Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-24
MOTHER sH1pros's Prophecies.

LOG OF puOlsninS the prophecies Vi
Mother Shipton certain prophecies OF
his own forging. These fictitious utter.
ances were embodied in that kind OF runic
doggerel which prevails in the Roxborough
Ballads, and they represent the old female
astrologer," Mother Shipton, who was
born about the year l4SS, as predicting:
Carriages without horses shall go.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkng of an eye.
Iron in the water shall float
AS easy as wooden boat.
Gold shall be found, and found
In land that's not now known.
Fire and water shall mere wonders do.
England shall at last admit a jew.
house Of glass shall come to pass
In Eugland-but, alas
War will follow with the work.
In Ireland of the pagan and Turk
And State and State in fierce strife
Will seek each others life
But when the North shall divide the South,
An eagle shall build in the lions mouth.
The world then to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eIghtyone.
The illusions in this doggerel to steam, the
telegraph, iron ships, California, Disraeli,
the American war (goiug on while Hindiey
was writing), and even the Crystal Palace,
at once attracted the attention of anti
quarians. A correspondence occurred in
Notes and Queries (Series w., vol. i'll, and
in the end Hindley's confession Of the
forgery was made and. published. But
the Chinese proverb was verified, that
the royal chariot and Positions cannot
overtake the word once escaped. These
fictitious utterances obtained wide circu.
lation and belief among the class which is
not accustomed to read Notes and Queries,
and unfortunately among these appears to
be some person authorized to write in a
respectable London Journal. In the Globe
newspaper of February II, 1877, portions
of the forged predictions were printed as
being very wonderful, and, still more
wonderful, they were said to have been
published" in l44S, l. e., before the
introduction of printing. The allusion
to the war in TurkeY-the only hit
really-attracted attention, and the
immediate result was that the "prophe-
cies Z" were printed on card, price
t@opence, now sold In vast numbers
throughout the length and breadth of the
land. On the windows OF hundreds of
newspaper and candy shops in London enc
reads, Read Mother Shiptcn's Wonderful
Prophecies !" Having invested his two
pence, one possesses coarse piece OF paste
board, five inches by three, on which are
the lines already quoted, and more OF Q
similar kind, under the following heading :
"Mother Symptoms Prophecies Have re-
Gently been discovered in the British Mu-
scum, written in an old manuscript work,
A. d. l44S, and portions have been pub
lished in the Globe newspaper Of February
II, 1877. This wonderful woman lived till
she was of extraordinary age. She died at
Clifton. in Yorkshire, from which is taken
the following episaph, copied from stone
monument T:
Here Ives she who never lyd,
Whose skill often has been try d.
Her Prophecies shall survive,
And ever keep her name alive"
But besides this cheap edition of the
spurious additions to originally spurious
g prophecies" there is on the market q
sensationally decorated sixpenny book,
which, I 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 and stars on her broomstick,
her familiars accompanying her IN shape
of a cat crouching behind her, and an owl
perched before her on the broom handle.
The steam train and the balloon, which she
is declared to have predicted, are included.
Inside is related the old story of Mother
Shifton's birth from the unhallowed mar.
rage of her mother with the devil the
prodigies which attended 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 a book
at first sight; and then the prophecies
after the fact forged in the seventeenth Gen.
fury, followed by those forged in the nine
teenth century. The fact is notable that
on the placards and on the book-cover the
thing made most prominent is the predic.
ton that the world is to come to an end in
1881. This is the most fascinating item.
1t is notorious that English mines have
within these recent years remained vacant
for twenty-four hours where Zadkiels
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 pyr-
amid whose apex Hindley selects to pc.
destai his lie? Toward the close of the
fifteenth century-certainly more than q
generation after the date given above,
l44S-lived the woman who became known
as Mother Shipton, whose repute as a
prophecies, however, Its upon nothing
earlier than l64l. At that time pam
phlet appeared with this title: 1.-THE
Prophesie of Mother Shipton, In the
raigne of King Henry the Eighth. Fore
telling the death of CARDINAL Wolsey, the
Lord Percy and others, as also what should
happen in insuing times. London. Printed
for Richard Lowndes at his shop adjoyn-
ing the INDICATE, 1911" On the title page
is nearly fuli-length and very coarse
wood. cut, not of the conventional witch, 7"
but Of the medieval country. woman. The
book was evidently forged, probably by
the astrologer F" OF the time, Lily, and it
ia 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," l have tran
scribed from the ancient book itself the
concluding sentences 'Then shall be In
the North that one woman shall say unto
another, Mother, have seen man to-day,
and for one man there shall be thousand
women; there shall be man sitting upon
ST. James Church Hill weeping his fill /;
and after that ship come saying up the
Thames till it come against London, and
the Master of the ship shall weep, and the
Mariners shall aske him why ne weepeth,
seeing he hath made so good voyage, and
hee shall say, All, what goodly Cite this
was none in the world comparable to it,
and now there is scarcely left any house
that can let us have drinke for our money. !"
This was Lly's great and only hit-if, as
is probable, he wrote the book-for the
great fire of London occurred twenty. five
years later, and the astrologers had no
difficulty in putting that and this together.
The last lines in the book are these
Unhappy bee that lives to see these days;
But happy are the dead, Shipten's wife says.
M. d. Conway, in Harper's.
SEDIMENT or mucous in the urine is sure