SOURCE: "Nostradamus," in The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCLXIX, No. 1920, December, 1890, pp. 601-14.

In the following excerpt from an essay sympathetic to Nostradamus's prophetic skill, Ward examines several of the quatrains. "Our business, " he writes, "will be merely to translate these obsolete expressions, to interpret a few of the anagrams and strange allusions, as far as may be, and to apply the sense so sifted out to some of the many historic events foreshadowed."

[We will here] set forth a few of the Quatrains of Michael Nostradamus, applying them to the events of which they were anticipatory, and so leave them to make their own impression upon the reader's mind, whilst, if space can be spared, a few words may be devoted to the remarkable man who wrote them….

There is a round thousand of quatrains to pick and choose from: all thrown together purposely in hopeless disorder, and...