"Mr. Thomas Flatman (poet) did affirm that he had seen those Hieroglyphicks in an old parchment manuscript, writ in the time of the monks."—Misc., p. 125. ed. 1721.
Nostradamus also, more than a century before, is said to have foretold the very year of the burning. In the edition, or reputed edition, of 1577, cent. ii. quatrain 51., is the following:
"Le sang du jusse à Londres fera faute
Bruslez par foudres de vingt trois les six
La dame anticque cherra de place haute
De mesme secte plusieurs seront occis."
Those of your readers who incline to dubiety on this subject, I refer to the copy from whence it was taken, in the Museum Library, press-mark 718. a 14. If it is a forgery (and such I take it to be), it is decidedly the best I ever met with. Some time ago the Queries of your correspondent Speriend elicited some interesting particulars relative to Nostradamus and his prophecies; but I do not think the question of his claim to having predicted the death of Charles I. was finally decided.
I should be glad if any of your correspondents could tell me whether the quatrain above, or anything like it, occurs in any of the genuine early editions. Dugdale, by the way, evidently believed in its authenticity, and has inserted a version in his History of St. Paul's.
Such a promising theme as the destruction of London was, of course, too good a thing to escape the chap-book makers. During the period of the Civil Wars, we find many allusions to it. In a little quarto brochure, published in 1648, entitled Twelve Strange Prophecies, the following is placed in the mouth of the much maligned and caricatured Mrs. Ann Shipton. The characteristic termination I consider a fine stroke of the art vaticinatory.
"A ship shall come sayling up the Thames till it come to London, and the master of the ship shall weep, and the mariners shall ask him why he weepeth, and he shall say, 'Ah, what a goodly city was this! none in the world comparable to it! and now there is scarce left any house that can let us have drinke for our money.'"