Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/64



AST year was published a paper of Predictions, pretended to be written by one Isaac Bickerstaff esq., but the true design of it was to ridicule the art of astrology, and expose its professors as ignorant, or impostors. Against this imputation, Dr. Partridge has learnedly vindicated himself in his almanack for that year.

For a farther vindication of this famous art, I have thought fit to present the world with the following prophecy. The original is said to be of the famous Merlin, who lived about a thousand years ago; and the following translation is two hundred years old, for it seems to be written near the end of Henry the Seventh's reign. I found it in an old edition of Merlin's prophecies, imprinted at London by John Hawkins in the year 1530,