almanacks that poor King William was prayed for many months after
he was dead, because it fell out that he died about the beginning
of the year.

To mention no more of their impertinent predictions: what have we
to do with their advertisements about pills and drink for disease?
or their mutual quarrels in verse and prose of Whig and Tory,
wherewith the stars have little to do?

Having long observed and lamented these, and a hundred other abuses
of this art, too tedious to repeat, I resolved to proceed in a new
way, which I doubt not will be to the general satisfaction of the
kingdom. I can this year produce but a specimen of what I design
for the future, having employed most part of my time in adjusting
and correcting the calculations I made some years past, because I
would offer nothing to the world of which I am not as fully
satisfied as that I am now alive. For these two last years I have
not failed in above one or two particulars, and those of no very
great moment. I exactly foretold the miscarriage at Toulon, with
all its particulars, and the loss of Admiral Shovel, though I was
mistaken as to the day, placing that accident about thirty-six
hours sooner than it happened; but upon reviewing my schemes, I
quickly found the cause of that error. I likewise foretold the
Battle of Almanza to the very day and hour, with the lose on both
sides, and the consequences thereof. All which I showed to some
friends many months before they happened - that is, I gave them
papers sealed up, to open at such a time, after which they were at
liberty to read them; and there they found my predictions true in
every article, except one or two very minute.