Forecastings of Nostradamus.
By C. A. Ward.
PART IV.
(Continued from p. 60.)
N the preface, addressed to his son Cæsar, he shows himself perfectly alive to the poor reception his book is likely to meet with from many; he says: “Qu’elle fera retirer le front en arrière à plus d’un qui la lira, sans y rien comprendre.” He does not write for babes and the illiterate, and has no sympathy with the words in Mark x. 14: “Sinite parvulos venire ad me.” On the contrary, he cites from Matthew vii. 6 with approval the antithetical sentence uttered by the Saviour: “ ‘Nolite sanctum dare canibus, ne conculcent pedibus et conversi disrumpant vos:’ which hath been the cause that I have withdrawn my tongue from the vulgar, and my pen from paper.”
“But,” he runs on, “afterwards I was writing for the common good, to enlarge myself in dark and abstruse sentences, declaring the future events, chiefly the most urgent, and those which I foresaw (whatever human mutation happened) would not offend the hearers.”[52]
Here the words marked in italics give us the limitation he set to his own office and position. His function is purely that of a seer; he foresees, and sometimes for the “common good” he records his experiences,[53] but he does not take upon himself the mission of the Baptist to “prepare a way” for great events, nor like Jeremiah to raise a cry of national lamentation, nor like Isaiah will he denounce evil nor evil-doers.
His idea of prophecy is nothing but the passivity of foresight. He says:—
“The prophets, by means only of the immortal God and good angels, have received the spirit of vaticination, by which they foresee things and foretell future events; for nothing is perfect without Him, whose power and goodness is so great to His creatures, that though they are but men, nevertheless, by the likeness of our good genius to the angels,[54] this heat and the prophetical power draws near us, as it happens by the beams of the sun, which cast their influence both on elementary and not elementary bodies; as for us who are men, we cannot attain anything by our natural knowledge of the secrets of God our Creator. ‘Quia non est nostrum nosse tempora nec momenta,’ &c. (Acts i. 7.)”
It should be noticed by every candid critic that there is strong internal evidence in this passage of genuine truthfulness in the writer. First he defines his own position to be merely that of a seer. He then gives his idea of a prophet, and describes him as one who has received a spirit of vaticination by foresight. He then says that this prophetical heat is unattainable by any natural knowledge of man, but comes like that of the sun, direct from the Giver of all good gifts to man. This is very much as Samuel How, the inspired cobbler, Bunyan, or any old Puritan in the seventeenth century would have described it: “The sufficiency of the Spirit’s teaching without human learning.” But in addition to this perfect simplicity of spirit, he ventures to quote the Saviour’s words: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons,” which, with Matthew xxiv. 36, is the strongest passage in the New Testament against a gift of prophecy in man. Would a man who had any doubt at all about his possession of the faculty of prevision cite a passage which seemed to withhold the prophetic gift from all mankind under the new covenant of the Christian dispensation?
Grotius and Heinsius show that these words χρόνους ἧ καιροὺς should be understood of the time, times, and an half, of Daniel (xii. 7), when Christ, of the stem of Jesse, should begin under Constantine to direct the executive government of kings on earth as King of kings, which took place 300 years later. If this were to be hidden from Apostles, how should a layman, and idiot (so to speak), look for inspiration? To me this consideration entirely and finally disposes of any doubt as to imposition intentional. Be Nostradamus prophet and seer, or not, it is next to impossible for anyone of fair and impartial mind hereafter to hold that he was an impostor. To suppose it even, is impossible to a rational judge, if we grant that we are, in a degree ever so little, capable by nature of estimating the motives of a fellow-creature.
In another part of the preface he says:—
“Not that I will attribute to myself the name of a prophet, but as a mortal man, being no farther from heaven by my sense than I am from earth by my feet, possum errare, falli, decipi, I am the greatest sinner of the world, subject to all humane afflictions, but being surprised sometimes in the week by a prophetical humour, and by a long calculation, pleasing myself in my study, I have made books of prophecies, &c.”
He speaks also of the mode of enlightenment, “by a long melancholy inspiration revealed,” and says it takes “its original from above, and such light and small flame is of all efficacy and sublimity, no less than the natural light makes the philosophers so secure.” All this justifies fully the distich, so far as motive goes:—
“Vera loquor, non falsa loquor sed munere cœli,
Qui loquitur Deus est, non ego Nostradamus.”
He opens the first “Century” with an announcement (by some called an incantation) of the methods by which he prepared himself for the reception of the knowledge of future things:
“Estant assis, de nuit secrette estude,
Seul, reposé sur la selle d’airain,
Flambe exigue, sortant de solitude,
Fait proferer qui n’est a croire vain.”
“Sitting by night, in secret study alone, resting on a brazen seat, a slight flame arising out of the solitude makes me utter things not vain to be believed.”
“La verge en main, mise au milieu des Branches,
De l’onde je mouille et le Limb et le Pied,
En peur j’escris fremissant par les manches;
Splendeur Divine: le Divine prez s’assied.”
“With wand in hand placed amidst the branches, I wet with water the limb and foot, and write in fear, trembling in my sleeves; “Splendour divine! the Divinity sits at hand.’ ”
A tranquillised mind is requisite to prophecy. We find Elisha (2 Kings iii. 15) requiring a minstrel to play, that the hand of the Lord may come upon him. External objects disturb the senses, so that night is best for contemplation, as Malebranche is said to have shut himself up in a dark room to study and think out his “Recherche de la Vérité.” Solitude is essential to prophecy. A man cannot commune with heaven in the busy haunts of men. Nature is the presence-chamber of the Deity. Every man of sensibility knows this; and the prophet most of all men feels the pith and central depth of Pope’s fine line, and that he must reach prophecy “Looking through Nature up to Nature’s God.” Society demands that you sacrifice your convictions constantly to good manners. Social convention contaminates noble originality and high principle. Truth never dwells in the court of kings, and the drawing-rooms of the well-to-do are no fitter for its shrine, for the men and women there are royalties divested of respect and state-trappings; they are over-pampered humanities for the most part: to be much in their company you must compromise the divinest part of you—your convictions—and it is by pursuing conviction that the soul flies heavenward. One might write an essay on the Brazen Stool with its proverb ex tripode loqui, but anyhow these opening verses convey to the mind with wonderful brevity a vivid picture of a mediæval magician at his work.
Garencières allegorises here so widely as to show what havoc ingenuity can play with analogy, which is a key to the occult things of the universe in good hands—those of the prophet, poet, or genius of any sort. The rod, he says, is the pen, placed in the middle of the branches means the fingers of the hand, the water he dips it in is the ink he writes with, wetting limb and foot is the paper covered from top to bottom. Was manuscript ever, since the world began, more mystically shadowed forth?
The interest of English readers will perhaps be most readily drawn to Nostradamus, by dealing first with some of the most remarkable prophecies concerning England; and with the invaluable aid of M. Anatole le Pelletier’s admirable work on Nostradamus, this can at any rate for a few of the quatrains be most readily accomplished. He gives six examples from the various “Centuries.” The first relates to the supremacy of England at sea: “L’Angleterre le Panpotent des mers.” The word Panpotent is a barbarous Græco-Latin word for πᾶν-potens, all-powerful. The periods M. le Pelletier would assign to these changes or revolutions in England extend from 1501, the birth of Lutheranism, to 1791, the commencement of the French Revolution.
He selects Century iii., quatrain 57:—
“Sept fois changer verrez gent Britanique,
Teints en sang en deux cens nonante an;
Franche non point, par appuy Germanique;
Aries doubte son pole Bastarnan.”
“You shall see the British nation, inundated with blood, change seven times in 290 years. But France not so, thanks to the firmness of her Germanic kings. The sign of the Ram shall no longer recognise the north of Europe (son pole Bastarnan) it will so have changed.”[55]
Here we have to notice that 1501 plus 290 equals 1791, which may if you like be taken as the date of the commencement of the French Revolution, though commonly it is reckoned from 1789, the taking of the Bastille. The Germanic kings are the descendants of Hugh Capet. Bastarnia stands for Poland as its ancient name. The first dismemberment of Poland took place in 1772. Then Russia grew into power, Peter ascended the throne 1682, and Lutheranism triumphed in Germany. Such changes might well startle the Ram from all recognition of the northern world.
1501 is the date of the Renaissance, and from that to 1792 England is to undergo seven revolutions.
1. In England Henry VIII. breaks free from Rome, and the Church of England is set up in 1532.
2. 1553 Mary restores the Papal religion.
3. 1558 Elizabeth re-establishes Anglican independence.
4. In 1649 Charles I. is beheaded, and the Republic established under Cromwell’s Protectorate.
5. In 1660 Charles II. is restored.
6. In 1689 James II. abdicating, is displaced by William III., his son-in-law.
7. In 1714 George I., of the House of Hanover, is called to the throne.
The brevity with which all this is inferred is as remarkable as the curious precision with which it was fulfilled.
The accession of James I. to the death of Charles I. (1603-1649) is set forth in
Century X. Quatrain 40.
“Le jeune nay au regne Britannique,
Qu’ aura ce père mourant recommandé,
Iceluy mort, Lonole[56] donra topique,[57]
Et à son fils le regne demandé.”[58]
“The young prince[59] of the kingdom of Britain (then first called Great Britain) is born, whose father (Henry Darnley, assassinated by Bothwell) in dying commended him to the protection of the principal Scottish nobility. When this prince (James I. of England, and VI. of Scotland) is dead, Lonole by the employment of Puritanical eloquence (or canting rhetoric) will despoil his son (Charles I.) of his kingdom.”
Le Pelletier thinks it is quite clear that Lonole Ολλὑων stands for Cromwell, but a further coincidence arises, namely, that Lonole is an all but correct anagram of Ole Nol or Old Noll, the Protector’s nickname. Garencières prints Londre for Lonole, and so renders what at best is obscure entirely unintelligible, and fancies that he clearly discerns it to be a prophecy concerning Charles II., because he was commended to the care of his subjects by Charles I. on the scaffold.
Century III. Quatrain 80 (in some Eds. 82).
“Du regne Anglois le digne dechassé[60]
Le conseiller par ire[61] mis à feu,
Ses adherents iront si bas tracer,[62]
Que le bastard sera demy receu.”
“He who had a right to the kingdom of England is displaced, is mis à feu, sacrificed to the heat of popular fury. His adherents descend to such a depth of baseness that the bastard (or usurper) will be half received by the kingdom.”
That is to say, Charles I. will be deprived of power after having yielded up Strafford to the popular fury, in the hope of escaping himself. The Scotch (old adherents) will be so base as to sell him for two millions to the Cromwellites, who put him to death, and Cromwell becoming Protector, and not quite king, therefore will obtain an almost royal bastard, i.e., a half reception (à demy receu).
Century IX. Quatrain 49.
“Gand et Bruceles marcheront contre[63] Anvers,
Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy:
Le sel et vin luy seront à l’envers,
Pour eux avoir le regne en desarroy.”
“When Ghent and Brussels march over against Antwerp,[64] the Senate of London, or the Long Parliament, will put their king to death. Force and wisdom (vin et sel[65]) will be wanting to Charles’s councils (lui seront à l’envers), and they (the Independents) will in the general disorder become masters of the kingdom.”
Century VIII. Quatrain 76.
“Plus Macelin[66] que Roi en Angleterre,
Lieu obscur nay par force aura l’Empire,
Lasche, sans foy, sans loy, saignera terre;
Son tems s’approche si près qui je souspire.”
“More butcher than king in England, a man of obscure birth [né en lieu obscur] by force shall obtain the Empire. Unprincipled, restrained by neither faith nor law, he will drench the earth with blood. His time approaches so near as to make me heave a sigh.”
This is an announcement of such unparalleled and terrific import that Nostradamus exhibits more feeling over it than he does usually over his prognostications. The butcher-like face of Cromwell, with its fleshy conch and hideous warts, seems to have been visually present to him, and to have struck him with such a sense of terror and vividness that he imagines the time must be very near at hand. Though a full century had to elapse, he sighs with a present shudder, and the blood creeps. One of the remarkable features throughout the work of Nostradamus is the general absence of any sense of time apart from the mere enumeration of years as an algebraic or arithmetical sign; on this momentous occasion he departs from his usual practice, and stands horror-stricken as in a fearful vision.
Century X. Quatrain 100.
“Le grand Empire sera par Angleterre
Le Pempotan des ans plus de trois cens:
Grandes copies passer par mer et terre,
Les Lusitains n’en serons par contens.”
“The great empire of England shall be all-powerful ( πᾶν-potens) for more than 300 years.[67] Then great armies shall come by sea and land, and the Portuguese shall not be satisfied therewith.”
This seems to foreshadow that the naval power of England will be suppressed by sea-borne armies overwhelming her on her own shores, and the Lusitanians, or Portuguese, the oldest allies of England, will not be content, because, probably, Portugal at the same instant will be overwhelmed by Spain simultaneously.
This is as far as we can go in English history under the guidance of Le Pelletier. But, nevertheless, I shall adduce several more quatrains, bringing the sequence down at least to the establishment of the House of Hanover on the English throne in the person of George I.
(To be continued.)
