Mary L. Ritter.
SOME OLD ALMANACKS.
Do you know, gentle reader, what an interesting, valuable, and useful book an "Almanack" once was? You are gorged with books, and newspapers lie about thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Do you ever buy an Almanac for five cents? I trow not. Therefore you do not know how much careful calculation, skill, and knowledge are to be had for that small piece of money.
Therefore you cannot sit down in the evening and pore over its mystic signs. Indeed, I fear you do not know what a zodiac is, or what the meaning of "Cancer the Crab" and "Gemini the Twins" may be. It is more than likely you will reply, "Oh, yes; if the Crab had a Cancer, he would cry Gemini to the Twins"—and in that light and flippant way you will try to hide your brutal ignorance, if a male, your shallow understanding, if a female.
Now I have just had a sort of musty satisfaction in looking over some old Almanacs, which dated as far back as 1727. They seem to have been the property of somebody whose letters were W. S. His almanacs were so prized that he had interleaved them, and then he recorded his profound observations. He thus had learned, what I fear you have not, that the moon had many mysterious influences besides making the tides rise and fall, if it does. It seems, if we can believe "A Native of New England," who made B. Greene's Almanack for 1731, that the "Moon has dominion over man's body," and that when she gets into "Cancer the Crab" you must expect every sort of bedevilment in your breast and stomach. When she gets into "Gemini," the same in your arms and shoulders. When she is in "Scorpio" your bowels and belly are in danger, and so on all through your body; so that we might well enough wish the moon were wholly abolished; for the little wishy-washy light she gives to lovers and thieves is not at all a balance for such fearful threatenings.
Who was the "Native of New England" is a secret, and well it is, for in 1727 he graced his title-page with this poem:
——Man—that Noble Creature,
Scanted of time, and stinted by Weak Nature,
That in foretimes saw jubilees of years,
As by our Ancient History appears;
Nay, which is more, even Silly Women then,
Liv'd longer time than our grave Graybeard Men.
"Graced," did I say? May we not put a dis before it? "Silly Women!" "Noble Creature!" Did the Native mean that woman then was silly and man then noble? Well for him is it that our "Mrs. Ward Howes" and "Mrs. Lillie Blakes" cannot make rhymes upon his name; well for him that he went his way holding his mantle before his face.