Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects Part 5

**Periodical Small-Poxes.

The small-pox is usually in all great towns:* but it is observed at Taunton in Somersets.h.i.+re, and at Sherborne in Dorsets.h.i.+re, that at one of them at every seventh year, and at the other at every ninth year comes a small-pox, which the physicians cannot master, e. g.

* This account, I had from Mr. Thomas Ax.

Small-pox in Sherborne ? during the year 1626.

And during the year 1634.

>From Michaelmas 1642, to Mich. 1643.

>From Michaelmas 1649, to Mich. 1650.

>From Michaelmas 1657, to Midi. 1658.

In the year 1667, from Jan. to Sept. 1667.

Mr. Ax promised me to enquire the years it happened there after 1670, and 1680; but death prevented him.

? Extracted out of the register-book.

Small-pox in Taunton all the year 1658.*

Likewise in the year 1670.

Again in the year 1677.

Again very mortal in the year 1684.

* Out of the register-book.

Mr. Ax also promised me to enquire at Taunton the years it happened there after 1660.

It were to be wished that more such observations were made in other great towns.

Platerus makes the like observations in the second book of his Practice, p. 323. He practised at Basil, fifty six years, and did observe, that every tenth year they died of the plague there.

See Captain J. Graunt's observations on the bills of mortality at London, (indeed written by Sir William Petty, which in a late transaction he confessed) for the periodical plagues at London, which (as I remember) are every twenty-fifth year.

OSTENTA; OR, PORTENTS.

"HOW it comes to pa.s.s, I know not;* but by ancient and modern example it is evident, that no great accident befalls a city or province, but it is presaged by divination, or prodigy, or astrology, or some way or other. I shall here set down a few instances."

* Discourses of Nicholas Machiavel, book 1. Chap 56.

A Rainbow appeared about the sun before the battle of Pharsalia. See.

Appian, and Mr. T. May's 5th book of his Continuation of Lucan.

" Ex Chronico Saxonico, p. 112, Anno 1104, fuit primus Pentecostes dies Nonis Junii, & die Martis sequnte, conjuncti sunt quatuor Circuli circa Solem, aibi coloris, & quisque sub alio collocatus, quasi picti essent. Omnes qui videbant obstupuerunt, propterea quod nunquam ante tales meminerant. Post haec facta est Pax inter Comitem, Robertum de Normannia, & Robertum de B?l?sme i, e."

In the year 1104, on the first day of Pentecost, the sixth of June, and on the day following being Tuesday, four circles of a white colour, were seen to roll in conjunction round the sun, each under the other regularly placed, as if they had been drawn by the hand of a painter. All who beheld it were struck with astonishment, because they could not learn that any such spectacles had ever happened in the memory of man. After these things it is remarkable, that a peace was immediately set on foot, and concluded between Robert, Earl of Normandy, and Robert de Baelaesme.

The Duke of York (afterwards Edward IV.) met with his enemies near to Mortimer's Cross, on Candlemas day in the morning, at which time the Sun (as some write) appeared to him like three Suns, and suddenly joined altogether in one, and that upon the sight thereof, he took such courage, that he fiercely set on his enemies, and them shortly discomfited: for which cause, men imagined that he gave Sun in his full brightness for his cognisance or badge. Halle, F. 183, b. 4.

Our Chronicles tell us, that Anno Secundo Reginae Mariae, 15th of February, two suns appeared, and a rainbow reversed: see the bow turned downwards, and the two ends standing upwards, before the coining in of King Philip.

The phaenomenon, fig. 1, was seen at Broad-Chalk in Wilts.h.i.+re, on the first day of May, 1647. It continued from about eleven o'clock (or before) till twelve. It was a very clear day; but few did take notice of it, because it was so near the sun-beams. My mother happened to espy it, going to see what o'clock it was by an horizontal dial; and then all the servants saw it. Upon the like occasion, Mr. J.

Sloper, B.D. vicar there, saw it, and all his family; and the servants of Sir George Vaughan, (then of Falston) who were hunting on the downs, saw it. The circles were of rainbow colour; the two filots, which cross the greater circle, (I presume they were segments of a third circle) were of a pale colour. The sun was within the intersections of the circles.

The next remarkable thing that followed was, that on the third of June following;* Cornet Joyce carried King Charles I. prisoner from Holdenby to the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight lieth directly from Broad-Chalk, at the 10 o'clock point.

* See Sir W. Dugdale's hist. of the Civil Wars.

The phaenomenon, fig. 2, was seen in the north side of the church-yard of Bishop-Lavington in Wilts.h.i.+re, about the latter end of September 1688, about three o'clock in the afternoon. This was more than a semicircle. B. B. two b.a.l.l.s of light. They were about eleven degrees above the Horizon by the quadrant; observed by Mr. Robert Blea, one of the Earl of Abingdon's gentlemen.

Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. 2. "Multa praeterea Ostentis, multa ex eis admonemur, multisque rebus aliis, quas diuturnus usus ita notarit, ut artem Divinationis efficeret". i. e.

Besides, we learn a world of things from these Portents and Prodigies, and many are the warnings and admonitions we receive from them, and not only from them indeed, but from a number of extraordinary accidents, upon which daily use and constant observation has fixed such marks, that from thence the whole art of divination has been compounded.

OMENS.

BEFORE the battle at Philippi began, two eagles fought in the air between the two armies: both the armies stood still and beheld them, and the army was beaten that was under the vanquished eagle.

See Appian's Hist. part 2, lib. 4, g. 2.

It is worthy of notice, that, at the time the cities of Jerusalem and Antioch were taken from the Pagans, the Pope that then was, was called Urban, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem was called Eraclius, and the Roman Emperor was called Frederick; in like manner when Jerusalem was taken from the Christians by the siege of Saladin, the Pope was called Urban; the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Eraclius; and the Emperor, Frederick: and it is remarkable, that fourscore and seven years pa.s.sed between these two events. Hoveden, f. 363.

Mathew Parker, seventieth Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in the seventieth year of his age, feasted Queen Elizabeth on her birth day, 1559, in his palace at Canterbury. Parker. Vitae, 556.

It is a matter of notable consideration, says a Spanish historian, that the royal throne of the Morish Kings of Granada, began and ended in the times of the Fernandos of Castille: beginning in the time of Saint Fernando, the third of that name, and ending in that of the Catholic King, Don Fernando the fifth, his successor in the ninth descent. In the same manner, it is observable that the first Morish King was called Mahomad, and the last had the same name of Mahomad: which resembles what pa.s.sed in the empire of Constantinople, where the first and last Emperors were called Constantines.

Garibay, 1. 40, c. 43.

The same author mentions it as an extraordinary circ.u.mstance that, at one time lived in Castille, Arragon, and Portugal, three Kings called Pedros, and whose fathers were named Alonsos, who were also Kings at the same time. L. 14, c. 35.

While Edward, Duke of York,* was declaring his t.i.tle, in the Chamber of the Peers, there happened a strange chance, in the very same time, amongst the Commons in the nether house, then there a.s.sembled: for a Crown, which did hang in the middle of the same, to garnish a branch to set lights upon, without touch of any creature, or rigor of wind, suddenly fell down, and at the same time also, fell down the Crown, which stood on the top of the Castle of Dover: as a sign and prognostication, that the Crown of the realm should be divided and changed from one line to another. Halle's Chronicle, H. 6. F. 181.

* Father of Edward IV.

Anno 1506. Through great tempest of wind in January, Philip, King of Castille and his wife, were weather-driven and landed at Falmouth.

This tempest blew down the Eagle of Bra.s.s from the spire of St. Paul's church in London, and in the falling, the same eagle broke and battered the black Eagle* which hung for a sign in St. Paul's Church- yard. Stow's Annals, 484.

* The black Eagle is the cognizance of the house of Austria, of which Philip was head.

The silver cross that was wont to be carried before Cardinal Wolsey, fell out of its socket, and was like to have knocked out the brains of one of the Bishop's servants. A very little while after, came in a messenger, and arrested the Cardinal, before he could get out of the house. See Stow's Chronicle.

'Tis commonly reported, that before an heir of the Cliftons, of Clifton in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, dies, that a Sturgeon is taken in the river Trent, by that place.