The first printed almanac was published in Buda-Pesth in 1475. Twenty years after it, the first printed English almanac appeared. It contained much miscellaneous information; but the compiler was consistently and gloriously mysterious. Others rapidly followed. Twenty-five years ago, an almanac of that period (1495) was found in an old chest in Edinburgh, and placed in the Bodleian Library, where it may now be seen. It has on its title-page, ‘Flete Strete, by Wynkin de Worde;’ and it consists of fifteen leaves, each leaf two inches square. A French almanac which began to appear about this time, is still published. It is called _Le Grand Compost et Calendrier des Bergers_, and it claims to be four hundred years old. _A Prognostication of Righte Goode Effecte_, was set forth by Leonard Digges in London, 1553. It contains some queer astronomical and astrological observations. In it we are told that the moon is fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty miles from the earth, and Mercury only twelve thousand eight hundred and twelve; that Saturn’s conjunction with the moon caused unlucky days; but the moon with Jupiter, fortunate ones. Venus gave luck to woo and marry, and make pleasant pastimes, and, strangely enough, ‘blood-letting’ is included among the latter. Mercury was good to buy and sell under, and to send children to school. Dr Dee’s almanac followed in 1571. This is a regular almanac, having a list of days down one side of the page, and the other left blank for memoranda. In this almanac we find among the rhymes that useful one beginning, ‘Thirty days hath September,’ &c. Dr Dee’s almanac did not make any prophecies, except against the Turk and the Pope, the downfall of both of whom was constantly foretold. Before the end of Elizabeth’s reign, almanacs had become a popular necessity. Many of them had shrewd touches at the times—at the pride of the nobles, at the tricks of the lawyers; and Pond in 1611 includes all the three ‘learned professions’ in his evil list. The importance of the almanac from a commercial point of view originally occurred to James I. He granted a monopoly of these publications to the Stationers’ Company and the two universities, and so filled his exchequer. We have a volume before us containing sixteen almanacs for the year 1615. One of the chief things to be noted in this collection is the list of historical events which at that date were thought worth remembering. They are—the invention of printing, the capture of Boulogne, the sweating sickness, the great plague, the great frost of 1564, a blazing star in 1572, a deep snow in 1581, the camp at Tilbury in 1588, the taking of Cadiz in 1596. Bretnor, a famous almanac-maker of James’s reign, has the good and evil days in tables, with warnings in such droll phrases, that they are worth a short quotation. Thus the month of January shows that