sss 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2ii<i S. N« 64., Mar. 21. '67. 



most ignorant rustic who happened to be out on 

 the evening of Feb. 12, would not have spoken of 

 it, after he got home, as the sight of a star, when 

 his eye had been struck by the appearance of two 

 great stars ; looking the brighter because the 

 crescent moon had dimmed the others ; and seem- 

 ing to him to be at the distance of three times the 

 moon's width from each other. 



But why should the sight of a planetary con- 

 junction, v^hether more or less approximate, induce 

 Chaldsean astrologers to leave their homes in quest 

 of a great king, just born somewhere, and to set off 

 for the west^ upon seeing the planets (Mr. Alford 

 says) to their east ? It is strange to find a sensible 

 man seeming to think that their silly science led 

 them to this correct belief and right course. But, 

 says he, " The prophecy in Numbers xxiv. 17. 

 ('There shall come a star out of Jacob') could 

 hardly be unknown to the eastern astrologers." 

 Would he say that the Jewish scriptures could 

 hardly be unknown to them ? For it is incredible 

 that those few words, spoken by Balaam to a petty 

 Moabitish prince in Arabia, could have been known 

 beyond the borders of his tribe, or handed down 

 for any long time, except as incorporated by 

 Moses into the narrative of scripture. 



But suppose we were to concede that their 

 science and this prophecy, either severally or 

 jointly, were sufBcient to induce eastern astro- 

 logers to direct their steps to Jerusalem on the 

 sight of a planetary conjunction ; there must 

 have been scores of such, or more conspicuous 

 conjunctions, between Balaam's days and a.u.c. 

 747. So that we are thus far left, still, without 

 any means of accounting for such motives being 

 sufficiently influential in 747, if neither these men 

 nor their predecessors were ever induced to take 

 the same journey before, for the like end. I must 

 beg Mr. Alford's pardon : for he has given his 

 readers classical authority, seemingly sufficient to 

 account for any Orientals coming into Judaea with 

 some such view at this time, rather than in former 

 ages ; viz. a few words from Suetonius, Vit Vesp., 

 " Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans 

 opinio ; esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judaea profecti 

 rerum potirentur ; " and from Tacitus, Hist. 

 lib. V. *' Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacer- 

 dotum Uteris contineri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut 

 valesceret Oriens, profectique Judaea rerum poti- 

 rentur." But these brief sentences add nothing 

 to the authority of Josephus ; for each is but a 

 more or less inexact version of what he says (after 

 the event), that he had prophetically announced to 

 Vespasian, to procure his favour (Z)e Bella Jud., 

 lib. iii. c. 27., and lib. vi. c. 31.) ; and when Jo- 

 sephus is examined, " Oriente toto " shrinks into 

 amongst the Jews, and " eo ipso tempore " becomes 

 about A.u.c. 820. 



Assuredly the careful calculations of Ussher and 

 others, founded on the only date distinctly given 



in the New Testament, viz. that in Luke iii. 1., 

 which makes John's preaching to commence "in 

 the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius," a year 

 beginning with Aug. 19, a u.c. 781, and connects 

 with it that " Jesus himself began to be about 

 thirty years of age " are not to be swept away for 

 a theory constructed upon such imaginary and 

 weak foundations. The evangelist's words cannot 

 be twisted into any meaning reconcileable with 

 truth, if the person whom he spoke of as beginning 

 to be about thirty years of age in 781 or 782 was 

 born in 747. Henbv Walter. 



OLD PRATEB-BOOK. 



(2'^ S. iii. 187.) 



The true date of J. B.'s book may be assigned 

 nearly enough by the following dates : — 



Elizabeth, daughter of James I., was married 

 to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, Feb. 14, 1613. 

 She died Feb. 8, 1662. 



The date of the Prayer-Book lies, therefore, 

 between 1613 and 1662. 



Again, James I. died March 27, 1625. 



The date of the Prayer-Book lies, therefore, 

 between 1625 and 1662. 



Again, " Prince Charles," afterwards Charles II., 

 was born in 1630; and his sister, "the Lady 

 Mary" (afterwards, by her marriage with William 

 Prince of Orange, mother of our William III.), 

 was born in 1631. And as James, afterwards 

 James. II., born Oct. 15, 1633, is not mentioned 

 in the Litany, it seems fair to infer that the date 

 of J. B.'s Old Prayer-Book lies between 1631, in 

 which "the Lady Mary" was born, and Oct. 15, 

 1633, the date of the birth of James II. 



I have in my possession a similar Prayer-Book 

 to J. B.'s, and, like his, minus a title-page ; but 

 apparently of a rather earlier date, as the Litany 

 runs "for Charles our most gracious King and 

 Governour," " for our most gracious Queen Mary, 

 Frederick the Prince Elector, and the Lady Eliza- 

 beth his wife, and all their royall issue." 



As neither "Prince Charles" nor "the Lady 

 Mary" are here mentioned, and as the term 

 "royall" is applied to the issue of the Lady Eliza- 

 beth, it seems clear that my copy must have been 

 printed soon after Charles's marriage in May, 

 1625, and at a time when there was no heir ap- 

 parent to the crown of England. The change 

 from "royall" in my copy, to that of "Princely" 

 in J. B.'s, is very significant of this. 



As to the probable value of such a Prayer-Book, 

 I can say little. Mine is bound up with a copy 

 of the Genevan, often called the "Breeches" 

 Bible ; with "two alphabets of directions to com- 

 mon places, containing all the Hebrewe, Chaldean, 

 Greeke, Latin, English, or other strange names 

 dispersed throughout the whole Bible," date 1578 ; 



