MOTHER SHIPTON AGAIN.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 99, 23 August 1879, Page 3

MOTHER SHIPTON AGAIN.

Early in 1877 there was published au extract from an evening paper embodying certain statements, aud a copy of the most famous of the pretended prophecies ■of Mother Ship ton. Here is the passage : " The inclosed ' Mother Shiptou's Prophesy ' lias been copied from a work published in a.d. 1448, and now iu the .British .Museum.

Carriages without horses shall go And accidents fill the world with woe. Around the world thought shall lly In the twinkling of au eve. Water shall yet more wonders do ; How strange, yet shall he true. 'The world upside down shall lie. And gold shall he found a! '.lie root of a .tree. Through hills man shall ride, And no horse or ass he at his side. Under the water man shall walk. Shall ride, shall .sleep, shall talk. In the air men shall lie seen, In white, iu black, in green. Iron in the water shall float, As easy as a wooden boat. Gold siiidl bo found and shown In land that is not no.w known. Fire and water shall wonders due; England shall at last admit a Jew. The world to an end tball come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one."'

Such is the communication which our contemporary inserted without note or >coniment; but wo appended a few obsi nations, which we shall now substantially reproduce, btcause no interest was •etched by the matter that we are still trequeiitly applied to for information about.it. For this reason and for others we again give a place to the lines and to some observations.

The editor of our contemporary was •caught napping. Mother Shipton is to bo referred to in the reign of Ilemy VIII., or nearly a century later than 1448. and we can discover* no trace of •any edition of her so called prophecies until 1041, or a hundred years after she is supposed .to have died. With regard to the ".prophecy" it could not have been copied from a work published in 1448, because no English book was printed so early ; not even Caxton had then introduced the race of printers and publishers into this country. The language also proves it modern e.g., the very first word, ".carriages," eertaiidy did not signify coaches, but luggage, in the sth century. More than this—as a matter of fact, the " prophecy " was the •composition of a person whose name we .know, and who is, wo believe, still living within a bundled miles of the Metropolis. His acknowledgement of the authorship was published in tho" No!etand Queries." The edition into which he foisted the lines is, of course, the work -' now in the British Museum," to which the correspondent of our contemporary so Jesuitically refers. It is simply wonderful thatipeqple should be so easily cheated • and bo hardly taught. Since the exposure, the spurious piece has been again :and again referred to as ancient; and it ilias moreover, continued to appear in editions of the farrago of nonsenso ascribed to Mother Shipton. Under the circumstances it is perfectly justifiable to republish it iu connection with a plain statement of facts. We hope we have now said all that is necessary at least to enlighten our own eorrespon'dcqts on the subject of these silly modem rhymes, for whioh Mr. Charles Hindley is to be held responsible, if our memory is not at fault.—Lomxi.v Papkr.