"London streets shall run with blood,
And at last shall sink
So that it shall be fulfilled,
That Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be
The finest city of the three."
As I have just stated, the original date of these Prophecies is somewhat involved in mystery; but I myself possess copies of three different editions published during the last century, the first of the three, purporting to be the sixth edition, bearing date London, 1719. A Life of Nixon, affixed to this edition, states him to have lived and prophesied in the reign of King James I.; at whose court, we are farther told, he was, in conformity with his own prediction, starved to death. His Prophecies are, by the learned, held to be apocryphal; the country folk of Cheshire, on the contrary, have as much faith in them and their author as they have in the fact of their own existence.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
"Could we with ink," &c. (Vol. viii., pp. 127. 180.).—I am surprised that none of your correspondents has referred to Smart, the translator of Horace, who has been frequently stated to be the writer of these lines, and I believe with truth.
E. H. D. D.