Old Testament; and for those who are not versed in it, the sooner they cease to be ignorant in what so nearly concerns them, the better it may be for themselves. Jeremy Taylor says that he reproves those who practised judicial astrology, and pretended to deliver genethliacal predictions, "not because their reason is against religion, for certainly," said he, "it cannot be; but because they have not reason enough in what they say; they go upon weak principles which they cannot prove; they reduce them to practice by impossible mediums; they argue about things with which they have little conversation. Although the art may be very lawful if the stars were upon the earth, or the men were in heaven, if they had skill in what they profess, and reason in all their pretences, and after all that their principles were certain, and that the stars did really signify future events, and that those events were not overruled by everything in heaven and in earth, by God, and by our own will and wisdom, yet because here is so little reason and less certainty, and nothing but confidence and illusion, therefore it is that religion permits them not; and it is not the reason in this art that is against religion, but the folly or the knavery of it; and the dangerous and horrid consequents which they feel that run a-whoring after such idols of imagination." In our days most of those persons who can afford to employ the greater part of their thoughts upon themselves fall at a certain age under the influence either of a physical or a spiritual director, for Protestantism has its Directeurs as well as Popery, less to its advantage and as little to its credit. The spiritual professors have the most extensive practice, because they, like their patients, are of all grades, and are employed quite as much among the sound as the sick. The astrologer no longer contests the ascendancy with either. That calling is now followed by none but such low impostors, that they are only heard of when one of them is brought before a magistrate for defrauding some poor cre dulous creature in the humblest walks of life. So low has that cunning fallen, which in the seventeenth century introduced its professors into the cabinets of kings, and more powerful ministers. An astrologer was present at the birth of Louis XIV., that he might mark with all possible precision the exact moment of his nativity. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, Catherine de Medici, deep in blood as she was, hesitated about putting to death the King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé, and the person of whom she took counsel was an astrologer, -had she gone to her Confessor their death would have been certain. Cosmo Ruggieri was an unprincipled adventurer, but on this occasion he made a pious use of his craft, and when the Queen inquired of him what the nativities of these Princes prognosticated, he assured her that he had calculated them with the utmost exactness, and that according to the principles of his art, the State had nothing to apprehend from either of them. He let them know this as soon as he could, and told them that he had given this answer purely from regard for them, not from any result of his schemes, the matter being in its nature undiscoverable by astrology. The Imperial astrologers in China excused themselves once for a notable failure in their art, with more notable address. The error indeed was harmless, except in its probable consequences to themselves; they had predicted an eclipse, and no eclipse took place. But instead of being abashed at this proof of their incapacity the ready rogues complimented the Emperor, and congratulated him upon so wonderful and auspicious an event. The eclipse, they said, portended evil, and therefore in regard to him the Gods had put it by. An Asiatic Emperor who calls himself Brother to the Sun and Moon might well believe that his relations would go a little out of their way to oblige him, if the Queen of Navarre could with apparent sincerity declare her belief that special revelations are made to the Great, as one of the privileges of their high estate, and that her mother, that Catherine de Medici whose name is for ever infamous, was thus miraculously forewarned of every remarkable event that befell her husband and her children, nor was she herself without her share in this privilege, though her character was not more spotless in one point than her mother's in another. De ces divins advertissemens, she says, je ne me veux estimer digne, toutes| fois pour ne me taire comme ingrate des graces que j'ay receües de Dieu, que je dois et veux confesser toute ma vie, pour luy en rendre grace, et que chacun le loue aux merveilles des effets de sa puissance, bonté, et miséricorde, qu'il luy a plû faire en moy, j'advoueray n'avoir jamais esté proche de quelques signalez accidens, ou sinistres, ou heureux, que j'en aye eu quelque advertissement ou en songe, ou autrement; et puis bien dire ce vers, De mon bien ou mon mal, mon esprit m'est oracle. CHAPTER CXCVIII. was adduced as scriptural proof; "He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work." The text appears more chiromantical in the Vulgate: Qui in manu omnium hominum signa posuit: Who has placed signs in the hand of all men. The uses of the science were represented to be such, as to justify this opinion of its origination: "For hereby," says Fabian Withers, "thou shalt perceive and see the secret works of Nature, how aptly and necessarily she hath compounded and knit each member with other, giving unto the hand, as unto a table, certain signs and tokens whereby to discern and know the inward motions and affections of the mind and heart, with the inward state of the whole body: as also our inclination and aptness to all our external actions and doings. For what more profitable thing may be supposed or thought, than when a man in himself may foresee and know his proper and fatal accidents, and thereby to embrace and follow that which is good, and to avoid and eschew the evils which are imminent unto him, for the better underHIS standing and knowledge thereof?" OR PETER HOPKINS' VIEWS OF ASTROLOGY. Seguite dunque con la mente lieta, LUDOVICO DOLCE. PETER HOPKINS had believed in astrology when he studied it in early life with his friend Gray; his faith in it had been overthrown by observation and reflection, and the unperceived influence of the opinions of the learned and scientific public; but there was more latent doubt in his incredulity than had ever lurked at the root of his belief. He was not less skilled in the kindred, though more trivial art of Chiromancy, Palmistry, or Manual Divination, for the divine origin of which a verse in the Book of Job But cautioning his readers against the error of those who perverted their belief in palmistry and astrology, and used it as a refuge or sanctuary for all their evil deeds, we ought," said he, "to know and understand that the Stars do not provoke or force us to anything, but only make us apt and prone; and being so disposed, allure as it were, and draw us forward to our natural inclination. In the which if we follow the rule of Reason, taking it to be our only guide and governor, they lose all the force, power and effect which they by any means may have in and upon us: contrariwise, if we give ourselves over to follow our own sensuality and natural dispositions, they work even the same effect on us-that they do in brute beasts." Farther he admonishes all "which should read or take any fruit of his small treatise, to use such moderation in perusing of the same that they do not by and by take in hand to give judgment either of their own, or other men's estates or nativities, without diligent circumspection and taking heed; weighing and considering how many ways a man may be deceived; as by the providence and discretion of the person on whom he gives judgment, also, the dispensation of God, and our fallible and uncertain speculation." "Wherefore," he continues, "let all men in seeking hereby to foresee their own fortune, take heed that by the promise of good, they be not elate, or high-minded, giving themselves over to otiosity or idleness, and trusting altogether to the Natural Influences; neither yet by any signs or tokens of adversity, to be dejected or cast down, but to take and weigh all things with such equality and moderation, directing their state of life and living to all perfectness and goodness, that they may be ready to embrace and follow all that which is good and profitable; and also not only to eschew and avoid, but to withstand and set at nought all evil and adverse fortune, whensoever it may happen unto them." Whoever studies the history of opinions, that is, of the aberrations, caprices, and extravagances of the human mind, may find some consolation in reflecting upon the practical morality which has been preached not only by men of the most erroneous faith, but even by fanatics, impostors and hypocrites, as if it were in the order of Providence that there should be no poison which had not also some medicinal virtue. The books of palmistry have been so worn by perusal that one in decent preservation is now among the rarities of literature; and it may be hoped that of the credulous numbers who have pored over them, many have derived more benefit from the wholesome lessons which were thus unexpectedly brought home to them, than they suffered detriment from giving ear to the profession of a fallacious art. The lesson was so obvious that the Spaniards expressed it in one of their pithy proverbs, es nuestra alma en nuestra palma. The thought has been expanded into a sonnet by Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola, a poet whose strains of manly morality have not been exceeded in that language. Fabio, pensar que el Padre soberano De la ignorancia, su comun maestra. Que estén ociosas para ti sus leyes; Fabius to think that God hath interlined As in a map, our mortal pilgrimage, Error and Ignorance, their common guides, Thyself my friend, when envying not the lot Can shake the calm of its assured content. "Nature," says a Cheirologist, "was a careful workman in the creation of the human body. She hath set in the hand of man certain signs and tokens of the heart, brain and liver, because in them it is that the life of man chiefly consists, but she hath not done so of the eyes, ears, mouth, hands and feet, because those parts of the body seem rather to be made for a comeliness or beauty, than for any necessity." What he meant to say was that any accident which threatened the three vital parts was betokened in the lines of the palm, but that the same fashioning was not necessary in relation to parts which might be injured without inducing the loss of life. Therefore every man's palm has in it the lines relating to the three noble parts; the more minute lines are only found on subjects of finer texture, and if they originally existed in husbandmen and others whose hands are rendered callous by their employments, they are effaced. It was only cheirologically speaking that he disparaged what sailors in their emphatic language so truly call our precious eyes and limbs, not that he estimated them like Tippoo Sultan, who in one of his letters says, that if people persisted in visiting a certain person who was under his displeasure, "their ears and noses should be dispensed with." This strange tyrant wrote odes in praise of himself, and describes the effect of his just government to be such, that in the security of his protection "the deer of the forest made their pillow of the lion and the tyger, and their mattress of the leopard and the panther." seen in the Heavenly Looking Glass of Reflection, in the Sun and the Moon and the Stars. This Theosophist has published a short Prospectus of his intended work entitled the Horn Book for the remembrance of the Signs of Salvation, which Horn Book is (should subscriptions be forthcoming) to be published in one hundred and forty-four numbers, forming twelve octavo volumes of ferences, being one thousand for every day in the year. Wonder not, reader, at the extent of this projected work; for, says the author, "the Cow of the Church of Truth giveth abundance of milk, for the Babes of Knowledge." But for palmistry there was a plausible theory which made it applicable to the purposes of fraud. Tippoo did not consider ears and noses to six hundred pages each, with fifty plates, be superfluities when in that wanton wicked-maps and tables, and 365,000 marginal reness which seldom fails to accompany the possession of irresponsible power he spoke of dispensing with them. But in one instance arms and legs were regarded as worse than superfluous. Some years ago a man was exhibited who was born without either, and in that condition had found a woman base enough to marry him. Having got some money together, she one day set this wretched creature upon a chimneypiece, from whence he could not move, and went off with another man, stripping him of everything that she could carry away. The first words he uttered, when some one came into the room and took him down, were an imprecation upon those people who had legs and arms, because, he said, they were always in mischief! The Mahommedans believe that every man's fate is written on his forehead, but that it can be read by those only whose eyes have been opened. The Brahmins say that the sutures of the skull describe in like manner the owner's destined fortune, but neither can this mysterious writing be seen by any one during his life, nor decyphered after his death. Both these notions are mere fancies which afford a foundation for nothing worse than fable. Something more extraordinary has been excogitated by W. Y. Playtes, Lecturer upon the Signs of the light of the Understanding. He announces to mankind that the prints of the nails of the Cross which our Lord showed Thomas are printed in the roots of the nails of the hands and feet of every man that is born into the world, for witnesses, and for leading us to believe in the truth of all the signs, and graven images and pictures that are Among the odd persons with whom Peter Hopkins had become acquainted in the course of his earlier pursuits, was a sincere student of the occult sciences, who, being a more refined and curious artist, whenever he cast the nativity of any one, took an impression from the palm of the hand, as from an engraved plate, or block. He had thus a fac-simile of what he wanted. According to Sir Thomas Browne, the variety in the lines is so great, that there is almost no strict conformity. Bewick in one of his works has in this manner printed his own thumb. There are French deeds of the 15th century which are signed by the imprint of five fingers dipt in ink, underwritten Ce est la griffe de monseigneur.* Hopkins himself did not retain any lurking inclination to believe in this art. You could know without it, he said, whether a person were open-handed, or close-fisted, and this was a more useful knowledge than palmistry could give us. But the Doctor sometimes made use of it to amuse children, and gave them at the same time playful admonition, and wholesome encouragement. The Reader, who is curious in such matters, may turn to Ames and Herbert, (Dibdin, ii. 380.) for the hands in Holt's Lac Puerorum, emprynted at London by Wynkyn de Worde. M M CHAPTER CXCIX. CONCERNING THE GREAT HONOURS TO WHICH CERTAIN HORSES HAVE ATTAINED, AND THE ROYAL MERITS OF NOBS. Siento para contarlas que me llama BALBUENA. THERE have been great and good horses whose merits have been recorded in history and in immortal song as they well deserved to be. Who has not heard of Bucephalus ? of whom Pulteney said that he questioned whether Alexander himself had pushed his conquests half so far, if Bucephalus had not stooped to take him on his back. Statius hath sung of Arion, who when he carried Neptune left the winds panting behind him, and who was the best horse that ever has been heard of for taking the water. Sæpe per Ionium Libycumque natantibus ire Tramp, tramp across the land he went, But he was a dangerous horse in a gig. Hercules found it difficult to hold him in, and Polynices when he attempted to drive him made almost as bad a figure as the Taylor upon his ever-memorable excursion to Brentford. The virtues of Caligula's horse, whom that Emperor invited to sup with him, whom he made a Priest, and whom he intended to make Consul, have not been described by those historians who have transmitted to us the account of his extraordinary fortune; and when we consider of what materials, even in our days, both Priests and Senators are sometimes made, we may be allowed to demur at any proposition which might include an admission that dignity is to be considered an unequivocal mark of desert. More certain it is that Borysthenes was a good horse, for the Emperor Adrian erected a monument to his memory, and it was recorded in his epitaph that he used to fly over the plains and marshes and Etrurian hills, hunting Pannonian boars; he appears by his name to have been, like Nobs, of Tartaric race. Bavieca was a holy and happy horse,-I borrow the epithets from the Bishop of Chalons's sermon upon the Bells. Gil Diaz deserved to be buried in the same grave with him. And there is an anonymous Horse, of whom honourable mention is made in the Roman Catholic Breviary, for his religious merits, because after a Pope had himself to be unhallowed by carrying a once ridden him, he never would suffer woman on his back. These latter are both Roman Catholic Houyhnhnms, but among the Mahometans also, quadrupedism is not considered an obstacle to a certain kind of canonisation. Seven of the Emperor of Morocco's horses have been Saints, or Marabouts, as the Moors would call it; and some there were who enjoyed that honour in the year 1721 when Windus was at Mequinez. One had been thus distinguished for saving the Emperor's life; "and if a man," says the Traveller, "should kill one of his children, and lay hold of this horse, he is safe. This horse has saved the lives of some of the captives, and is fed with cuscuru and camel's milk. After the Emperor has drank, and the horse after him, some of his favourites are suffered to drink out of the same bowl." This was probably the horse who had a Christian slave appointed to hold up his tail when he was led abroad, and to carry a vessel and towel, "for use unmeet to tell." -- I have discovered only one Houyhnhnm who was a martyr, excepting those who are sometimes burnt with the rest of the family by Captain Rock's people in Ireland. This was poor Morocco, the learned horse of Queen Elizabeth's days: he and his master Banks, having been in some danger of being put to death at Orleans, were both burnt alive by the Inquisition at Rome, as ma gicians. The word martyr is here used in its religious acceptation: for the victims of avarice and barbarity who are destroyed by hard driving and cruel usage are numerous enough to make a frightful account among the sins of this nation. |