eem, however, to have been all written by
Heywood himself. They are in terms too plain and positive to allow any one
to doubt for a moment of their having been composed _ex post facto_.
Speaking of Richard I., he says:

"The Lion's heart will 'gainst the Saracen rise,
And purchase from him many a glorious prize;
The rose and lily shall at first unite,
But, parting of the prey prove opposite. * * *
But while abroad these great acts shall be done,
All things at home shall to disorder run.
Cooped up and caged then shall the Lion be,
But, after sufferance, ransomed and set free."

The simple-minded Thomas Heywood gravely goes on to inform us, that all
these things actually came to pass. Upon Richard III. he is equally
luminous. He says:

"A hunch-backed monster, who with teeth is born,
The mockery of art and nature's scorn;
Who from the womb preposterously is hurled,
And with feet forward thrust into the world,
Shall, from the lower earth on which he stood,
Wade, every step he mounts, knee-deep in blood.
He shall to th' height of all his hopes aspire,
And, clothed in state, his ugly shape admire;
But, when he thinks himself most safe to stand,
From foreign parts a native whelp shall land."

Another of these prophecies after the event tells us that Henry
VIII. should take the power from Rome, "and bring it home unto
his British bower;" that he should "root out from the land all the
razored skulls;" and that he should neither spare "man in his rage
nor woman in his lust;" and that, in the time of his next successor
but one, "there should come in the fagot and the stake." Master
Heywood closes Merlin's prophecies at his own day, and does not give
even a glimpse of what was to befall England after his decease. Many
other prophecies, besides those quoted by him, were, he says, dispersed
abroad, in his day, under the name of Merlin; but he gives
his readers a taste of one only, and that is the following:

"When hempe is ripe and ready to pull,
Then, Englishman, beware thy skull."

This prophecy, which, one would think, ought to have put him in mind of
the gallows, at that time the not unusual fate of false prophets, he
explains thus: "In this word HEMPE be five letters. Now, by reckoning the
five successive princes from Henry VIII., this prophecy is easily
explained: H signifieth King Henry before-named; E, Edward, his son, the
sixth of