The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1881-12-03
Here lyes she who never ly'd,
Whose skill often has been try'd.
Her Prophecies shall survive,
And ever keen her name alive"

But besides this cheap edition of spuri-
Gus additions to originally spurious 'pro-
phecies," there is on the market a sensa-
tionally decorated six penny book, which
[ am told, is being circulated widely in all
the colonies, and possibly it is known in
America. On the cover Mother Shipton is
represented careering amid comets andstars
on her broomstick, her familiars accompa-
nying her in shape of cat crouching be-
hind her. and an owl perched before her on
the broom handle The steam train and
the balloon, which she is declared to have
perdicted, are included. Inside is related
the old story of Mother Shiptons birth
from the unhallowed marriage of her mother
with the devil; the prodigies which attend
ed her infancy, such as her cradle being
found suspended up the chimney with the
child in it without visible means of support,
and her reading book at first sight; and
then the prophecies after fact forged in the
seventeenth century, followed by those
forged in this nineteenth century. The
fact is notable that on the placards and on
the book-cover the thing made most promi-
nent is the prediction that the world is to
come to an end in 1881 This is the most
fascinating item 1t is notorious that En-
glish minds have within these recent years
remained vacant for twenty-four hours
where Zadkiel's Almanac had predicted an
explosion on that day; and it is not at all
unlikely that, after the growing interest in
the events of 1881, if that year shall be
safely passed without an explosion of the
planet. Mother Shipton will be blown as
sky-high as in the picture, and world of
delusions will come to an end.
What is mere unsupported denial against
the vast number of facts built into the pyra
mid whose apex Hindley selects to pedestal
his lie? Toward the close of the fifteenth
century certainly more than generation
after the date given above, 1449-lived the
woman who became known as Mother
Shipton, whose repute as a prophecies,
however, rests upon nothing earlier than
1641 At that time pamphlet appeared
with this title: ''The Prophesie of Mother
Shipton In the raigne of King Henry
the Eighth Fortelling the death of Car
dinal Wolsey, the Lord Percy and others
as also what should happenin insuing times
London. Printed for Richard Lowndes al
his shop adjoyning the Ludgate, 1641." On
the title-page is nearly full-length and
very coarse wood-cut, not of the conven
tional witch, but of the medieval coun-
try-woman. The book was evidently fOrg
ed, probably by the "astrologer" of the
time Lily, and it is to be feared that the
evidences of the success of the forgery two
hundred years ago set an all too tempting
example before the artful editor of 1862
As a specimen of the "Prophesie," I have
Transcribed from the ancient book itself
the concluding sentences: "Then shall be
in the North that one woman shall say un-
to another, Mother, [ have seen man to.
day, and for one man there shall be thou.
sand women; there shall be a man sitting
upon St. James's Church Hill weeping his
fill; and after that ship come saying uI
the Thames till it comes against London
and the Master of the ship shall weep, and
the Mariners shall aske him why hec
weepeth, seeing he hath made so good &
voyage, and hee shall say, All, what q
goodly Cite this was! none in the world
comparable to it, and now there is scarce
left any house that can let us have drinkt
for our money" This was Lily's great ant
only hit-if, as IS probable, he wrote tht
bopk-fpr the great fire of London occur
red twenty-five years later, and the astrolo
gers had no difficulty in putting that anc
this together The last lines in the bool
are these:
Unhappy hee that lives to see these DAYS:
But happy are the dead Shiptop's wife says. y