“My adversary, J——n J——n, has indeed made an attempt to _outshine_ me by pretending to penetrate _a year deeper_ into futurity, and giving his readers _gratis_ in his Almanack for 1743, an eclipse of the year 1744, to be beforehand with me. His words are, ‘The first day of _April_ next year, 1744, there will be a GREAT ECLIPSE of the sun; it begins about an hour before sunset. It being in the sign Aries, the House of Mars, and in the Seventh, shows heat, difference, and animosities between persons of the highest rank and quality,’ &c. I am very glad, for the sake of those persons of rank and quality, that there is _no manner of truth_ in this prediction: they may, if they please, live in love and peace; and I caution his readers (they are but few indeed, and so the matter's the less) not to give themselves any trouble about observing this imaginary great eclipse; for they may stare till they are blind without seeing the least sign of it. I might on this occasion return Mr. J——n the name of _Baal's false prophet_ he gave me some years ago in his wrath, on account of my predicting his reconciliation with the _Church of Rome_, (though he seems now to have given up that point) but I think such language between old men and scholars unbecoming; and I leave him to settle the affair with the buyers of his Almanack as well as he can, who perhaps will not take it very kindly that he has done what in him lay, (by sending them out to gaze at an invisible eclipse on the first of April) to make _April fools_ of them all. His old threadbare excuse, which he repeats year after year about the weather, ‘that no man can be infallible therein, by reason of the many contrary causes happening at or near the same time, and the unconstancy of the summer showers and gusts,’ &c. will hardly serve him in the affair of _eclipses_, and I know not where he'll get another. “I have made no alteration in my usual method, except adding the rising and setting of the planets, and the lunar conjunctions. Those who are so disposed, may thereby very readily learn to know the planets and distinguish them from each other. “I am, dear reader, thy obliged friend, R. SAUNDERS.” The Almanack for 1746 opens with the following poetical preface.