Page:Mother Shipton investigated.djvu/41

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MOTHER SHIPTON INVESTIGATED.

XVIII. A child had been "credibly reported" to have been born at Pomfret with three thumbs.

XIX. The prophecy of the siege of York and its accompanying incidents not fulfilled.

XX. The prophecy about London not fulfilled.

The foregoing category catalogues nearly all Mother Shipton's prophecies as having been fulfilled before 1645. That of the the mariner in the Thames weeping for malt liquor in the partly destroyed city, may more particularly be supposed to yet remain for fulfilment, but Mr. Baker, the writer of her 1797 biography, claims that this last one describes the results of the Great Fire of London in 1666, which left not one house between the Tower and the Temple. This fire, at all events, occurred long after Mother Shipton's death and the publication of her alleged prophecy.

The third copy in point of antiquity, of Mother Shipton's Prophecies in the British Museum, is a black-letter pamphlet, published in 1663, "Printed by T. P. for Fr. Coles, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Lambe in the Old-Baily, neare the Sessions House, 1663." It is entitled