prudently banishes it his theory, but hugs it
in his practice, yet knows not how to avoid
the horns of that excellent dilemma pro-
pounded by a most ingenious modern poet :
"If fate be not, how shall we ought foresee?
Or how shall we avoid it, if it be?

If by free-will in our own paths we move,
How are we bounded by decrees above?"

Werenfels, in his "Dissertation upon Superstition," p. 6, says, speaking of a superstitious man: "He will be more afraid of the Constellation-fires, than the flame of his next neighbour's house. He will not open a vein till he has asked leave of the planets. He will avoid the sea whenever Mars is in the middle of Heaven, lest that warrior god should stir up pirates against him. In Taurus he will plant his trees, that this sign, which the astrologers are pleased to call fix'd, may fasten them deeper in the earth." "He will make use of no herbs but such as are gathered in the planetary hour. Against any sort of misfortune he will arm himself with a ring, to which he has fixed the benevolent aspect of the stars, and the lucky hour that was just at the instant of flying away, but which, by a wonderful nimbleness, he has seized and detained." (5)

Sheridan, in his notes on "Persius," 2d. edit. 8vo. 1739, p. 79, says: "To give some little notion of the Ancients concerning Horoscopes. The Ascendant was understood by them to be that part of Heaven which arises in the east the moment of the child's birth. This contaiming thirty degrees, was called the first house. In this point the Astrologers observed the position of the celestial constellations the planets, and the fixed stars, placing the planets and the signs of the zodiack in a figure which they divided into twelve houses, representing the whole circumference of Heaven. The first was Angulus Orientis, (by some

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called the Horoscope,) shewing the form and complexion of the Child then born; and likewisethe rest had their several siguifications, too tedious to be inserted here, because of no use in the least. The heathen Astrologers, in casting nativities, held, that every man's genius was the companion of his horoscope, and that the horoscope was tempered by it: hence proceeded that union of minds and friendship which was observed among some. This appears from Plutarch in his life of Anthony, concerning the Genii of Anthony and C. Octavius. Those who have the curiosity of being farther informed in these astrological traditions, let them consult Ptolemy, Alcabitius, Albo Hali, Guido Bonat, &c."

Dallaway in his "Tour to Constantinople," p. 390, tells us that Astrology is a favourite folly with the Turks. "Ulugh-bey," he says, "amongst very numerous treatises is most esteemed. He remarks the 13th, 14th, and 15th of each month as the most fortunate; the Ruz-nameh has likewise its three unlucky days, to which little attention is paid by the better sort. The Sultan retains his chief Astrologer, who is consulted by the Council on state emergencies. When the treaty of peace was signed at Kainargi in 1774, he was directed to name the hour most propitious for that ceremony. The Vizer's court swarms with such imposters. It was asserted that they foretold the great fire at Constantinople in 1782. There was likewise an insurrection of the Janissaries which they did not foretel, but their credit was saved by the same word bearing two interpretations of Insurrection and Fire. It may now be considered rather as a state expedient to consult the Astrologer, that the enthusiasm of the army may be fed and subordination maintained by the prognostication of victory."

(1) Dr. Johnson prohably alluded to this fact in his Lives of the Poets. Speaking of Hudibras, he says: "Astrology, against which so much of this satire is directed, was not more

the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had at that time a very extensive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to have rejected it with

contempt. In hazardous undertakings care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, an Astrologer was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape."

(2) "As indeed," saith our author, "under so auspicious a position of heaven it had been strange if she had missed so to have done; for herein you see Jupiter in the ascendant in sextile aspect of the sun; and the moon, who is lady of the Horoscope, and governess of the hour in which she weighed anchor, is applying ad Trinum Veneris. She returned to London again very well laden, in three weeks time, to the great content as well as advantage of the owner." I have to observe here that the ship-owners in the Newcastle trade are now much wiser than to throw away money on such fooleries, and, with much greater propriety, when things augur ill, apply to the Assurance Office, in preference to that of the diviner or fortune-teller.

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(3) "Of this," he says, we meet with a very curious example, in the account given by Matthew Paris of the marriage of Frederick Emperor of Germany and Isabella, sister of Henry III. A.D. 1235. Nocte vero prima qua concubuit Imperator cum ea, noluit eam carnaliter cognoscere, donec competens hora ab astrologis ei nunciaretur.' M. Paris, p. 285. ad ann. 1235. See Henry, vol. iv. p. 577.

Zouch, in his edition of "Walton's Lives," 4to. York, 1796, p. 131, note, says, mentioning Queen Mary's reign, "Judicial Astrology was much in use long after this time. Its predictions were received with reverential awe; and men even of the most enlightened understandings were inclined to believe that the conjunctions and oppositions of the planets had no little influence in the affairs of the world. Even the excellent Joseph Mede disdained not to apply himself to the study of Astrology."

Astrology is ridiculed in a masterly manner in Shakspeare's King Lear, Act i. sc. 8.

(4) Cornelius Agrippa, in his "Vanity of Sciences," p. 98, exposes Astrology as the mother of heresy, and adds: "Besides this same fortune-telling Astrology, not only the best of moral philosophers explode, but also,

Moses, Isaias, Job, Jeremiah, and all the other Prophets of the ancient law; and among the Catholick writers, St. Austin condemns it to be utterly expelled and banished out of the territories of Christianity. St. Hierome argues the same to be a kind of idolatry. Basil and Cyprian laugh at it as most contemptible. Chrysostome, Eusebius, and Lactantius utterly condemn it. Gregory, Ambrose, and Severianus inveigh against it. The Council of Toledo utterly abandon and prohibit it. In the Synod of Martinus, and by Gregory the younger, and Alexander the third, it was anathematized and punished by the Civil laws of the Emperors. Among the ancient Romans it was prohibited by Tiberius, Vitellius, Dioclesian, Constantin, Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, ejected also, and punished. By Justinian made a capital crime, as may appear in his Codex." pleasantly observes of Astrologers, that “undertaking to tell all people most obscure and hidden secrets abroad, they at the same know not what happens in their own houses and in their own chambers. Even such an Astrologer as More laught at them in his Epigram: 'The stars, ethereal bard, to thee shine clear, And all our future fates thou mak'st appear. But that thy wife is common all men know, Yet what all see, there's not a star doth show. Saturn is blinde, or some long journey gone, Not able to discern an infant from a stone. The moon is fair, and as she's fair she's

chaste,

He

with such a judgment made, written all with his own hand."

(5) Gaule, in his "Mag-astromancers posed and puzzel'd," p. 181, asks, "Where is the source and root of the superstition of vain observation, and the more superstitious ominations thereupon to be found, save in those arts and speculations that teach to observe creatures, images, figures, signes, and accidents, for constellational, and, (as they call them,) second stars; and so to ominate and presage upon them, either as touching themselves, or others? As, namely, to observe dayes for lucky or unlucky, either to travail, sail, fight, build, marry, plant, sow, buy, sell, or begin any businesse in."

In Sir Aston Cokain's "Poems," 8vo. Lond. 1658, is the following quip for Astrologers:

70. To Astrologers.

Your industry to you the art hath given
To have great knowledge in th' outside of
Heaven:

Beware lest you abuse that art, and sin,
And therefore never visit it within."

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Astrology," says the Courtier's Calling, &c. by a person of honour, 12mo. Lond. 1675, p. 212, "imagines to read in the Constellations, as in a large book, every thing that shall come to pass here below; and figuring to itself admirable rencounters from the aspects and conjunctions of the planets, it draws from thence consequences as remote from truth as the stars themselves are from the earth. I confess, I have ever esteemed this science vain and ridiculous: for, indeed, it must either be true or false if true, that which it predicts is infallible and inevitable, and consequently unuseful to be foreknown. But, if it is false, as it may easily be evinced to be, would not a man of sense be blamed to apply his minde to, and lose his time in, the study thereof? It ought to be the occupation of a shallow braine, that feeds itself with chimerical fancies, or of an imposter who makes a mystery of every thing which he understands not, for to deceive women and credulous people."

In the "Athenian Oracle," vol. iii. p. 149, we read: "Astra regunt Homines, sed regit Astra Deus, is a maxim held by all Astrologers."

IN Indagine's "Book of Palmestry and Physiognomy," translated by Fabian Withers, Svo. Lond. 1656, there is a great waste of words on this ridiculous subject. The Lines in the Palm of the Hand are distinguished by formal names, such as the Table Line, or Line of Fortune, the Line of Life or of the Heart, the middle natural Line, the Line of the Liver or Stomach, &c. &c. &c., the triangle, the quadrangle. The thumb, too, and fingers, have their "hills" given them, from the tops of which these manual diviners pretended that they had a prospect of futurity.(1) The reader will smile at the name and not very delicate etymon of it, given in this work to the little finger. It is called the Ear Finger, because it is commonly used to make clean

the ears. This does no great honour to the delicacy of our ancestors.

Gaule, in his "Mag-astromancers posed and puzzel'd," p. 188, exposes the folly of Palmistry, which tells us, "that the Lines spreading at the bottom joynt of the Thumb signe contentions; the Line above the middle of the thumbe, if it meet roundabout, portends a hanging destiny; many Lines transverse upon the last joynt of the fore-finger, note riches by heirdome; and right Lines there are a note of a jovial nature; Lines in the points of the middle finger (like a gridiron) note a melancholy wit, and unhappy; if the Signe on the little finger be conspicuous, they note a good witt and eloquent, but the contrary, if obscure. Equal Lines upon the first

joynt of the ring-finger are marks of an happy wit."

"To strike another's palm is the habit of expression of those who plight their troth, buy, sell, covenant, &c. He that would see the vigour of this gesture in puris naturalibus

must repaire to the horse-cirque or sheep-pens in Smithfield, where those crafty olympique merchants will take you for no chapman, unlesse you strike them with good lucke and smite them earneste in the palme." See Bulwer's Chirologia," pp. 93, 105.

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(1) Agrippa, in his "Vanity of Sciences," p. 101, speaking of Chiromany, says that it "fancies seven mountains in the palm of a man's Hand, according to the number of the seven planets; and by the Lines which are there to be seen, judges of the complection, condition, and fortune of the person; imagining the harmonious disposition of the Lines to be, as it were, certaine cælestial characters stampt upon us by God and Nature, and which, as Job saith, God imprinted or put in the Hands of men, that so every one might know his works; though it be plain that the divine author doth not there treat of vain Chiromancy, but of the liberty of the will." He gives a catalogue of great names of such authors as have written on this science falsely so called, but observes that "none of them have been able to make any farther progress than conjecture, and observation of experience. Now that there is no certainty in these conjectures and observations, is manifest from thence, because they are figments grounded upon the will; and about which the masters thereof of equal learning and authority do very much differ."

Mason, in his "Anatomie of Sorcery," 4to. Lond. 1612, p. 90, speaks of "vaine and fri volous devices, of which sort we have an infinite number also used amongst us, as namely

in Palmestry, where men's fortunes are told by looking on the palmes of the hande."

Newton, in his "Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe," 12mo. Lond. 1692, p. 145, under breaches of the eighth Commandment, enquires whether the Governors of the Commonwealth "have suffered Palmesters, fortunetellers, stage-players, sawce-boxes, enterluders, puppit players, loyterers, vagabonds, landleapers, and such like cozening make-shifts, to practise their cogging tricks and rogish trades within the circuite of his authoritie, and to deceive the simple people with their vile forgerie and palterie." By "governors of the commonwealth" here, it should seem, he means justices of the peace.

Dr. Ferrand, in his "Love's Melancholy," 8vo. Oxf. 1640, p. 173, tells us that" this Art of Chiromancy hath been so strangely infected with superstition, deceit, cheating, and (if durst say so) with magic also, that the canonists, and of late years Pope Sixtus Quintus, have been constrained utterly to condemn it. So that now no man professeth publickely this cheating art, but theeves, rogues, and beggarly rascals; which are now every where knowne by the name of Bohemians, Egyptians, and Caramaras; and first came into these parts of Europe about the year 1417, as G. Dupreau, Albertus Krantz, and Polydore Vergil report."

THERE was anciently a species of divination called Onychomancy, or Onymancy, performed by the Nails of an unpolluted boy.

Vestiges of this are still retained. Sir Thomas Browne, as has been already noticed, admits that conjectures of prevalent humours may be

collected from the spots in our Nails, but rejects the sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them: such as that spots on the top of the Nails signify things past, in the middle things present, and, at the bottom, events to

come.

That white specks presage our felicity, blue ones our misfortunes; that those in the Nail of the thumb have significations of honour; of the fore-finger, riches."

"Th' oracle of Sieve and Shears,

That turns as certain as the spheres."(1) Melton, in his " Astrologaster," p. 45, gives a catalogue of many superstitious ceremonies, in the first whereof this occurs: "That if any thing be lost amongst a company of servants, with the trick of the Sive and Sheers it may be found out againe, and who stole it."

Grose tells us that, to discover a thief by the Sieve and Sheers, you must stick the points of the Sheers in the wood of the sieve, and let two persons support it, balanced upright, with their two fingers; then read a certain chapter in the Bible, and afterwards ask St. Peter and St. Paul, if A or B is the thief, naming all the persons you suspect. On

suddenly round about.

Reginald Scot, in his "Discovery," p. 286, tells us that "Popish priests, as the Chaldeans used the divination by Sieve and Sheers for the detection of theft, do practice with a Psalter and Key (2) fastened upon the forty-ninth Psalm, to discover a thief; and when the names of the suspected persons are orderly put into the pipe of the Key, at the reading of these words of the Psalm, 'If thou sawest a thief thou didst consent unto him,' the book will wagg and fall out of the fingers of them that hold it, and he whose name remaineth in the Key must be the thief."

I must here observe that Scot has mistaken the Psalm it is the fiftieth, and not the forty-ninth, in which the passage which he has cited is found. (33)

(1) In the "Athenian Oracle," vol. ii. p. 309, the divination by Sieve and Sheers is called "The trick of the Sieve and Scissors, the Coskiomancy of the ancients, as old as Theocritus."

Theocritus's words are:

Εἶπε και Αγροιὼ ταλαθέα, κοσκινόμαντις,
̓͂Α πρὰν ποιολογοῦσα, παραιβατις, ἕνεκ ̓ ἐγὼ μὲν
Τὶν ὅλος ἔγκειμαι· τὸ δὲ μεῦ λόγον ἐδένα ποιῇ.

Thus translated by Creech:

"To Agrio, too, I made the same demand, A cunning woman she, I cross'd her Hand: She turn'd the Sieve and Sheers, and told me true,

That I should love, but not be lov'd by you."

"This," says Potter, in his "Greek Antiquities," vol. i. p. 352, "they called Κοσκινομαντεία: it was generally practised to discover thieves, or others suspected of any crime, in this manner: they tied a thread to the Sieve, by which it was upheld, or else placed a pair of Sheers, which they held up by two fingers; then prayed to the gods to direct and assist them; after that, they repeated the names of the persons under suspicion, and he, at whose name the Sieve whirled round, or moved, was thought to have committed the fact. Another sort of divination was commonly practised upon the same account, which was called 'Αξινομαντεια.”

At the end of the works of Henry Corne