nts averred that the belief is common among seamen, in all parts
of the world, and among landsmen too. Some one quoted a distich:

"Saturday's moon and Sunday's full
Never were fine and never _wull_."

{321} Another brought forward:

"If a Saturday's moon
Comes once in seven years it comes too soon."

Mr. Forster did not say he was aware of the proverbial character of the
phenomenon. He was a very eccentric man. He treated his dogs as friends,
and buried them with ceremony. He quarrelled with the _cure_ of his parish,
who remarked that he could not take his dogs to heaven with him. I will go
nowhere, said he, where I cannot take my dog. He was a sincere Catholic:
but there is a point beyond which even churches have no influence.

The following is some account of the announcement of 1849. The _Athenaeum_
(Feb. 17), giving an account of the meeting of the Astronomical Society in
December, 1858, says:

"Dr. Forster of Bruges, who is well known as a meteorologist, made a
communication at which our readers will stare: he declares that by journals
of the weather kept by his grandfather, father, and himself, ever since
1767, to the present time, _whenever the new moon has fallen on a Saturday,
the following twenty days have been wet and windy_, in nineteen cases out
of twenty. In spite of our friend Zadkiel[691] and the others who declare
that we would smother every truth that does not happen to agree with us, we
are glad to see that the Society had the sense to publish this
communication, coming, as it does, from a veteran observer, and one whose
love of truth is undoubted. It must be that the fact is so set down in the
journals, because Dr. Forster says it: and whether it be only a fact of the
journals, or one of the heavens, can soon be tried. The new moon of March
next, falls on _Saturday_ the 24th, at 2 in the afternoon. We shall
certainly look out."

{322}

The following appeared in the number of March 31:

"The first _Saturday Moon_ since Dr. Forster's announcement came off a week
ago. We had previously received a number of letters from different
correspondents--all to the effect that the notion of new moon on Saturday
bringing wet weather is one of widely extended currency. One correspondent
(who gives his name) states that he has constantly heard it at sea, and
among the farmers and peasantry in Scotland, Ireland, and the North of
England. He proceeds thus: 'Since 1826, nineteen years of the time I hav