The first printed almanack bears imprint 1457. Regio-Montanus appears to have been the first in Europe who reduced the almanack to its present form and method, gave the characters of each year and month, foretold the eclipses and other phases, calculated the motions of the planets, etc. He printed an almanack in Nuremburg in 1472, which embraced three Metonic Cycles, or the fifty-seven (57) years, 1475-1531, inclusive. The earliest almanack known to have been printed in England was "The Sheapheard's Kalendar," translated from the French and printed by Richard Pynson, 1497, copies of which have been sold as high as $75 within the past five years. From this period down to the golden age of the almanack,— which was attained during the Commonwealth, and the subsequent reigns of Charles II, James and William,-these publications were more generally circulated, owing to the increase of printing presses, and the popularity of judicial astrology. All the almanacks of this period are of the same general tendency, but with the advance of education their reputation waned and now they barely have an existence in England-the former paradise of the astrological almanack-only being represented now by the "Francis Moore" or "Old Moore's Almanack," the lineal descendant of the "Vox Stellarum," originated by that gentleman who was an astrologer, physician, and schoolmaster in England about 1680, and for which Henry Andrews, a celebrated mathematician, made the astronomical calculations for a period of forty-three years next preceding his decease in 1820. At the present day, the only almanack of practical utility published in Europe is the "Almanach de Gotha," founded in 1764, and is a condensed annual compend of the history and statistics of every civilized nation on earth. THE RISE OF THE ALMANACK IN AMERICA. AMBRIDGE, in Massachusetts, was the cradle of the CAMBR Almanack in America. The first printing press established in the British Colonies was there located and placed under the supervision of Harvard College, and the first book issued from the College press was an Almanack for the year 1639; and thereafter, and until near the close of the seventeenth century an almanack was annually issued from this press. The printing press at Cambridge was first under the management of Stephen Daye, who was evidently brought from London for the purpose, but in a few years he relinquished the business, and Samuel Green was appointed by the Corporation of Harvard College as "College printer," and the press remained in his control for many years. Green was the progenitor of a generation of printers, and either he, or his immediate descendants established the first presses in nearly all of the original thirteen colonies. The first almanack printed in America was for the year 1639, and compiled by WILLIAM PIERCE, Mariner, "one of the most active shipmasters in the days of the Pilgrims." It was entitled "An Almanack for New England for the year 1639." Following this publication, each year brought forth its Almanack through the medium of the Cambridge press, many celebrities, divines, and graduates of Harvard, being authors of their astronomical calculations and other contents. Among these Danforth, Oakes, Brigden, Cheever, Chauncey, Dudley, Foster, and even those prolific writers, the Mathers, ceased on occasion, from their combats with Satan, to rejoice the world with an Ephemeris. About the close of the seventeenth century, with the establishment of the printing press at various places in the colonies, the publication of the Almanack was not restricted to any particular locality, and following close upon Cambridge, Boston became early celebrated for the number and variety of these publications, and the intellectual attainments of their authors. The first humorous almanack in the Colonies was compiled by John Tully, of Saybrook, Conn., who issued annually 16871702, and introduced into his publication entertaining features of varied interest which made his almanack quite popular.1 Persons who advert to Almanacks, especially those of American origin, and who are disposed to allow any merit to this class of literary work, are very prone to dismiss the subject with very few words, and close their remarks in fulsome praise of " Poor Richard's Almanack," its gifted and patriotic compiler, good Benjamin Franklin, and descant upon the beneficent influence exerted by this publication upon the manners of the age and community, when, and in which it was circulated. Many have labored under what is claimed to be an erroneous impression, concerning the authorship of the matter contained in this (Franklin's) publication, and without pretending to prove or disprove the assertion that the contents of "Poor Richard" emanated from the pen of Benjamin Franklin, I will merely say 66 1 A Rev. Thomas Robie of Salem, a Harvard graduate, was once severely criticized by a bilious critic, who said, that his sermons were only heathenish discourses,- -no better Christianity than there was in Tully." Tully, the Almanack man, had deceased before this harsh censor had uttered this calumny, and hence was undisturbed by these unfeeling remarks. 2 Published 1733-1758 under the nom de plume of Richard Saunders, assumed by Franklin. that the long experience of Benjamin as a printer and newspaper man, would better enable him to collate and publish what would please the people, than most any one that might be mentioned among his contemporaries. Professor Moses Coit Tyler says, "One of the numerous myths still prevailing in the world with reference to Benjamin Franklin, describes him as the first founder of an almanac blending those qualities of shrewd instruction and keen mother-wit, that are to be seen in his famous series; a French encyclopedist, for example, declaring that Franklin 'put forth the first popular almanack which spoke the language of reason,' but Franklin borrowed much of the wisdom and wit which he introduced into his almanacks from Bacon, Rabelais, Rochefoucauld, Steele, Swift, DeFoe, and others; but even the idea of introducing into an almanac wit and wisdom, whether original or borrowed, had been thought of and put into practice before Franklin's "Poor Richard" was born. In 1728, five years before that event, Franklin's brother James, sent forth the first number of "The Rhode Island Almanac ;" and in its pages, year by year, one may find no little of that sagacity, humor, and knack of phrase, that did so much for the fortunes of his own runaway apprentice. But even three years before James Franklin's almanac appeared, Nathaniel Ames, a physician and inn-keeper of Dedham, Massachusetts, a man of original, vigorous and pungent genius, began the publication of his "Astronomical Diary and Almanack;" which he continued to publish till his death in 1764; which under his management acquired an enormous popularity throughout New England;1 and which from the first, contained in high perfection every type of excellence afterward illustrated in the almanac of Benjamin Franklin. Indeed, Ames's Almanac was in most respects, better than Franklin's, and was probably, the 1It had reached during the period 1726-1764 an annual circulation of sixty thousand copies. most pleasing representative we have of a form of literature that furnished so much entertainment to our ancestors, and that preserves for us so many characteristic tints of their life and thought. "Nathaniel Ames made his Almanack a sort of annual cyclopedia of information and amusement, a vehicle for the conveyance to the public of all sorts of knowledge and nonsense, in prose and verse, from literature, history, and his own mind; all presented with brevity, variety and infallible tact. He had the instinct of a journalist; and under a guise that was half frolicsome, the sincerity and benignant passion of a public educator. He carried into the furthest wildernesses of New England some of the best English literature, pronouncing there, perhaps for the first time, the names of Addison, Thomson, Pope, Dryden, Butler, Milton; and repeating there choice fragments of what they had written. Thus eight years before Benjamin Franklin had started his almanac, Nathaniel Ames was publishing one that had all its best qualities, fact and frolic; the wisdom of the preacher without his solemnity, terse sayings, shrewdness, wit, homely wisdom, all sparkling in piquant phrase. "As the public expected the almanac-maker to be a prophet, Nathaniel Ames gratified the public, and he freely predicted future events, but always with a merry twinkle in his eye, and always ready to laugh the loudest at his own failure to predict them aright. He mixes, in delightful juxtaposition, absurd prognostications, curt jests, and aphorisms of profound wisdom, the whole forming a miscellany even now extremely readable, and sure, at that time, to raise shouts of laughter around. thousands of fire-places where food for laughter was much needed." I have drawn thus liberally upon the writings of Dr. Ames's most extensive commentator, to make plain the estimation in which these humble almanacks are held by others, and now, in |