354 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d s. No 96., Oct. 31. '67. 



horoscopes of Gaurico and Cardan, as they were 

 actually published before the event, with the 

 fabricated horoscopes which were attributed to 

 them after the event, and to perceive that, while 

 the latter have been ingeniously brought into 

 agreement with the fact, the former are completely 

 false. Yet if this decisive evidence had perished, 

 the story would have rested on the highly respect- 

 able testimony of Thuanus, corroborated by the 

 authority of Lord Bacon, This example ought to 

 teach us that we should be careful how we attach 

 any credit to other similar stories, where similar 

 means of checking their truth do not exist. 



Having had occasion to refer to Lord Bacon's 

 Essay on Prophecies, I may be permitted to con- 

 firm the preceding remarks by his pertinent and 

 sagacious reasons for disbelieving the authenticity 

 of the prophecies which occur from time to time 

 in history. 



" That (he says) that hath given them grace, and some 

 credit, consisteth in three things. First, that men mark 

 when they hit, and never mark when they miss ; as they 

 do, generally, also of dreams. The second is, that pro- 

 bable conjectures, or obscure traditions, many times form 

 themselves into prophecies; while the nature of man, 

 Avhich coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretel 

 that wliich indeed they do but collect.* The third and 

 last (which is the great one) is that almost all of them, 

 being intinite in number, have been impostures, and by 

 idle and crafty brains merely contrived and feigned after 

 the event past." 



L. 



PROFKSSOR YOUNG. 



(2'«' S. iv. 196. 276.) 



It may not be new information to your corre- 

 spondent L. R. H. to add that Dr. Moor was the 

 very i)ink of loyalty. The " Spartan Lesson, or 

 the Praise of Valour," of the ancient Athenian 

 poet Tyrtaeus, with their spirited inscription to 

 iiis late scholars then serving as officers in the 

 Pligbland Battalions, were printed by R. (not M.) 

 and A. Foulis of Glasgow, during the American 

 war between France and Britain. A curious al- 

 lusion to this work will be found in a pamphlet 

 (pp. 34.), the Donaldnoniad, J(oJi)n D{onaldso)n 

 detected, or an Account how the Authentic Address 

 of the (^College') teas discovered, Sj-c, Glasgow, 1763 

 (no author stated), but from the pen of the Rev. 

 William Thorn, A.M.,.Govan. The College had 

 thought proper to send an Address of Congratu- 

 lation "to the King's most excellent Majesty " in 

 1762, which called forth from the divine one of 

 the richest and most original pieces of satire that 

 any one would desire to read. The person made 

 to figure as the supposed author of this Address is 

 John Donaldson, an old College janitor or porter, 

 who is toughly interrogated by F(rofesso)r . 



♦ That is, infer. 



John, no way dismayed, answers prettily all ques- 

 tions through his Glasgow Doric, a small specimen 

 of which will bring in the allusion mentioned in 

 the foresaid. 



" J. D And these are honestly my Keasuns for 



doing what I did. 1 tauld you before I gat na the Lair.* 

 I ken naething about your Lectix and Thetix. 



" Pr. The Incident is curious. 



The Reasons given for it are curious. 



" Ergo. They are both curious. 

 But pra}', John, had you no assistance in penning the 

 Address ? Where got you all the tine words and grand 

 epithets you have stutFed into it? 



" J. D. Ay, ay. Sir, whare sud I get um but about the 

 College, where they've always gaen thick an three-fauld. 

 0, Sir, I am not so eloquent as lang sj'ne. I remember, 

 in Mr. Hutcheson's f time, whun words and things baith 

 war gaen about the College like Peas an Groats, and a' 

 the lads tauked Philosophy then just as forthily as the 

 Hiland lads tank Greek (see Tyrtaeus in Greek, dedi- 

 cated to the Highland Militia)," &c. 



If Dr. Moor did not translate the Fragments 

 into English, it may be inferred from the above 

 that he considered the necessity was superseded 

 by his martial Celts having been sufficiently drilled 

 by himself in Greek. 



The "Effusions" of the editions of 1804 and 

 1807, noticed by L. R. H., may have been a Spar- 

 tan bantling born in Glasgow College, and their 

 respective dates come within the time of Prof. 

 Young; but there were then several eminent men 

 in the C^ollege (as Jardine and Mylne) who could 

 " tauk Greek as forthily " as the Professor in that 

 Chair, and before pinning down the authorship to 

 the latter, I humbly think that the fact would re- 

 quire to be better and more notoriously certified 

 than by the mere autograph initials of J. Y. at a 

 preface, which any one might place there at ran- 

 dom on his own supposition. As I have a MS. 

 letter of the Professor lying somewhere among 

 my papers, if I could receive from R. S. H. an 

 exact facsimile of the initials for comparison, it 

 might go a certain length in establishing the 

 point. About the periods referred to, when we 

 were threatened with invasion on our own shores, 

 many loyal addresses, speeches, and pamphlets 

 were issued in the West of Scotland to stimulate 

 the people in the defence of their homes and their 

 altars, and among the rest the " Effusions " were 

 likely one which had emanated from the College. 

 It is even asserted that the clergy openly preached 

 from their pulpits that all those who, in the event 

 of such a struggle, should die for their country, 

 might be sure of their everlasting happiness in 

 the heavenly state; for although the inhabitants of 

 Glasgow, at and since the Revolution of 1688, have 

 been noted for their patriotism, they had not quite 

 reached the pitch of the Spartan mothers, who de- 

 plored the safe return of their sons from the battle, 



* Learning. 



t Francis Hutcheson, LL.D, , Professor of Moral Phi- 

 losophy, died 1746. 



