is this Iast memorial of the old place,
where I learned that it is content and not
riches that makes folks happy.

NOSTRADAMUS.

A French writer, M. Bareste, published,
about fifteen years ago, a book called
Nostradamus. It contained a life of that
calumniated sage, and dwelt with considerable
unction on the prophecies by which his hero
had achieved his reputation, and maintained
the exactness of their fulfilment in a great
many instances, not without an apparent
conviction that some of his foretellings would
yet come to pass. There is always great
difliculty in ascertaining the date of these
predictions. From time to time insertions
lake place. Events are plainly prophesied
after they have occurred, and great ingenuity
is used to twist events into an accordance
with prophecy when the opposite process is
ineffectual or difficult.

But as M. Bareste's book was published so
long ago, and we have the date before our
eyes, we cannot run any risk of being imposed
on if a prediction, printed at that time, has
received its completion since. Whether
Nostradamus wrote down his prophecies in
fifteen hundred and fifty-five or not does not
matter—nor whether another famous inspector
of the future, of the name of Olivarius,
saw visions and dreamed dreams in fifteen
hundred and forty-two, gives us no uneasiness.
We see certain things recorded as being
anciently foretold in a volume printed in the
first style of modern typography, in eighteen
hundred and forty, and we don't care whether
they were anciently foretold or not; we are
satisfied with the knowledge that they are,
at all events, as ancient as the publication of
the book containing them. They were written
before the event—for they were printed before
the event—read before the event, and utterly
unbelieved and forgotten; all before the
event. Not that we consider M. Bareste
either a prophet or an impostor. He may
believe or not in the unadulterated condition
of the Quatrains of Nostradamus, and the
more distinct enunciations of Maistre Dieudonné
Noël Olivarius. We believe, and that
is quite enough, in the year eighteen hundred
and forty, and on seeing the difference
between that and eighteen hundred and fifty-
five, we cannot deny that some person, be he
who he may, had an amazingly clear perception
of what is going on just now—not that
the prophecy is fulfilled—but the curtain
is drawing up—the first act is begun, and
the principal personages have taken their
places on the stage. Let our readers judge
for themselves, and first of Nostradamus.

Nostradamus, the Latinised form of the
French surname, Notredame, was born at
St. Remi in Provence, in fifteen hundred and
three. Originally of a Jewish stock, his
family had devoted itself to the sciences of
law and medicine, and the young Michael,
for that was his name, soon distinguished
himself by his skill and learning. Having
lost his wife at an early age, he tried to
distract his grief by travelling in foreign
lands. He visited Italy among other places,
where Leo the Tenth was physically and
metaphorically placing the head of St. Peter
on the shoulders of Jupiter; and having
seen enough of Rome to inspire him with a
philosophic knowledge of the speedy diminution
of Papal power, he returned to France after
an absence of twelve years, married a second
time, and became illustrious for his infallible
prescriptions against fever and the plague. A
man of a poetic temperament—with morbid
views of life—pursued with unrelenting
animosity by his professional rivals, and driven
for occupation in the solitude to which his
pride compelled him, to the mystical writings
of the time and his own meditations, he soon
became persuaded that he was in possession of
marvellous gifts. We do not suppose he was
a wilful deceiver. There is sufficient in his
history and circumstances to account for the
exaltations of his mind without having
recourse to the theory of his being a cheat. He
collected his predictions in fifteen hundred
and fifty-five. They are written in very
obscure quatrains from which, in general, it
would not be difficult to make out any meaning
one chose. But the success of the book
was extraordinary. The small town of Salon
in which he resided was besieged by illustrious
visitors. Catherine de' Medicis sent
for him to court, and employed him to draw
the horoscopes of her sons. A second edition
was called for in fifteen hundred and fifty-
eight, and the apparent fulfilment of one of
the principal prophecies in the following
year, placed him at the summit of his fame.
This fortunate coincidence was the death of
the king—Henry the Second—in consequence
of a wound received in a tilting match with
Montgomery. This event enriched the
astrologer of Salon. Here is the quatrain,
and four more misty lines it is difficult to
imagine. Yet, through the mist, certainly
looms a golden visor, a wound to the eye,
and a death——

Le lion jeune le vieux surmontera
     En champ bellique par singulier duel;
Dans cage d'or Ies yeux lui crévera,
     Deux plaies une, puis mourir, mort cruelle!

The lion young the old lion shall reverse
     In single combat in the warlike plain,
Within a cage of gold, his eyes shall pierce,
     Two wounds in one, then die, O, death of pain!

Notwithstanding the obscurity, and the
difficulty of distinguishing between the lion
conquering and the lion subdued, the prediction
was hailed at once as a proof of
Nostradamus's superhuman powers, and kings and
princes were proud to visit the divinely-
gifted man. The Duke of Savoy and his wife