ZADKIEL.*
ABOUT seventy years ago the Stationers' Company, which then enjoyed a virtual monopoly in almanacs, made an experiment which turned out a complete failure. One of its publications, Wing's Sheet Almanac, which had an immense circulation, was adorned by a picture of anything but an edifying nature, repre- senting "the influence of the moon on the various parts of the human body." Dr. Hutton suggested to the Company that it would be as well to suppress this illustration, which many persons considered an offence against morals. So the Company published a new issue of the almanac without the objectionable engrav- ing. The result was that all the copies were returned on its hands, the public absolutely refused to patronize such an expur- gated edition, and a new one had to be brought out with its approved lunar theory. From that time the Company was content to publish what was worse than trash, and annually cir- culated without a scruple half a million of cheap almanacs, which aimed at fostering the grossest prejudices and pandering to the lowest tastes of its customers. At length, in the year 1828, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge commenced the issue of the British Almanac, which was reviewed in the first number of the Athenmurn in a style which gave such offence to the Company, that a copy of that number of the presumptuous young journal is said to have been solemnly kicked out of Stationers' Hall by the aggravated officials who held sway there. That decided step, however, could not undo the effect produced by the exposure of the Company's misdeeds, especially as public attention had been drawn to the fact that one of its members of Council was the bookseller to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The difficulty of getting at the conscience of a corporation is well known, but in this case the sound plan had been adopted of smiting its individual members. Of course, the Company had something to say in its defence, one of the pleas put forward in its behalf being that its Council bad repeatedly urged the most foul-penned of its editors to be decent, but his irrepressible coarseness had proved too much for their attempts at refinement. Since those days a vast improvement has taken place in cheap literature, and it is no longer thought necessary by respectable publishers to provide garbage for popular consumption.
But although the healthy tone of moat of the cheap serials proves that the public taste has immensely improved, still there are some publications the success of which points to the existence of decidedly morbid elements in the current of popular feeling. Some of them display charms of which it is easy to understand the fascination. A picture, for instance, representing a murderer cutting up the body of his victim with a pair of nail scissors, must always prove attractive to spectators on whose minds the idea of
• &caters Almanac for 1869. London: J. G. Berger.
blood produces such an effect that their very language is pervaded by its expression. Even in the coarse black and white of the Police News such a subject, if tolerably well handled, is sure to cause a great sensation. If it were ably chromolithographed on a sufficiently large scale, it would thrill our whole island with delicious horror.
In the case of publications of this kind the secret of their suc- cess is patent, but there are others for the extensive circulation of which it is not so easy to account, and the chief of these is the pamphlet issued every year by R. J. Morrison, F.A.S.L., Com- mander, R.N., and "Tao Sze," under the title of Zadkiers Almanac. It differs but little in size and general information from such an ephemeris as Old lifoore's Almanac, yet it costs six times as much as its respectable but tame rival, and its circulation, at least according to its own account, is such as to set all competition at defiance. Its peculiar attraction must be in the predictions which its compiler professes to have based upon the warning utterances of the stars, and, therefore, it is worth our while to examine them, for the purpose of seeing what manner of pro- phetic utterances they are which appeal so strongly to the popular mind. It may be indeed that a few copies of the almanac are purchased by frivolous sceptics at the instance of levity, but the great majority of its patrons probably buy it with at least a half-belief in the mysterious power it assumes. With so great a charm is the unseen world invested to all eyes, that any tolerably plausible pretender to a knowledge of its secrets will in all probability meet with believers. Different prophets will naturally obtain very different measures of success. To one it will be given to convince the intellects of hard-headed men, to another to touch the feelings of soft-headed women, and to a third to excite the ire of a sceptical police magistrate. One prophet will be clothed in purple and fine linen, and will never be asked to do more than turn a docile table for a few minutes, another will have to don the coarse garb of a prisoner and to turn an exces- sively stiff crank for hours together. Mr. Sludge, the medium, feeds on the fat of the land and sits in a place of honour, but Louisa Kingherst, "the wise woman of Whitechapel," gets sent to gaol for an indiscreet imitation of his practices. But it must be a bungling seer who incurs such penalties as these ; a very moderate amount of astuteness seems to be sufficient to keep a wizard out of the clutches of the law. Commander Morrison appears to have gone on predicting for all but forty years, and yet never to have met with anything worse than contempt. And he evidently has a large following. it is said that his disciples are to be looked for chiefly in the kitchen, being for the most part housemaids and cooks.
The report is not deficient in probability, for it is easy to understand how pleasant it must be, after the day's work is done, to sit in that cheerful firelit room downstairs, which so often contrasts most favourably in its air of warmth and comfort with the cold stiffness of the upetair apartments, and there, with Zadkiel's Almanac in hand, to watch the shadows flitting across the sky of the political future, just as a few hours hence the blackbeetles will steal out from their hiding-places and fitfully darken the smiling kitchen floor. It is not to be wondered at that in such realms Zadkiel finds those friends who aid him in his conflict with his chief enemies, who are, he tells us, " those exceedingly ignorant men who write for their bread in small newspapers," and " the helpless old ladies who figure away at the British Association." In his almanac for 1868 Zadkiel ventured on a somewhat rash prediction, to the effect that the eclipse in August would "overthrow the power of Theodore in Abyssinia." As Theodore and his power were among the things of the past before the eclipse took place, many profane persons scoffed at the prophet. In his present work he explains the failure of his divining as follows: —" It is the planet's situation at the time, and near it, of a large eclipse, I judge from, and not the mere junction of the sun and moon. Hence this eclipse really overthrew the tyrant, but it acted three months before it, the conjunction, was completed." It remains to be seen whether this explanation will satisfy the minds of the sceptical. As regards next year, the following are the chief predic- tions on which Commander Morrison risks his prophetic reputation: —On the 26th of February " Abdul-Aziz has a bad transit, which bids him beware of fire and accidents generally," and " the Emperor of Austria suffers from violence during the middle of the month." Of less important personages, all those whose birthday falls on the 13th of the month will " drink deep of troubles."
In March " all persons born on, or near, the 7th August and the 3rd February, in any year, will suffer either by fires or accidents." In April, " a conjunction of the two benefice, Jupiter and Venus," will produce " some great stroke of policy in favour
of the rights, liberties, and wealth of England. This is the best benefit that this country receives from the Star of Justice' for twelve long years to come." During May "Saturn, retrograde in Sagittarius, afflicts Spain with many troubles," and " the once King of Hanover has the Moon, joined with Saturn, at his birthday ; which denotes a year of grief and grievous losses for him." Two months later the King of Italy will be in a very bad way. " His affairs grow worse and worse ; and as he has aspects at his birthday similar to the late Prince Consort before his lamentable death, we must look for some catastrophe." In August, "the stationary position of Saturn, being near the Sun's place at noon on the birthday of au illus- trious princess," together with other starry influences affecting " the King her father" and " the Prince her husband," may pro- duce, says the mysterious prophet, " very serious consequences, which I do not feel at liberty to explain more fully." In Novem- ber, "the opposition of Jupiter to the Sun, at the birthday of a well-beloved prince, will affect the state of the blood, which becomes inflamed and too abundant. I trust he may reach this. birthday, and overcome the evil influences that beset him, both before and at the same." A little further on conies the information that the Prince of Wales, who was born on November 9, 1841. Among the " general predictions " for the coming year we find the unpleasant news that " great men and landlords shall be very injurious to their tenants, &c., and shall afflict, tax, and grind their faces beyond common humanity and honesty." This natur- ally comes of the Dragon's Tail being in Aquarius. The Con- servative party will be sorry to hear that there will be " many troubles and mighty changes among the Ministry, which will go nigh to be cast out of power, chiefly through the intrigues of female foes." In the United States " the place of Venus, lady of the year, in the eleventh, in exact square to Saturn, indicates detriment to the various societies of ' free love,' as they are termed;" and " the Dragon's Tail in the tenth does not foreshow much benefit or even stability to the President and the Government generally ; yet shall they be guilty of great deceit and tyranny to the people."
Having concluded his prophecies, Commander Zadkiel seta to. work to demolish the Newtonian system. Having mentioned that " a work has now appeared, made known first in the columns. of this almanac, that entirely overthrows the Copernican and Newtonian absurdities," and "destroys for ever the great delusion that those petty instruments, called telescopes can enable mankind to perceive bodies that are placed very, very many millions of miles away," he proceeds to show how Sir Isaac Newton's errors were due to the fact that at his birth Mercury " was in Sagittary, and had recently separated from a square of Jupiter." The consequence was that Sir Isaac naturally plunged into a false hypothesis, "rashly, and to the entire destruction of his lasting fame as a philosopher." And he concludes his attack with an argument which has often been used with great effect by a certain school of theo- logians, who will probably be a little scandalized at seeing to what base uses their favourite weapon is now turned. He wishes to prove "that the earth really is at rest," and not moving, as astronomers. pretend, and in support of his theory he produces the absolute and repeated declaration of King David in the ninety-third and ninety- sixth psalms. He is aware, he says, of " the modern scientific cant, that the Scriptures were not written to enlighten us on scientific questions." But he says, " Are we to take it for granted that the Divine Author intended us to be involved in enormous error when by the most trifling efforts He might have enlightened us and kept us in the narrow path of truth? Did He intend us to go wrong? Did lie ever originate error ? 'rho very idea is monstrous, con- temptible, blasphemous. Better than believe it possible, let us con- ceive that Newton and all his followers have been madly wrong, or foolishly inconsistent." There is something in the wording of this passage which seems almost to justify the apparently wild assertion once hazarded that Zadkiel and the editor of a notorious Evangelical newspaper were one and the same person, and the supposition is strengthened by the great similarity which exists between the peculiar method of reasoning adopted by the journal in question and that employed in the following argument in favour of divination. " It has been observed by astrologers that predictions are often fulfilled by the occurrence of events of a. trivial and frequently grotesque character, though closely re- sembling those anticipated. For example, a young lady asked an astrologer to cast an horary figure for the purpose of ascer- taining where a ring she had lost was to be found. The reply was that it was dropped near the dog's kennel. Search was diligently made there, and in all the places the dog was known to frequent, butsin vain ; the ring was given up for
lost, but after some days it was accidentally discovered by the owner, on the mantelpiece and in her own bed-room, under a china dog." Of course, the religious periodical alluded to would not approve of the heathenish practices to which astrologers are obliged to have recourse, but it is easy to believe that an editor may have a hankering, as an individual, after many things which in his offi- cial capacity he is obliged to condemn. All this, however, is mere surmise. What is really certain is that Zadkiel was a leading member of the Astro-Meteorological Society, which a few years ago " was enabled to publish five quarterly ' Records,' with pre- dictions of the weather for some months in advance." The title given to the organ of the society is certainly suggestive, but the whole question still remains in the region of probabilities, without passing into the district of proof. And after all, although Zad- &iel is evidently a very foolish, a very ignorant, and a very narrow- minded person, yet he does not seem to be altogether qualified to -exercise a guiding influence over the journal with which his name bas been connected. It is quite possible that he may have been calumniated.
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