To Sir G.
Carteret's to dinner; and before dinner he tells me that he
believes the Duke of York will go to sea with the fleet, which I
am sorry for in respect to his person, but yet there is no person
in condition to command the fleet, now the Captains are grown so
great, but him. By and by to dinner, where very good company.
Among other discourse, we talked much of Nostradamus [Michael
Nostradamus, a physician and astrologer, born in the diocese of
Avignon, 1503. Amongst other predictions he prophesied the death
of Henry II. of France, by which the celebrity he had before
acquired was not a little increased. He succeeded also in
rendering assistance to the inhabitants of Aix, during the
plague, by a powder of his own invention. He died at Salon, July
1566.] his prophecy of these times, and the burning of the City
of London, some of whose verses are put into Booker's Almanack
this year: [John Booker, an eminent astrologer and writing-
master at Hadley.] and Sir G. Carteret did tell a story, how at
his death he did make the town swear that he should never be dug
up, or his tomb opened, after he was buried; but they did after
sixty years do it, and upon his breast they found a plate of
brasse, saying what a wicked and unfaithful people the people of
that place were, who after so many vows should disturb and open
him such a day and year and hour which, if true, is very strange.
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