[9] Preface to “Pastoral Book.”
[10] See also, for Mr. Freeman’s view, “English Towns and Districts,” p. 230: “Chester has no Roman remains in situ to be compared to the New Port of Lincoln;” and p. 394, “There is [at Colchester] nothing to set even against the New Port of Lincoln.” So, too, Mr. G. T. Clark states that it “still bears a name which must have descended from the time when it was first erected, ... and is called the New-port” (“Military Architecture,” ii. 191).
[11] “The abiding Latin name of the gate, the Nova Porta, of itself goes far to show that there could have been no long gap between Roman or British and English occupation.” (English Towns and Districts, p. 200.)
[12] See Mr. J. Pickford’s article on this old mansion, vol. v. p. 190.
[13] “Southwell Minster: an Account of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of Southwell, Architectural, Archæological, and Historical.” By Grevile Mairis Livett, M.A. Southwell: John Whittingham, 1883.
[14] Though his inspirations were, it is said, first noted in prose.
[15] I do not mean by this that every human being is possessed of the faculty, but that some men are, though it may be in a proportion of perhaps less than one in 100 millions.
[16] The passage is cited by the Encyclopædists to bring Nostradamus into discredit, and is said to occur in the first volume of Gassendi’s “Physics.” I have no doubt it is there, but I have not thought it worth while to hunt through the six volumes folio of his collected works to ascertain the fact. Bouys in his “Nouvelles Considerations” says justly enough that the learned writers of the Encyclopædia would take the testimony of Jean-Baptiste Suffren without any hesitation as a thing not to be doubted; it would only be works that should be of the most sacred authority to everyone else that they would think of calling in question.
[17] To show the probability that they would not all prove erroneous, it may amuse the reader to learn that Sir Thomas Brown did once in sport attempt a prophecy in reply to an ancient metrical one that had been sent him by a friend:—
“When new England shall trouble new Spain,
When Jamaica shall be Lady of the Isles and the main;
When Spain shall be in America hid,
And Mexico prove another Madrid;
When Mahomet’s ships on the Baltic shall ride,
And Turks shall labour to have ports on that side;
When Africa shall no more sell out her blacks,
To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts;
When Batavia the old shall be subdued by the new;
When a new drove of Tartars shall China subdue;
When America shall cease to send out its treasure,
But employ it at home for American pleasure;
When the new world shall the old invade,
Nor count them their lords but their fellows in trade;
When shall almost pass to Venice by land,
Not in deep water, but from sand to sand;
When Nova Zembla shall be no stay
Unto them that pass to or from Cathay;
Then think strange things are come to light,
Whereof but few have had a foresight.”