be content to remain
Ignorant, and (as a wise Author affirms) No Index can be found or formed
whereby to give us any certain Diary or Destiny saving that of our
dear-bought Experience." But how can we learn about our own dying by
experience--which is what we die to know about? He continues: "And here
I cannot but take notice of our _Negro-mancers_, who, under pretence of
knowledge in the Motions of the _Heavens_, take upon them to Fore tell
the Appointments of Fate with respect to particular Persons, and thereby
betray the Ignorant part of the World Inevitably into the Worship of the
Devil. But if the Wholesome Laws of the Province were duly executed on
such _Negro-mancers_, I could venture to Fore tell what would soon be
their Fortune; You may Read it at large in this Province, New Law Book,
_page_ 117.

"_Marblehead_, Sept. 28, 1726.

"N. Bowen."

Ah, friend Bowen was too alarmingly near the Salem witch times when
Minister Parris and Judge Hawthorne had come so nigh putting the Devil
to rout by hanging an old woman or two and squeezing poor Giles Cory to
death. He knew what the Law could do to those wicked negro-mancers if
they went about predicting things in a wicked way. And what a bore it
might become to have a negro-mancer foretelling in a rash and
miscellaneous way one's death and bringing it to pass too some fine and
inconvenient day! Who would not hang a negro-mancer like that?

But suppose they should go on and squeeze the life out of such mild
negromancers as N. Bowen, Esq., too. What then?

In 1729 we get an Almanac made by a student _with_ a name--Nathaniel
Ames, junior, _student in Physick and Astronomy_. He does not apply his
intellect to such great speculations as Bowen grappled with, but runs
easily into poetry of the true Homeric stamp. Listen:

_January_--

The Earth is white like NEPTUNE's foamy face,
When his proud Waves the hardy Rocks embrace.

_February_--

Boreas's chilly breath attacks our Nature,
And turns the Presbyterian to a Quaker.

What wicked waggery is here hidden, who can tell? One thing is sure,
that Februarys ought to be abolished by the General Court if such is
true; for a Quaker then was an abominable thing.

_March_--

Phoebus and Mars conjoined do both agree,
This month shall Warm (nay, more than usual) be.

We pray that our Almanac makers will conjoin Phoebus and Mars in all
our Marches hereafter, so that we too may "Warm (more than usu