Nostradamus' Prophecy.

For faults and follies London's doom shal fix;
And she must sink in flames in sixty -six.
Fire-balls shall fly, but few shall see the train,
As far as from Whitehall to Pudding Lane,
To burn the city, which again shall rise,
Beyond all hopes, aspiring to the skies,
Where vengeance dwells. But there is one thing more,
Though its walls stand, shall bring the city lower:
When legislators shall their trust betray,
Saving their own, shall give the rest away;
And those false men, by the easy people sent,
Give taxes to the King by Parliament;
When barefaced villains shall not blush to cheat,
And chequer-doors shall shut up Lombard Street;
When players come to act the part of queens,
Within the curtains, and behind the scenes;
When sodomy shall be prime minister's sport,
And whoring shall be the least crime at Court;
When boys shall take their sisters for their mate,
And practise incest between seven and eight;
When no man knows in whom to put his trust,
And e'en to rob the chequer shall be just;
When declarations, lies, and every oath,
Shall be in use at Court, but faith and troth;
When two good kings shall be at Brentford town,
And when in London there shall not be one;
When the seal's given to a talking fool,
Whom wise men laugh at, and whom women rule,
A minister able only in his tongue,
To make harsh empty speeches two hours long;
When an old Scotch covenanter shall be
The champion for the English hierarchy;
When bishops shall lay all religion by,
And strive by law to establish tyranny;
When a lean treasurer shall in one year
Make himself fat, his King and people bare;
When the English prince shall Englishmen despise,
And think French only loyal, Irish wise;
When wooden shoon shall be the English wear,
And Magna Charta shall no more appear; —
Then the English shall a greater tyrant know,
Than either Greek or Latin story show;
Their wives to's lust exposed, their wealth to's spoil,
With groans, to fill his treasury, they toil;
But like the Bellides must sigh in vain,
For that still filled flows out as fast again;
Then they with envious eyes shall Belgium see,
And wish in vain Venetian liberty.
The frogs too late, grown weary of their pain,
Shall pray to Jove to take him back again.