Recueil de ma vie, mes ouvrages et mes pensees. Par Thomas Ignace Marie Forster.[690] Brussels, 1836, 12mo.
Mr. Forster, an Englishman settled at Bruges, was an observer in many subjects, but especially in meteorology. He communicated to the Astronomical Society, in 1848, the information that, in the registers kept by his grandfather, his father, and himself, beginning in 1767, new moon on Saturday was followed, nineteen times out of twenty, by twenty days of rain and wind. This statement being published in the _Athenaeum_, a cluster of correspondents averred that the belief is common among seamen, in all parts of the world, and among landsmen too. Some one quoted a distich:
"Saturday's moon and Sunday's full Never were fine and never _wull_."
{321} Another brought forward:
"If a Saturday's moon Comes once in seven years it comes too soon."
Mr. Forster did not say he was aware of the proverbial character of the phenomenon. He was a very eccentric man. He treated his dogs as friends, and buried them with ceremony. He quarrelled with the _cure_ of his parish, who remarked that he could not take his dogs to heaven with him. I will go nowhere, said he, where I cannot take my dog. He was a sincere Catholic: but there is a point beyond which even churches have no influence.
The following is some account of the announcement of 1849. The _Athenaeum_ (Feb. 17), giving an account of the meeting of the Astronomical Society in December, 1858, says:
"Dr. Forster of Bruges, who is well known as a meteorologist, made a communication at which our readers will stare: he declares that by journals of the weather kept by his grandfather, father, and himself, ever since 1767, to the present time, _whenever the new moon has fallen on a Saturday, the following twenty days have been wet and windy_, in nineteen cases out of twenty. In spite of our friend Zadkiel[691] and the others who declare that we would smother every truth that does not happen to agree with us, we are glad to see that the Society had the sense to publish this communication, coming, as it does, from a veteran observer, and one whose love of truth is undoubted. It must be that the fact is so set down in the journals, because Dr. Forster says it: and whether it be only a fact of the journals, or one of the heavens, can soon be tried. The new moon of March next, falls on _Saturday_ the 24th, at 2 in the afternoon. We shall certainly look out."
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The following appeared in the number of March 31:
"The first _Saturday Moon_ since Dr. Forster's announcement came off a week ago. We had previously received a number of letters from different correspondents--all to the effect that the notion of new moon on Saturday bringing wet weather is one of widely extended currency. One correspondent (who gives his name) states that he has constantly heard it at sea, and among the farmers and peasantry in Scotland, Ireland, and the North of England. He proceeds thus: 'Since 1826, nineteen years of the time I have spent in a seafaring life. I have constantly observed, though unable to account for, the phenomenon. I have also heard the stormy qualities of a Saturday's moon remarked by American, French, and Spanish seamen; and, still more distant, a Chinese pilot, who was once doing duty on board my vessel seemed to be perfectly cognizant of the fact.' So that it seems we have, in giving currency to what we only knew as a very curious communication from an earnest meteorologist, been repeating what is common enough among sailors and farmers. Another correspondent affirms that the thing is most devoutly believed in by seamen; who would as soon sail on a Friday as be in the Channel after a Saturday moon.--After a tolerable course of dry weather, there was some snow, accompanied by wind on Saturday last, here in London; there were also heavy louring clouds. Sunday was cloudy and cold, with a little rain; Monday was louring, Tuesday unsettled; Wednesday quite overclouded, with rain in the morning. The present occasion shows only a general change of weather with a tendency towards rain. If Dr. Forster's theory be true, it is decidedly one of the minor instances, as far as London weather is concerned.--It will take a good deal of evidence to make us believe in the omen of a Saturday Moon. But, as we have said of the Poughkeepsie Seer, the thing is very curious whether true or false. Whence comes this universal proverb--and a hundred others--while the meteorological observer {323} cannot, when he puts down a long series of results, detect any weather cycles at all? One of our correspondents wrote us something of a lecture for encouraging, he said, the notion that _names_ could influence the weather. He mistakes the question. If there be any weather cycles depending on the moon, it is possible that one of them may be so related to the week cycle of seven days, as to show recurrences which are of the kind stated, or any other. For example, we know that if the new moon of March fall on a Saturday in this year, it will most probably fall on a Saturday nineteen years hence. This is not connected with the spelling of Saturday--but with the connection between the motions of the sun and moon. Nothing but the Moon can settle the question--and we are willing to wait on her for further information. If the adage be true, then the philosopher has missed what lies before his eyes; if false, then the world can be led by the nose in spite of the eyes. Both these things happen sometimes; and we are willing to take whichever of the two solutions is borne out by future facts. In the mean time, we announce the next Saturday Moon for the 18th of August."
How many coincidences are required to establish a law of connection? It depends on the way in which the mind views the matter in question. Many of the paradoxers are quite set up by a very few instances. I will now tell a story about myself, and then ask them a question.
So far as instances can prove a law, the following is proved: no failure has occurred. Let a clergyman be known to me, whether by personal acquaintance or correspondence, or by being frequently brought before me by those with whom I am connected in private life: that clergyman does not, except in few cases, become a bishop; but _if_ he become a bishop, he is sure, first or last, to become an arch-bishop. This has happened in every case. As follows:
1. My last schoolmaster, a former Fellow of Oriel, was {324} a very intimate college friend of Richard Whately[692], a younger man. Struck by his friend's talents, he used to talk of him perpetually, and predict his future eminence. Before I was sixteen, and before Whately had even given his Bampton Lectures, I was very familiar with his name, and some of his sayings. I need not say that he became Archbishop of Dublin.
2. When I was a child, a first cousin of John Bird Sumner[693] married a sister of my mother. I cannot remember the time when I first heard his name, but it was made very familiar to me. In time he became Bishop of Chester, and then, Archbishop of Canterbury. My reader may say that Dr. C. R. Sumner,[694] Bishop of Winchester, has just as good a claim: but it is not so: those connected with me had more knowledge of Dr. J. B. Sumner;[695] and said nothing, or next to nothing, of the other. Rumor says that the Bishop of Winchester has _declined_ an Archbishopric: if so, my rule is a rule of gradations.
3. Thomas Musgrave,[696] Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was _Dean_ of the college when I was an undergraduate: this brought me into connection with him, he giving impositions for not going to chapel, I writing them out according. We had also friendly intercourse in after life; I forgiving, he probably forgetting. Honest Tom {325} Musgrave, as he used to be called, became Bishop of Hereford, and Archbishop of York.
4. About the time when I went to Cambridge, I heard a great deal about Mr. C. T. Longley,[697] of Christchurch, from a cousin of my own of the same college, long since deceased, who spoke of him much, and most affectionately. Dr. Longley passed from Durham to York, and thence to Canterbury. I cannot quite make out the two Archbishoprics; I do not remember any other private channel through which the name came to me: perhaps Dr. Longley, having two strings to his bow, would have been one archbishop if I had never heard of him.
5. When Dr. Wm. Thomson[698] was appointed to the see of Gloucester in 1861, he and I had been correspondents on the subject of logic--on which we had both written--for about fourteen years. On his elevation I wrote to him, giving the preceding instances, and informing him that he would certainly be an Archbishop. The case was a strong one, and the law acted rapidly; for Dr. Thomson's elevation to the see of York took place in 1862.
Here are five cases; and there is no opposing instance. I have searched the almanacs since 1828, and can find no instance of a Bishop not finally Archbishop of whom I had known through private sources, direct or indirect. Now what do my paradoxers say? Is this a pre-established harmony, or a chain of coincidences? And how many instances will it require to establish a law?[699]
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