D. Rock.
Vox Populi Vox Dei (Vol. iii., p. 288.) is, I find, a much older proverb in England than Edward III.'s reign, for whose coronation sermon it was chosen the text, not by Simon Mepham, but Walter Reynolds, as your correspondent St. Johns rightly says. Speaking of the way in which St. Odo yielded his consent to the Abp. of Canterbury, circ. A. D. 920, William of Malmesbury writes: "Recogitans illud proverbium, Vox populi vox Dei."—De Gestis Pont., L. i. fo. 114., ed. Savile.
D. Rock.
Francis Moore and his Almanack (Vol. iii., p. 263.).—Mr. Knight, in his London, vol. iii. p. 246., throws a little light on this subject:
"The renowned Francis Moore seems to have made his first appearance about the end of the seventeenth century. He published a Kalendarium Ecclesiasticum in 1699, and his earliest Vox Stellarum or Almanac, as far as we can discover, came out in 1701," &c.
But Mr. Knight is not sure that "Francis Moore" was not a nom de guerre, although at p. 241. he gives the portrait of the "Physician" from an anonymous print, published in 1657.
A. A.
Abridge.
There is an Irish edition published in Drogheda, sold for threepence, and embellished with a portrait of Francis Moore. Can Ireland claim this worthy? Many farmers and others rely much on the weather prophecies of this almanack. A tenant of mine always announces to me triumphantly that "Moore is right:" but his triumphs come at very long intervals.
K.