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nydus/Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of CrowdsPublic
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Table of Contents

MODERN PROPHECIES.

be,

But, after sufferance, ransomed and set free.”

The simple-minded Thomas Heywood gravely goes on to inform us, that all these things actually came to pass. Upon Richard III. he is equally luminous. He says:

“A hunch-backed monster, who with teeth is born,

The mockery of art and nature’s scorn;

Who from the womb preposterously is hurled,

And with feet forward thrust into the world,

Shall, from the lower earth on which he stood,

Wade, every step he mounts, knee-deep in blood.

He shall to th’ height of all his hopes aspire,

And, clothed in state, his ugly shape admire;

But, when he thinks himself most safe to stand,

From foreign parts a native whelp shall land.”

Another of these prophecies after the event tells us that Henry VIII. should take the power from Rome, “and bring it home

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