hall restore
A king to reign as heretofore,
Great death in London shall be though,
And many houses be laid low."

[54] The _London Saturday Journal_ of March 12th, 1842, contains
the following:--"An absurd report is gaining ground among the
weak-minded, that London will be destroyed by an earthquake
on the 17th of March, or St. Patrick's day. This rumour is
founded on the following ancient prophecies: one professing
to be pronounced in the year 1203; the other, by Dr. Dee the
astrologer, in 1598:

"In eighteen hundred and forty-two
Four things the sun shall view;
London's rich and famous town
Hungry earth shall swallow down.
Storm and rain in France shall be,
Till every river runs a sea.
Spain shall be rent in twain,
And famine waste the land again.
So say I, the Monk of Dree,
In the twelve hundredth year and three."
_Harleian Collection (British Museum)_,
800 b, fol. 319.

"The Lord have mercy on you all--
Prepare yourselves for dreadful fall
Of house and land and human soul--
The measure of your sins is full.
In the year one, eight, and forty-two,
Of the year that is so new;
In the third month of that sixteen,
It may be a day or two between--
Perhaps you'll soon be stiff and cold.
Dear Christian, be not stout and bold--
The mighty, kingly-proud will see
This comes to pass as my name's Dee."
1598. _Ms. in the British Museum_.

The alarm of the population of London did not on this
occasion extend beyond the wide circle of the uneducated
classes, but among them it equalled that recorded in the
text. It was soon afterwards stated that no such prophecy is
to be found in the Harleian Ms.

The prophecies of Mother Shipton are still believed in many of the rural
districts of England. In cottages and servants' halls her reputation is
great; and she rules, the most popular of British prophets, among all the
uneducated, or half-educated, portions of the community. She is generally
supposed to have been born at Knaresborough, in the rei