which begins this year (as usual) when, or then, or thereabouts, the time the Summer quarter ends—namely, when the nights begin to grow longer and the days shorter: this is the time when the barns are filled with wheat, which soon must be thrashed out, in order to be sowed again. This also is the time when the orchards abound with fruits of the kind, and consequently the properest time to make cider.
Lamentable now must be the case of those poor women who, in this quarter, happen to long for green pease or strawberries; for I dare assure them, upon the honest word of an astrologer, that they can get none on this side of next Easter. Some now-abouts under the notion of soldiers, shall sally out at night upon Pullen, or perhaps lie in embuscade for a rope of onions, as if they were Welsh freebooters. Loss of time and money may be recovered by industry: but to be a fool-born, or a rogue in nature, are diseases incurable.
Remember that in any quarter of the year, this is almost always a certain presage of a wedding, when all parties are agreed, and the parson in readiness; and then you must be sure to have money in readiness too, or your intended marriage may happen to prove a miscarriage. But those who are able to pay for tying the knot, when it is fairly tied, may go home to dinner and be merry; go to the tavern and be merry; go to supper and be merry; rise next morning and be merry: and let the world know, that a married life is a plentiful life, when people have good estates; a fruitful life when they have many children; and an happy life, when man and wife love each other as they ought to do, and never quarrel nor disagree.
OF THE WINTER QUARTER.
But now comes on the cold, dirty, dithering, pouting, rainy, shivering, freezing, blowing, stormy, blustering, cruel quarter called winter; the very thoughts of it are enough to fright one; but that it very luckily happens to be introduced (this year) by a good, fat merry Christmas: yet it is the last and worse, and very much resembles extreme old age accompanied by poverty; this quarter is also pretty much like Pharoah's lean kine; for it generally (we find) eats up and devours most of the produce of the preceding seasons: now the sun entering the southern tropic, affords us the least share of his light, and consequently the longest long nights: yet, nevertheless, in this uncomfortable quarter, you may possibly pick up some crumbs of comfort, provided you have good health, good store of the ready Rhino, a good wife, and other good things about you: and especially a good conscience: for then the starry influences must necessarily appear very benign, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather; for in such cases there will be frequent conjunctions of sirloins and ribs of beef; aspects of legs and shoulders of mutton, with refrenations of loins of veal, shining near the watery triplicity of plumb-porridge—together with trine and sextile of minced pies; collared brawn from the Ursus major, and sturgeon from Pisces—all for the honour of Christmas: and I think it is a much pleasanter sight than a Covent-Garden comedy, to see a dozen or two of husbandmen, farmers, and honest tenants, at a nobleman's table (who never raised their rents) worry a sirloin, and hew down, (I mean cut up) a goose like a log: while a good Cheshire cheese, and plenty of nappy ale, and strong March beer, washes down the merry goblets, sets all their wit afloat, and sends them to their respective homes, as happy as kings.
And now, kind loving readers, every one,
God send y'a good new-year, when the old one 's gone.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] The following prediction, and the verification of it are of so recent a date, that we cannot resist giving it a place in our pages. In the account of the late Captain Flinder's voyage of discovery, is the melancholy relation of the loss of the master, Mr. Thistle, with seven others, in a boat, on the inhospitable shores of Terra Australia. To this narrative, the following note is subjoined, which we shall here quote in Captain Flinder's own words: "This evening, Mr. Fowler, the lieutenant, told me a circumstance which I thought very extraordinary, and it afterwards proved to be more so. While we were lying at Spithead, Mr. Thistle was one day waiting on shore, and having nothing else to do, went to a certain old man, named Pine, to have his fortune told. The cunning man informed him that he was going on a long voyage, and that the ship, on arriving at her destination, would be joined by another vessel. That such was intended, he might have learnt privately; but he added that Mr. Thistle would be lost before the other vessel joined. As to the manner of his loss the magician refused to give any information. My boat's crew, hearing what Mr. Thistle said, went to consult the wise man, and after the prefatory information of a long voyage, they were told that they would be shipwrecked, but not in the ship they were going out in; whether they would escape and return to England, he was not permitted to reveal. This tale Mr. Thistle often told at the mess-table; and I remarked, with some pain, in a future part of the voyage, that every time my boat's crew went to embark in the Lady Nelson, there was some degree of apprehension amongst them, that the time of the predicted shipwreck was arrived. I make no comment, (says Capt. Flinders,) upon this story, but to recommend a commander, if possible, to prevent any of his crew from consulting fortune-tellers."—It should be observed that, strange as it may appear, every particular of these predictions came exactly to pass, for the master and his boat's crew were lost before the Investigator was joined by the Lady Nelson, from Port-Jackson; and when the former ship was condemned, the people embarked with their commander on board the Porpoise, which was wrecked on a coral reef, and nine of the crew were lost.
[76] In 1670, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars, prevailed in France among the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Médicis carried Henry IV, when a child, to old Nostradamus, who antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the revered seer, with a heard which "streamed like a meteor in the air," terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage.
[77] The Chaldean Sages were nearly put to the route by a quarto pack of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber, in 1691. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race; and his personalities made them sorely feel it. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of Astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with "A Defence of Judicial Astrologye, in answer to a treatise lately published by Mr. John Chamber. By Christopher Knight. Printed at Cambridge, 1693."