" From the English kingdom the worthy driven away, The counsellor thronsrh anger shall be" burned. The iiartners shall creep so low That the bastard shall be half received."
The worthy is, of course, Charles I; the counsellor, Strafford or archbishop Laud; the partners are Crom- well's military junta. The translation of Garencieres is given because no one else could venture to do into Eng- lish the anomalous French of Nostradamus. Of this French oidy one more specimen will be given.
Among the most remarkable of the scries are the quatrains which m.ay be applied to the scenes and char- acters of the French Revolution, and to the forttnies of . the Bonapartes. The period from t he accession of Louis
XVI to the close of the Reign of Terror may be prefig- ured in these lines :
" Soubs un la paix, par tout sera clemence, IVlais non long temps, pille et rebellion, Par refus ville. terre, et nier ent amt'e, Morts et captifs le tiers d"nu million" (i, 92).
" Under one shall be peace, and everywhere clemency. But not a long while ; then shall be plundering aiid
rebellion, By a denyal shall town, land, and sea be assaulted ; There shall be dead and taken prisoners the thud
part of a million."
" The words and sense are plain," observes 51. de Garcn- cieres; but it will be observed that they are equally suitable for the wars of the League in France.
The following might be fitted to Napoleon I. M. de Garencieres, writing in 1672, said truly, " This prophecy is for the future :"
" An emperor shall be born near Italy, Who shall cost dear to the empire ; They shall say, ' With what people he keepeth com- pany '.' He shall be found less a prince than a butcher" (i, 60).
The coronation of Napoleon by the pope may be an- nounced in Cent, v, G.
Tiie surrender of Sedan and the capture of Louis Na- poleon may be imagined to be involved in this quatrain :
" After that the deserter of the great fort Shall have forsaken his place. His adversary shall do such great feats That the emperor shall soon be condemned to death"
(iv, 65). The last line, literally rendered, would be,
" That the emperor, soon dead, shall be comlenuied."
This may serve for an old announcement of the Prus- sian siege of Paris :
" Round about the great city Soldiers shall lye in the fields and towns ; Paris shall give the assault, Rome shall be attacked ; Then upon the bridge shall be great plundering" (v, 30).
Garencieres interprets this as referring to the siege and capture of Rome by the Constable de Bourbon ; but this would convert it into a prophecy after the event.
These few examples, which constitute only a small portion of those that might be cited in the present con- nection, may suffice to show the stuff of which the ilreams of Nostradamus are made. The collection is a treasury of unmeaning nonsense ; the vaticinations are words, words, words, of doubtful manufacture and more dubious meaning, which scarcely even rattle as they fall. Yet it is well to ascertain out of what materials has been framed a reputation which has lasted three centuries, partly from the obscurity, but mainly from the inaccessibility of the oracles by which it has been gained.
5. Literafure. — The principal editions of the prophe- cies of Nostradamus are, Cenim-ies de Xostrudame (Lyon ou Troye, 1568, sm. 8vo) ; Nostradamus, Les Vi-ayes Centuries et Propheties, avec la Vie de I'Auteiir et des Observations sur ses Propheties (Paris, 1667); Centuries de Nostradaine (Amsterd. 1668); Les Vraies Centuries de M. Michel Nostradame (Paris, 1652, 8vo) — a forgery directed against cardinal Mazarin ; Garencieres, The true Prophecies or Pi-ognosticutions of Michael Nostradamus (Lond. 1672, fol.). This work is without commemora- tion in Allibone's Dictionary. It has furnished the chief foundation for the present article. Of works on the life or the prophecies of Nostradamus, the following deserve mention: Tronc du Condoulet, Ahreye. de la Vie de M. Nostradame, s. d. ; Eclaircissement des vei-itahles Quatrains de MaistreNosti'adamus, Docteur et Professeur en Medecine, etc. (Anonymous); Badius, Virtutes nosti'i Magistri Nostradami (Geneva, 1562) ; Clavigny, Com- menlaires snr les Centuries de Nostradamus (Paris, 1.096, 8vo); Guynaud, Concordance des P7-opheties (ibid. 1693, 12mo); Tm Clef de Nostradamus : Isagoge ou Introduc- tion a un veritable sens des propheties de cefameux auteur (ibid. 1710) ; Hartze, Vie de Nostradame (Aix, 1712, 12mo); Jaubert, Vie de M. Nostradamus, Apologie et
NOSTRIL
199
NOTCHER
Histoire (Amsterd. 165G) ; Astruc, Memoires pour servir a V Histoire de la Faculte de Montpellier (Paris, 1767) ; Bonys, Nouvelks Considerations puisees duns la clair- voyance instinctive de riiomme, sur les oracles, les Si- hylles, les prophetes, et jjarticuWerement sur Nostrada- mus (ibid. 1806, 8vo) ; Bareste, Nostradamus (4th ed. ibid. 1842). There is a notice of the prophet and his predictions in Morholii Polyhistor (Ps. i, lib. i, c. x, § 32-36) (Lubecse, 1732, 4to). Some of the prophecies that may be conceived to have been realized are pointed out in the Companion to the British Almanac, 1840. Adelung has given Nostradamus a place in his Hist, de la Fvlie llumuine, vii, 105 sq. (G. F. H.)
Nostril (sometimes ~X, aph, properly nose [q. v.] ; but distinctive]}- t^'^'^Hi, nechii-a'ijim, .Job xli, 20; whereas the kindred "HJ, na'char, Job xxxix, 20, sig- nifies a snorting, as the fem. n"ir!3, nacharah', is ren- dered in Jer. viii, 16).