of the tariff and the income tax.
That was the year of two attempts on the
Queen's life. That was the year of a great
earthquake in St. Domingo, by which ten
thousand lives were lost. That was the year
of the great fire of Hamburgh. Not a syllable
was in the Almanack to touch in the remotest
way on any one of these great facts, unless it
be the prophecy made for the autumn quarter
that "Many things will turn up which will
lead the thoughtful mind to serious reflection."
Many things did turn up which lead
us to the serious reflection that Francis
Moore knew nothing of events to come.

We have seen that Francis Moore did not
predict what happened. In the same year
there were one or two things which the wise
man did predict; they of course did not
happen. "The fate of Turkey," the stars
cried, "is already sealed." "Turkey is in a
tottering condition." Turkey stands where
it did even to this day. "The system of
Louis Philippe seems now wound up to its
stretch; and therefore some great change
may shortly be experienced."Astrologers
have always safely predicted change in France,
agitation in Ireland, discontent in Italy, and
so on. But in this case "the system of Louis
Philippe" had five years to run, and Mr.
Moore was very much deceived by some too
hasty planet.

For the year 1843 Francis Moore predicted,
with his usual courage, that "From
the whole I should infer that we shall have
some good intermixed with the evil, which
will soothe the minds of many," &c.; he
predicted, with an ambiguity most creditable to