Note 17 — Forecastings of Nostradamus.
Reading edition
To show the probability that they would not all prove erroneous, it may amuse the reader to learn that Sir Thomas Brown did once in sport attempt a prophecy in reply to an ancient metrical one that had been sent him by a friend:—
“When new England shall trouble new Spain, When Jamaica shall be Lady of the Isles and the main; When Spain shall be in America hid, And Mexico prove another Madrid; When Mahomet’s ships on the Baltic shall ride, And Turks shall labour to have ports on that side; When Africa shall no more sell out her blacks, To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts; When Batavia the old shall be subdued by the new; When a new drove of Tartars shall China subdue; When America shall cease to send out its treasure, But employ it at home for American pleasure; When the new world shall the old invade, Nor count them their lords but their fellows in trade; When shall almost pass to Venice by land, Not in deep water, but from sand to sand; When Nova Zembla shall be no stay Unto them that pass to or from Cathay; Then think strange things are come to light, Whereof but few have had a foresight.”
Now the most unlikely part of the above to be realised was the ships of Mahomet appearing in the Baltic, but, nevertheless, it happened. “Mahomet’s ships” did actually ride in the Baltic, manned by the corsairs of Algiers, in 1819, so the line was verified, though not as Brown intended. (Quarterly Review, xxvi. 191.)