MOTHER SHIPTON INVESTIGATED.
Chapter first.
THE ALLEGED PROPHECIES OF MOTHER SHIPTON AND OTHERS, ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD—THE MOTHER SHIPTON OF POPULAR BELIEF—HER PROPHECY IN RELATION TO CARDINAL WOLSEY—HER TRADITIONARY BIRTH, MARRIAGE, LIFE AND DEATH.
This critical investigation of the Mother Shipton literature is published early in 1881, the year in which, according to that celebrated Yorkshire prophetess, the world is to come to an end. The best known of the prophecies attributed to her, is the following;
"The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one."
This, and other prophecies, said to have been copied from records of unimpeachable antiquity in the British Museum Library, which prophecies in some cases have been reproduced in alleged fac-simile, have raised
