1 M. 2. yet that of the 1 M. 2. was likewise afterwards repealed by the 1 Jac. 28. So that I cannot apprehend wherein we have need of any other new law of this nature, unless it be to preserve to the poor booksellers their just and undoubted property of their copies, which is their house and land, they having the same title for the one, as we have for the other.

POSTSCRIPT.

Having thus, therefore, my lords and gentlemen, tendered to your serious consideration these few reasons against any such inquisition upon the press, I shall presume to offer but this one proposal to your judg ment, and so conclude, viz. That, if these forementioned arguments prove so ineffectual, as that your prudence shall think fit to take some further care, about the regulating of the press; then, if it be enacted, that any book may be printed without a license, provided that the printer's, and the author's name, or, at least, the printer's be registered, whether or no this will not have all the good, but none of the bad con. sequence of a licenser? And that those, which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, shall be committed to the flames, as also the author to condign punishment; but in this, as in all other things, I most humbly submit myself to your supreme wisdom and judicature.

DAY-FATALITY:

OR,

SOME OBSERVATION OF DAYS LUCKY AND UNLUCKY;

Concluding with some Remarks upon the Fourteenth of October,

The auspicious Birth-day of his Royal Highness James Duke of York.
Atavis qui regibus editus,
Augustissimo CAROLO proximus.
NUM. XXVII. 8, 9.

THA

HAT there be good and evil days and times, not only the sacred scriptures, but profane authors mention: see 1 Sam. xxv. 8. Esther viii. 17. and ix. 19, 22. Ecclus. xiv. 14.

The fourteenth day of the first month was a memorable and blessed day amongst the children of Israel: see Exod. xii. 18, 40, 41, 42, 51. and xiii. 4. Levit. xxiii. 5. Numb. xxviii. 16. Four hundred and thirty years being expired of their dwelling in Egypt, even in the selfsame day departed they thence.

A thing somewhat parallel to this we read in the Roman Histories:

That, that very day four years that the civil wars were begun by Pompey the father, Cæsar made an end of them with his sons; Cneus Pompeius being then slain, and it being also the last battle Cæsar was ever in. [Heylin in the kingdom of Corduba.] The calendar to Ovid's Fastorum says, Aprilis erat mensis Græcis auspicatissimus, a most auspicious month to the Græcians.

As to evil days and times, see Amos v. 13. and vi. 3. Eccles. ix. 12. Psalm xxxvii. 19. Obad. 12. Jer. xlvi. 21. And Job hints it, in cursing his birth-day, chap. iii. ver. 1 to 11. See Weaver, p. 458: the old rhymes deriding the Scots.

Ery in a morneuing,

In an evil tyming,

Went they from Dunbarre:

Horace, Lib. II. Ode 13, cursing the tree that had like to have fallen upon him, says, Ille nefasto te posuit die; intimating, that it was planted in an unlucky day.

The Romans counted February the thirteenth an unlucky day, and therefore then never attempted any business of importance; for on that day they were overthrown at Allia by the Gauls; and the Fabii, attacking the city of the Veii, were all slain save one. [Heylin speaking of St. Peter's patrimony.] And see the calendar annexed to Ovid's Fastorum, as to the last circumstance.

The Jews counted August the tenth an unfortunate day; for on that the temple was destroyed by Titus, the son of Vespasian; on which day also the first temple was consumed with fire by Nebuchadnezzar. [Heylin.] The Treasury of the times says, the eighth of Loyon (August) the very same day six hundred seventy-nine years one after another.

And not only among the Romans and Jews, but also among Christians, a like custom of observing such days is used, especially Childer mas or Innocents day. Comines tells us, that Lewis the Eleventh used not to debate any matter, but accounted it a sign of great misfortune towards him, if any man communed with him of his affairs; and would be very angry with those about him, if they troubled him in any matter whatsoever upon this day.

But I will descend to more particular instances of lucky and unlucky days.

Upon the sixth of April, Alexander the Great was born: upon the same day he conquered Darius, won a great victory at sea, and died the same day.

Neither was this day less fortunate to his father Philip; for on the same he took Potidea; Parmenio, his general, gave a great overthrow to the Illyrians; and his horse was victor at the Olympick Games. Therefore his prophets foretold to him, filium cujus natalis, &c. That a son, whose birth day was accompanied with three victories, should prove invincible. Pezelius in Mellificio Historico.

Upon the thirtieth of September, Pompey the Great was born: upon that day he triumphed for his Asian conquest; and on that day died.

The nineteenth of August was the day of Augustus's adoption on the same day he began his consulship: he conquered the Triumviri; and on the same day he died. Hitherto out of the Memoirs of King Charles the First's Heroes.

If Solomon count the day of one's death better than the day of one's birth, there can be no objection why that also may not be numbered amongst one's remarkable and happy days. And therefore I will insert here, That the eleventh of February was the noted day of Elisabeth, wife to Henry the Seventh, who was born and died that day. Weaver, p. 476. Brook in Henry the Seventh's Marriage. Stowe in anno 1466. 1503.

As also that the twenty-third of November was the observable day of Francis Duke of Lunenburgh, who was born on that day, and died upon the same, 1549; as says the French author of the Journal History, who adds, upon particular remark, and observable curiosity:

Ipsa dies vitam contulit, ipsa necem.

The same day life did give,

And made him cease to live.

Sir Kenelm Digby, that renowned knight, great linguist, and maga zine of arts, was born and died on the eleventh of June; and also fought fortunately at Scanderoon the same day. Hear his epitaph, composed by Mr. Farrar, and recited in the aforesaid memoirs:

이

Under this stone the matchless Digby lies,

Digby the great, the valiant, and the wise:

This age's wonder, for his noble parts;

Skill'd in six tongues, and learn'd in all the arts.

Born on the day he dy'd, th' eleventh of June,

On which he bravely fought at Scanderoon:

'Tis rare, that one and self-same day should be
His day of birth, of death, of victory.

I had a maternal uncle, that died the third of March last, 1678, which was the anniversary of his birth; and, which is a truth exceeding strange, many years ago he foretold the day of his death to be that of his birth; and he also averred the same but about a week before his departure. This third of March is the day of St. Eutropius (of which hereafter) and, as to my uncle, it was significative; it turned well to him, according to that of Rev. xiv. 13. Blessed are the dead, &c. and that of Ovid, Metam. Lib. III.

The sixth of January was five times auspicious to Charles Duke of Anjou. Ibid. in the Life of the Earl of Sunderland.

The twenty-fourth of February was happy to Charles the Fifth four times. Ibid. Heylin, speaking of the Temple of Jerusalem, hints

three of these four: his birth; his taking of Francis King of France prisoner; his receiving the imperial crown at Bononia. And so doth also the Journal History before-mentioned.

Of the family of the Trevors six successive principal branches have been born the sixth of July. Same Memoirs.

Sir Humphrey Davenport was born the seventh of July; and, on that days anniversary, his father and mother died, within a quarter of an hour one of another. Same Memoirs.

I have seen an old Romish MS. prayer book (and shewed the same to that general scholar and great astrologer, E. Ashmole, esq;) at the beginning whereof was a calendar, wherein were inserted the unlucky days of each month, set out in verse. I will recite them just as they are, sometimes infringing the rule of grammar, sometimes of prosodia; a matter, of which the old monkish rhymers were no ways scrupulous; It was as ancient as Henry the Sixth's, or Edward the Fourth's time:

January.

Prima dies mensis, & septima, truncat ut ensis.

Tertia Septembris, & denus, fert mala membris.
October.

Tertius & denus est sicut mors alienus.

November.

Scorpius est quintus, & tertius e nece cinctus.
December.

Septimus exanguis, virosus denus & anguis.

The tenth verse is intolerable, and might be mended thus:

Tertia cum dena fit sicut mors aliena.

If any object, and say, Deni is only the plural, I excuse myself by that admirable chronogram upon King Charles the martyr:

Ter deno, Jani, Lunæ, Rex (sole cadente)
Carolus exutus solio, sceptroque secure.

• Ex re & lado.

Neither will I have recourse for refuge to that old tetrastich,

Intrat Avaloniam duodena caterva virorum,

Flos Arimathie Joseph, &c.

because I have even now blamed the liberty of the ancient rhymers. He means, by mors aliena, some strange kind of death; though aliena signifies strange, in quite another sense than there used.

I shall take particular notice here of the third of November, both because it is my own birth-day, and also for that I have observed some remarkable accidents to have happened thereupon.

Constantius the Emperor, son of Constantine the Great, little in. ferior to his father, a worthy warrior, and good man, died the third of November, ex veteri calendario penes me.

Thomas Mountacute, Earl of Salisbury, that great man, and famous commander sub Hen. IV. V. & VI. died this day, by a wound of cannon-shot he received at the siege of Orleans. E MS. quodam & Glovero.

So also Cardinal Borrhomeo, famous for his sanctity of life, and therefore canonised (Heylin, in his Præcognita, says, he made Milan memorable, by his residence there) died this day, 1584, as Possevinus, in his life.

Sir John Perrot (Stowe corruptly calls him Parrat) a man very remarkable in his time, Lord Deputy of Ireland, son to Henry the Eighth, and extremely like him, died in the tower, the third of No. vember, 1592; as Stowe says, grief, and the fatality of this day, killed him. See Nanton's Fragmenta Regalia, concerning this man.

Stowe, in his annals, says: Anno 1099, Novemb. 3. as well in Scotland as England, the sea broke in, over the banks of many rivers, drowning divers towns, and much people, with an innumerable number of oxen and sheep; at which time, the lands in Kent, some time belonging to Earl Goodwin, where covered with sands, and drowned, and, to this day, are called Goodwin's Sands.

I had an estate left me in Kent, of which between thirty and forty acres were marsh-land, very conveniently flanking its upland; and, in those days, this marsh-land was usually let for four nobles an acre. My father died in 1643: Within a year and a half after his decease, such charges and water-scots came upon this marsh-land, by the influence of the sea, that it was never worth one farthing to me, but very often eat into the rents of the upland; so that I often think, this day, being my birth-day, hath the same evil influence upon me, that it had five hundred and eighty years since upon Earl Goodwin, and others concerned in low lands.

The parliament, so fatal to Rome's concerns here, in Henry the Eighth's time, begun the third of November, in the twenty-sixth year of his reign; in which the pope, with all his authority, was clean banished the realm, he no more to be called otherwise than Bishop of Rome; the king to be taken and reputed as supreme head of the church of England, having full authority to reform all errors, heresies, and abuses of the same: Also the first-fruits and tenths of all spiritual