Note 663 — PREFACE (continued 4)
Reading edition
Bishop Lesley, at the close of 1558, among other "portenta," describes this "flammivomus et barbatus Cometa."—(De Rebus, &c. p. 540.) Sir James Balfour also says, "A fearfull Comett appeired this zeire [1558,] which not only, as the sequell proved, protendit change in Government, but in Religione lykwayes."—(Annals, vol. i. p. 312.) In those days Comets were regarded as the harbingers of disastrous events. Thus Shakespeare, in the First Part of his Henry VI.,—
"Comets importing change of times and states;"
and again,—
"Now shine it like a Comet of revenge, A prophet to the fall of all our foes;"
and Milton, in Paradise Lost,—
"and like a Comet burn'd, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In th' Artick sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war."