[384] Butler. Cresys.
October 14.
A Lucky Day.
“Some Memorable Remarques upon the Fourteenth of October, being the Auspicious Birth-Day of His Present Majesty The Most Serene King James II. Luc. xix. 42 In Hoc Die Tuo. In This Thy Day. London, Printed by A. R. And are to be sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall 1687.” Folio.
In this curious tract, the author purports to set forth “how lucky the Fourteenth of October hath been to the princes of England,” and because he discovers “out of Wharton’s Gesta Britannorum, and the collections of others, that his late royal highness, our magnanimous magnificent sovereign, (James II.,) was also born upon that augural day,” he observes—“It made more than ordinary impression upon me, so that I never saw him, but, I thought, in his very face there were extraordinary instances and tokens of regality.”
There were some, it seems, who, after “his late royal highness” the dukes “recess into Holland,” “exceedingly tryumphed, wishing he might never return; nay, that he durst not, nor would be permitted so to do; using, moreover, opprobrious terms.” These persons, he tells us, he “prophetically characteris’d” in his “Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam;” hence, he says, “Indignation made me print my ensuing sentiments,” which “found good acceptance among the better and more loyal sort;” and hence, he further says, “things by me forethought, and publickly hinted, being come to pass, my Day Fatality began to be remembred; and one whom I wish very well, desiring I would give him leave to reprint that, and two other of my small pieces together, I assented to his request.” These form the present treatise, from whence we gather that the Fourteenth of October
—————“gave the Norman duke
That vict’ry whence he England’s scepter took,”
and was remarkable for the safe landing of Edward III., after being endangered by a tempest at sea on his returning victorious from France. Wherefore, says our author, in Latin first, and then in these English lines—