XOSTRADAMUS
197
NOSTKAUAMUS
for the forgery of later prognostications, and their attri- bution to Nostradamus.
Henry II did not long survive this dedication of the last three Centuries, being killed within thirteen months, in the tournament which celebrated the restoration of peace between France and Spain. This strange and fatal casualty was pretended to have been foretold by Nostradamus in the following quatrain :
" Le Hon jeune It; vieux surmoutera,
En champ bellique, par singiilier duelle, Dai's cage d'Or I'oeil lui crevera, Deux playes uue, puis mourir cruelle."
This prediction, so singularly accomplished, or so vio- lently wrested to imply its accomplishment, greatly augmented the renown of Nostradamus, and attracted multitudes of gaping visitors, often of the highest dis- tinction, to his luimble abode at Salon. The dulve of Savoy came in October, 1559 ; and about two months later his affianced bride, the princess Margaret of France. In the year 1564, in the long progress which preceded the deadly Conference of Bayonne, Charles IX was welcomed by him to Salon in the name of the town, and he was summoned to meet his majesty at Aries or Lyons. He was appointed physician in ordi- nary to tlie king, and was gratified witli a royal donation of two hundred crowns of gold, while the queen-mother, Catharine, bestowed npon him a purse of nearly equal amount.
Nostradamus did not long enjoy his honors. He died of dropsy at Salon July 2, 156(5. The time of his death was said to have been anticipated exactly by him. In the Calendar for the year he is asserted to have written opposite the end of June, '■ Hie prope mors est" — death about this time. Had the work been published — had it even been discovered in that age — this entry might have been supposed to be only a modified transcript of the observation of Joannes Lydus {De Signis, for June 30) : " If it thunder, death will shortly abound." It might well have been transmitted among the mediae- val traditions of signs, da3's, and portents.
Nostradamus was buried in the church of the Fran- ciscans at Salon, and a mural tablet was erected by his widow to his memory.
2. Works. — The Ten Centuries of the Prophecies of Nostradamus were his chief production, and the sole cause of the long celebrity of his name. He wrote prophecies in prose never published, except such as were contained in his scries of Astrological Almanacs (1550-1567), which have already been noticed. He was the author of some other works, which have long ceased to be sought after, and which are now almost entirely forgotten. These are, De Fardements et Senteurs (1552), a cookery book: — Lii:re de Recettes Curieuses entretenir la sante du corps (Poictiers, 1556), hygienic :^Des con- fitures (Antwerp, 1557), cosmetics for beautifying the hands and face : — Paraphrases de Galen (Lyons, 1557), translated from the Latin.
After his deatli appeared the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries of his prophetic quatrains, which are almost certainly spurious, being those later accessories which are always engendered by popular collections of oracles.
3. Prophecies. — The vaticinations of Nostradamus which secured his fame are in verse, and are written in quatrains of rough, rude, unintelligible, and incorrigible French, in tottering and halting metre, with rugged, harsh, and often unmanageable rhymes, clattering or jingling at the ends of the alternate lines. M. de Ga- rencieres, the English editor and translator of these ora- cles, asserts, of his own knowledge, that they were used as crabbed texts for the instruction of children in French in the land of their nativity. It was a time when edu- cation sought insurmountable difficulties for the neo- phyte, rather than to level the high-roads of learning, and to make the rough places smooth. They remain for the most part Incapable of comprehension, and are scarcely rendered more perspicuous by the English ver- sion or the explanatory comments of M. de Garencieres.
Notwithstanding their unintelllglbility — probably on account of their unintelliglblllty and consecjuent pliancy — the prophecies of Nostradamus were long in vogue, and continued to be occasionally revived. In genuine or supposititious forms, till a very recent period, if It can be said that they are totally discredited even now. It is unnecessary to discuss on the present occasion the character of the fraudulent pretensions and the halluci- nations, the deliberate artifices and the diseased tem- peraments which generate oracle-mongering. Usually such pretensions are entirely fraudulent ; but frequently honest delusion Is so strangely amalgamated with the growing habit of only half-recognised deception that it is impossible to consider the prophetic mania as anything else than a real mental distemper. The vaticinations of Nostradamus seem to have sprung, at least originally, from such a morbid frame of mind ; though Increasing renown, the deference paid to hlni, the emoluments of an accepted profession, and the apparent accomplish- ment of several of his predictions, may have easily in- duced him in his later years to trust much to chance and obscurity, and deliberately to delude others, while seeking to delude himself also. A person believed to possess supernatural knowledge or powers cannot extri- cate himself from the consequences of the popular cre- dulity which he has encouraged, and by which he main- tains himself In repute.
An elaborate apologj^ for Nostradamus, In seven for- mal chapters. Is offered by IM. de Garencieres as an Intro- duction to his English version of the Centuries. This may be passed over with little notice, though the fourtli chapter consists of " proofs setting forth evidently that Nostradamus was enlightened by the Holy Ghost." If the prophet aimed at deception, his interpreter was thor- oughly deceived. If the prophet was himself deluded, the delusion of his translator was even more complete than his own.