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Demonologia;

OR,

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE REVEALED.

W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

DEMONOLOGIA;
OR,
NATURAL KNOWLEDGE REVEALED;

BEING

AN EXPOSÉ

OF

Ancient and Modern Superstitions,

CREDULITY, FANATICISM, ENTHUSIASM, & IMPOSTURE,

AS CONNECTED WITH THE

DOCTRINE, CABALLA, AND JARGON,

OF

AMULETS,

APPARITIONS,

ASTROLOGY,

CHARMS,

DEMONOLOGY,

DEVILS,

DIVINATION,

DREAMS,

DEUTEROSCOPIA,

EFFLUVIA,

FATALISM,

FATE,

FRIARS,

GHOSTS,

GIPSIES,

HELL,

HYPOCRITES,

INCANTATIONS,

INQUISITION,

JUGGLERS,

LEGENDS,

MAGIC,

MAGICIANS,

MIRACLES,

MONKS,

NYMPHS,

ORACLES,

PHYSIOGNOMY,

PURGATORY,

PREDESTINATION,

PREDICTIONS,

QUACKERY,

RELICS,

SAINTS,

SECOND SIGHT,

SIGNS BEFORE DEATH,

SORCERY,

SPIRITS,

SALAMANDERS,

SPELLS,

TALISMANS,

TRADITIONS,

TRIALS, &c.

WITCHES,

WITCHCRAFT, &c. &c.

THE WHOLE UNFOLDING

MANY SINGULAR PHENOMENA IN THE PAGE OF NATURE.

By J. S. F.

“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

“And these are of them.”

“All which, by long discourse, I’ll prove anon.”

London:

JOHN BUMPUS, 23, SKINNER-STREET.

1827.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

Among the multifarious absurdities and chicaneries, which at different epocha of society have clung to, and engaged the attention of man, absorbing, as it were, his more active intelligence, the marvellous and the ridiculous have alternately and conjointly had to contend for pre-eminence; that, whether it were a mountain in the moon or a bottle conjuror; a live lion stuffed with straw or a mermaid; a Cocklane ghost or a living skeleton; a giant or a pigmy; the delusive bait has invariably been swallowed with avidity, and credited with all the solemnity of absolute devotion.

If we look back towards what are called the dark ages of the worlds that is, at times when men were mere yokels, and when the reins of tyranny, superstition and idolatry, were controlled by a few knowing ones, we shall see the human mind at its lowest ebb of debasement, grovelling either under the lash of despotism, or sunk beneath the scale of human nature by the influence of priestcraft,—a time, when the feelings of men were galloped over, rough shod, and the dignity of the creation trampled under foot with impunity and exultation, by a state of the most passive and degenerate servility: how much must it now excite our wonder and admiration of that supreme Providence, who, in his merciful consideration for the frailest of mortals, by a variety of ways and means best suited to his omnipotent ends, has dragged us gradually, and, as it were, reluctantly to ourselves, from darkness to daylight, by extinguishing the stench and vapour of the train oil of ignorance and superstition, lighting us up with the brilliant gas of reason and comparative understanding, while, under less despotic and more tolerant times, we are permitted the rational exercise of those faculties which formerly were rivetted to the floor of tyranny by the most humiliating oppression!

The pranks of popes and priests, conjurors and fire-eaters, have comparatively fled before the piercings of the intellectual ray. Witches no longer untie the winds to capsise church-steeples, and “topple” down castles,—they no longer dance round the enchanted cauldron, invoking the “ould one” to propitiate their cantrip vows:—Beelzebub himself with his cloven foot is seldom if ever seen above the “bottom of the bottomless pit;” ghosts and apparitions are “jammed hard and fast” in the Red sea; demons of every cast and colour are eternally spellbound; legends are consigned to the chimney-corner of long winter-nights; miracles to the “presto, quick, change and begone!” of the nimble-fingered conjuror; and holy relics to the rosary of the bigot. Amulets and charms have lost their influence; saints are uncanonized, and St. Patrick, St. Dennis, & Co. are flesh and blood like ourselves; monks and holy friars no longer revel in the debauches of the cloister; the hermit returns unsolicited from the solitude of the desert, to encounter with his fellow-men; the pilgrim lays by his staff, leaves the Holy Land to its legitimate possessors, and the tomb of St. Thomas-à-Becket, to enjoy, unmolested, the sombre tranquillity of the grave. Quacks and mountebanks begin also to caper within a narrower sphere; to be brief, the word of command, to use a nautical phrase, has long been given, “every man to his station, and the cook to the fore-sheet,”—worldly occupations have superseded ultramundane speculations. Astrologers themselves, who once ruled the physical world, have long ago been virtually consigned to the grave of the Partridges; and floods and storms are found to be phenomena perfectly consistent with the natural world. We also know that the sun is stationary, that the moon is not made of green cheese, and that there are stars yet in the firmament which the centifold powers of the telescope of a Herschell will never be able to explore.

The Reformation, which originated in the trammels of vice itself, gave the Devil in hell and his agents on earth, such a “belly-go-fister,” that they have never since been able to come to the scratch, but in such a petty larceny-like manner, as to set all their demonological efforts at defiance. This is the first time “old Nick” was ever completely floored; though, it would appear, from the recent number of new churches, built no doubt with the pious intention of keeping him in abeyance, that he has latterly been making a little head-way;—these, however, with the “Holy alliance,” like stern-chasers on a new construction, should the “ould one” attempt to board us again in the smoke of superstition, will, without much injury to the hull of the church, pitch him back to Pandemonium, there to exhaust his demonological rage in the sulphuretted hydrogen of his own hell; while the lights of revealed religion, emanating from these soul-saving foundations, like Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety-lamp, will give us timely warning of the choke-damp of damnation before it have time to explode about our ears.

It behoves us, nevertheless, to pray that we may merit this protection, and to watch, for we know not at what hour the cracksman may pay us an unwelcome visit; for, whatever pampered hypocrites and mercenary prayer-mongers may pretend to the contrary, our worldly goods, although but of a temporary and perishable nature, are as essential to our existence and respectability here below, as our spiritual faith is necessary to our heavenly and eternal happiness above, however unequal the comparison.

Among the creatures of the Devil, no one has a more decent claim to his clemency, than the caterwauling canting hypocrite. The hypocrite is a genus to which a variety of species belong, the subdivisions of which are too numerous for our present purpose; we shall only therefore offer a few remarks on one kind of these vampyres, drawn from daily observation. If not absolutely gluttons, although many of them are gourmands in excess, hypocrites are invariably fond of their ungodly guts, for which they are at all times ready to sacrifice their God, their King, their country and their friends. They have a stomach like a horse, and a reservoir like a brewer’s vat. The hypocrite of circumstances prays, or pretends to pray, in adversity, and swears in good earnest, like a trooper, in prosperity,—he is either a roaring bedlamite or a whining calf, a peevish idiot, a buffoon, or a disgusting bacchanal;—in short, he is capable of such derogatory pranks and extremes, that, as the occasion serves, he with equal facility rises from the bended knee of supplication to extend the hand of venality, aye, and of sensuality too, to the object of his latent and ungovernable concupiscence. His bloated chops, at one time, resemble a passive pair of bagpipes, while, at another, they are inflated with all the arrogance of beggarly pride and momentary superfluity. He is never ashamed to beg, and only afraid to steal—although equally adapted for the one as the other. A consummate, a brawling, and a suspicious egotist—he will hear no one but himself, no opinion but his own. In his own house he is a bear; in the house of another, a nuisance; and every where a nil desideratum. Self-eulogy is his most constant theme; and his loathsome flattery, either applied to himself or others, is invariably bespattered with the most impious invocations of the Deity, to witness his rebellious professions of patience, submission, abstinence, and every other exotic virtue, which he knows only by name. His cant is of the basest and most servile description; and for the attainment of some object, however pitiful or paltry, important or consequential, he is the same venal wretch all over. Where his expectations are defeated, and the yearnings of his bowels unappeased, his sycophancy is succeeded by slander, impertinence, insult, and the most unfounded suspicion. The cringing, wriggling wretch, at length, having wormed himself through a world of unpitied degradation, filth, and obscenity, attempts, at the end of his career, to offer up to his God, what has been indignantly rejected by the Devil—he dies as he lived, a pauper, equally to fortune and fame—without one redeeming qualification to keep alive even his name, which is never mentioned unless mingled with that kindred contempt and insignificance to which it was by nature and existence so closely allied.

Popular traditions are always worth recording; they illustrate traditions and exemplify manners: they tend to throw off the thraldom of the intellect of man, and stimulate him to exertions compatible with the intentions of his existence. It is with this view that the materials of which the following pages are composed, have been collected. Priestcraft, the foster-mother of superstition, is now sunk too far below the horizon ever to set again in our illumined hemisphere. The history of their former influence may, nevertheless, enlighten and amuse, as well as guard the tender ideas from receiving impressions calculated to stupify the reason and riper judgment; thus withdrawing the flimsy veil of error and credulity, by an exposure of those fallacies too often credited, because frequently passed over without the aid of investigation through the more refined medium of moral and physical research.

Demonologia.

OBSERVATIONS ON ANCIENT AND

MODERN SUPERSTITIONS, &c.

The mind of man is naturally so addicted to the marvellous, that, notwithstanding the brilliant eructations of knowledge that have been elicited and diffused out of chaotic darkness since the establishment of the Christian religion, and the revival of learning and the arts, the influence still of ancient superstition is by no means entirely annihilated. At the present period, however, it is principally confined to the uneducated portion of the community; although, at a more remote period, its limits were by no means so circumscribed. A belief in the existence of apparitions, witches, sorcerers, and magicians, is still credulously supported in many parts of the world, though less so in civilized Europe than in other countries, Lapland and some parts of Sweden and Norway excepted. But how much must it astonish us when we look back to the distant ages of Greece and Rome, the nurseries of the sciences and the arts, to find the greatest heroes and statesmen imbibing and fostering the same ridiculous prejudices, and strenuously cultivating the same belief, paying obedience to augurs, oracles, and soothsayers, on whose contradictory and equivocal inferences their prosperity or adversity was made to depend. In fact, little more than a century ago, do we not behold things still more extravagantly credulous and ferocious; namely, the burning of women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, incidents of which we have given in the body of this work, a crime much more innocent than that of priestcraft, which triumphantly prevailed at the very same period, and which still holds the minds of thousands in subjection?

A belief in judicial astrology was supported and cultivated by men remarkable for their extraordinary genius and talents.

Legends, miracles, prophecies, &c. are relics of superstitious ages. What also is extraordinary, is, that few species of superstition, if any, originated with the populace. They were the inventions of barbarous ages before the dawn of reason—afterwards the fabrications of men actuated by ambition, and a desire to servilize the human mind.

As regards the Romans only, a people whom we are taught from our infancy to respect, and who, indeed, in their better days, were truly venerable for their virtue and valour, what is there in their history more astonishing than their implicit belief in augury[^[1]]? Their belief in omens or preternatural appearances of the heavenly bodies, in eclipses, comets, and dreadful thunder-storms, may be forgiven. They had made small progress in astronomy; they had not learnt that an eclipse is a matter of common calculation; and that storms are, in most cases, highly beneficial to the earth, and nowise connected with past or future events. But when we find them giving implicit credit to their priests, who thought proper to predict good or evil, merely from the appearance of the entrails of sacrificed animals, from the flight of birds, from chickens, foxes, &c. we are at a loss to conceive how a deception of this kind could have prevailed, without being detected and exposed by the good sense of the people. The mob alone, or the common soldiers and sailors, were not merely influenced by the reports of the augurs[^[2]]; their kings or commanders undertook no expedition without consulting these oracles, and were always unsuccessful, if they confided so much in themselves as to disregard their opinions. In some cases, it is easy to suppose that they might have been in concert with the augurs, to promote some favourite point, to raise an enthusiasm in the people in their favour, or to inspire the soldiers with fortitude in some dangerous enterprise. But it is not so easy to suppose that this was always the case, because, upon the evidence of their historians, it appears that there was generally but little connexion between them; and that, although the people looked to the commander for orders, they regarded the augurs as superior beings who were to grant success.

The art of augury the Romans had from the Tuscans, and the Tuscans from the Greeks, who probably derived it from the Chaldeans; but the progress of the art is as absurd as the origin of it is obscure. The only wonder is, that it had so much influence upon a people, in the whole of whose history we find so many brilliant examples of solid sense, of learning, and of eloquence. Their historians, who rank among the most learned of their writers, and of whose abilities we can even now be judges, gravely relate the process of consulting augury, and the success of it. Yet the augurs were men following one another in regular succession. Was there none to betray the secret? Was the art of juggling an hereditary secret without one interruption? Tyranny first broke the chain. When Rome was governed by tyrants, these despised augury, and prosecuted their wicked purposes, whatever might be the appearance of the entrails of an ox; and as they, no doubt, often succeeded in their enterprises, augury would naturally fall into disrepute. These circumstances, in the great chain of causes and events, would naturally pave the way for a more rational religion. We are indebted to Henry VIII. for the commencement of the reformation; but, if the pope would have sanctioned his lust and his extortion, that advantage would have probably been derived from a better sovereign.

It is a circumstance no less remarkable, that, notwithstanding we read of the superstitions of the Greeks and Romans with wonder and some degree of contempt, we cannot acquit ourselves of having yet retained a very considerable portion Of the same superstitious spirit. We are even indebted to them for almost all our popular whims. A hare crossing the way—a person sneezing—stumbling—hearing strange voices—and the falling of salt upon the table, were all with them omens of good or evil, according to circumstances, and remain so with thousands at the present time, and in this enlightened country. Persons of otherwise no mean understanding have been greatly perplexed, and have even turned pale at such occurrences. To the above may be added, a coal starting from the fire[^[3]]—the death-watch—the sediment of the sugar rising to the top of the tea-cup, and many others. We may also mention the success of those impostors, who pretend to calculate nativities (see Astrology) and predict events; and the many foolish instances for belief in the success of lottery-tickets.

Ignorant as the Romans were of a superintending Providence, and of the revealed will of the Divine Majesty, their trust in such omens was pardonable, and deceived as they were by the artifices of their soothsayers, who could contrive to time their prophecies, and express them in such a manner that they should appear to be punctually fulfilled, we cannot wonder if the wisest among them were induced to place confidence in imposture. But that we should be as much attached to this species of divination is a weakness, than which there is none we ought more to blush at. Although we boast of our superior understanding, improved as it is by the knowledge of eighteen centuries, we are guilty of a weakness which is excusable only in an unenlightened heathen. This subject might, perhaps, be treated with the ridicule of satire, or the silence of contempt, but the more we consider it, the more we should be inclined to doubt the fact, that there can exist a human and reasonable being so weak, as to believe that futurity can be revealed by trifling events, or by the lowest of mankind, under the name of conjurors. But the fact cannot be doubted: cases of the kind occur every day; and the happiness of individuals and families often lies at the mercy of such impostors.

Those who are addicted to this species of superstitious credulity are no doubt of that class of people who are called well-meaning, and would be greatly incensed were we to ask them whether they believed in the superintendence of a Divine Providence. They would answer, “Surely—God forbid we did not!” And yet, is it consistent with our received ideas, or with the revealed wisdom and perfections of the Deity, to suppose that he should declare that futurity is locked up from the penetration of mankind, and yet should reveal the events of it by the sediments of a cup of coffee, the flame of a candle, or the starting of a sulphureous coal? Is not this offering the greatest insult to him? A step farther, we have, indeed, gone, and but a step towards the very highest insult; we have supposed that he makes known the secrets of futurity to the meanest vagrants and impostors, to the men and women whom the magistrate very properly punishes as much against their foreknowledge as against their inclination. The impossibility of our acquiring by any means a knowledge of future events, and the miserable condition of human life if we had that knowledge, might be here insisted on; but they must be obvious to every thinking man. A better dissuasive from the credulity which is the subject of this discourse, would be to insist upon the gross and insulting impiety of endeavouring to pry into what the Deity has pronounced hidden and concealed, and that by agents the most mean and contemptible. Let those who are still credulous in the appearance of their coffee grounds, their spilling of salt, their passing under a ladder or scaffolding[^[4]], and all the paraphernalia of the impostures of pretended divines, consider with what propriety, decency and respect, they can hereafter appeal to the Deity by the epithets of all-seeing and omniscient; and when they have done that, let them reflect upon the dignity and importance of those agents, in whose revelations they confide, in preference to his decrees.

Under the head of superstition may be ranked fatalism; for it follows from this dogma of faith, that all means of averting predestined events, that is, all future events whatever, are not only unavailing, but impious. It is manifest, that if this were consistently adhered to, every effort conducive to self-preservation, or even the common comforts and accommodations of life, would be paralysed; there would be no end to all the duties of social life; nay, to the very existence of the human species. Though this speculative principle, however, has never been able entirely to overpower and extinguish the feelings and dictates of nature to this extent, except among a few fantastical maniacs, there are proofs enough in the history of mankind of its pernicious practical effects. One of the most conspicuous examples of this, is found among the professors of the Mahomedan faith, in their abstaining from the means of stopping the progress of the plague. Among Christian sects, professing this doctrine, the like evils have arisen in an inferior degree, as exemplified in the opposition which the inoculation of the small-pox met with from this religious prejudice. See Sir Gilbert Blane’s Elements of Medical Logic, page 208.

PROOFS AND TRIALS OF GUILT IN SUPERSTITIOUS AGES.

It were well, perhaps, did the cruelties practised in former ages lay generally at the door of superstition. The extraordinary trials to which those suspected of any guilty action were conducted with many devout ceremonies, by the ministers of religion, were declared to be the judgments of God. The kinds of ordeal were various, e. g. holding in the hand a red hot bar; plunging the arm into boiling water; walking blindfold amidst burning ploughshares; passing through fires; challenging the accuser to single combat, when frequently the ablest champion was permitted to supply his place; swallowing a morsel of consecrated bread; swimming or sinking in a river for witchcraft, or, as it was called, weighing a witch; stretching out the arms before the cross, till the soonest wearied dropped his arms, and lost his estate, which was decided by this very short process, called juidcium crucis, &c.

A dispute occurred between the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Denis, about the patronage of a monastery, and Pepin, surnamed the Short, not being able to pronounce upon their confused claims, decreed that it should be settled by one of these judgments of God: viz. The judgment of the cross. Each of the disputants chose a man, and both of the men appeared in the chapel, where they extended their arms in the form of a cross. The spectators, more orderly than those of the present day; still, although they watched every motion of the combatants with the most pious attention, the old English spirit, which rules so prevalently at the present period, was proof against every other consideration—they betted on the feat, first on one side, then on the other, according as the odds seemed to run in favour or against. The Bishop’s man was first tried; he let his arms drop and ruined his patron for ever. Though these trials might sometimes be evaded by the artifice of the priest, numerous, nevertheless, were the innocent victims who suffered from these superstitious practices.

They were very frequent between the tenth and twelfth century. William Rufus, having accused Hildebert, the Bishop of Mans, of high treason, was on the verge of submitting to one of these trials, when he was convinced by Ives, Bishop of Chartres, that they were against the canons of the constitution of the church, and adds, that in this manner “Innocentiam defendere, est innocentiam perdere.” In 1066 an abbot of St. Aubin of Angers, having refused to present a horse to the viscount of Tours, which the viscount claimed in right of his lordship, whenever an abbot first took possession of that abbey; the ecclesiastic offered to justify himself by the trial of the ordeal, or by duel, for which purpose he proposed to find a substitute. The duel was first agreed to by the viscount; but, reflecting that these combatants, though sanctioned by the church, depended solely on the address or vigour of the adversary, and consequently could afford no substantial proof of the equity of his claim, he proposed to compromise the matter in a manner which strongly characterised these times: he surrendered his claim, on condition that the abbot should not forget to mention him, his wife, and his brothers, in his prayers! As the orisons appeared to the abbot of comparatively little value with the horse, the proposal was accepted.

In the tenth century the right of representation was not settled: it was a question whether a son’s sons ought to be accounted among the children of the family, and succeed equally with their uncles, if their fathers happened to die while their grandfathers survived. This point was decided by one of these combats. The champion in behalf of the right of children to represent their deceased father, proved victorious. It was then established by a perpetual decree, that they should from that time forward share in the inheritance along with their uncles.

In the eleventh century, the same mode was adopted, to decide between two rival liturgies! A couple of knights, clad in complete armour, were the tests to decide which was the true and authentic liturgy.

The capitularies of Dagobert say, that if two neighbours dispute respecting the boundaries of their possessions, let a piece of turf of the contested land be dug up by the judge, and brought by him into the court, and the two parties shall touch it with the points of their swords, calling on God to witness their claims: after this, let them combat, and let victory prove who is right or who is wrong. In these combats in Germany, a solemn circumstance was practised in these judicial combats. In the midst of the lists they placed a bier; by the side of which stood the accuser and the accused, one at the head and the other at the foot, where they leaned in profound silence for some time before the combat commenced. In his preface to Way’s Fableaux, Mr. Ellis shews how faithfully the manners of the age are painted in these ancient tales, by observing the judicial combat introduced by a writer of the 14th century, who, in his poem, represents Pilate as challenging Jesus Christ to single combat; and another, who describes the person who pierced the side of Christ as a knight who jousted with Jesus.

It appears that judicial combat was practised by the Jews. Whenever the Rabbins had to decide on a dispute about property between two parties, neither of which could produce evidence to substantiate the claim, it was terminated by single combat. The Rabbins were impressed with a notion that consciousness of right would give additional confidence and strength to the rightful possessor. It may, however, be more philosophical to observe, that such judicial combats were more frequently favourable to the criminal than to the innocent, because the bold wicked man is usually more ferocious and hardy than he whom he singles out as his victim, and who only wishes to preserve his own quiet enjoyments: in this case the assailant is the most terrific opponent.

Those who were accused of robbery in these times were put to trial by a piece of barley bread, on which the mass had been performed; and if the accused could not swallow it, they were declared guilty. This mode of trial was improved by adding to the bread a slice of cheese; and such was their credulity and dependance on heaven in these ridiculous trials, that they were very particular in this holy bread and cheese, called the corsned. The bread was to be of unleavened barley, and the cheese made of ewes milk in the month of May[^[5]].

The bleeding of a corpse was another proof of guilt in superstitious ages; nor is the custom yet entirely abolished. If a person were murdered, it was believed, that at the touch or approach of the murderer, the blood gushed out from various parts of the body. By the side of the bier, if the smallest change was perceptible in the eyes, mouth, feet or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and many innocent persons doubtless must have suffered death from this idle chimera; for when a body is full of blood, warmed by a sudden external heat and symptoms of ensuing putrefaction, some of the blood vessels will burst, as they will all in time. This practice was once allowed in England, and is still looked on in some of the uncivilized parts of these kingdoms as a means of detecting the criminal. It forms a rich picture in the imagination of our old writers; and their histories and ballads are laboured into pathos by dwelling on the suppositious phenomenon.

All these absurd institutions, Robertson observes, cherished and inculcated, form the superstitions of the age believing the legendary histories of those saints who crowd and disgrace the Roman calendar. These fabulous miracles had been declared authentic by the bulls of the Popes, and the decrees of Councils—they were greedily swallowed by the populace; and whoever believed that the Supreme Being had interposed miraculously on those trivial occasions mentioned in legends, could not but expect his intervention in matters of greater importance when solemnly referred to his decision. Besides this ingenious remark, the fact is, that these customs were a substitute for written laws, which that barbarous period had not; and as it is impossible for any society to exist without laws, the ignorance of the people had recourse to these customs, which bad and absurd as they were, served to terminate controversies which might have given birth to more destructive practices. Ordeals are, in fact, the rude laws of a barbarous people, who have not obtained a written code, and not advanced enough in civilization, to embrace the refined investigations, the subtle distinctions, and elaborate inquiries, which are exacted by a Court of Law.

It may be presumed, that these ordeals owe their origin to that one of Moses, called the “Waters of Jealousy.” The Greeks also had ordeals, for we read in the Antigonus of Sophocles, that the soldiers offer to prove their innocence by handling red hot iron, and walking between fires.

One cannot but smile at the whimsical ordeals of the Siamese. Among other practices to discover the justice of a cause, civil or criminal, they are particularly attached to the use of certain consecrated purgative pills, which the contending parties are made to swallow. He who retains them longest, gains his cause! The practice of giving Indians a consecrated grain of rice to swallow, is known to discover the thief in any company, by the contortions and dismay evident on the countenance of the real thief.

In the middle ages they were acquainted with secrets to pass unhurt these secret trials: one is mentioned by Voltaire for undergoing the ordeal of boiling water; and this statement is confirmed by some of our late travellers in the East. The Mevleheh dervises can hold red hot iron between their teeth. Such artifices have been often publicly exhibited at Paris and London. On the ordeal of the Anglo-Saxons, Mr. Sharon Turner observes, that the hand was not to be immediately inspected, and was left to the chance of a good constitution to be so far healed during three days (the time they required to be bound up and sealed, before it was examined) as to discover those appearances when inspected, which were allowed to be satisfactory. There was also much preparatory training, suggested by the more experienced: besides, the accused had an opportunity of going alone into the church, and making terms with the priest. The few spectators were always at a distance; and cold iron or any other inoffensive substance might be substituted, and the fire diminished at the moment. There can be no doubt they possessed these secrets and medicaments, which they always took care to have ready at hand, that they might pass through these trials in perfect security.

There is an anecdote of these times given by Camerarius, in his “Horæ Subscecivæ,” which may serve to show the readiness of this apparatus. A rivalship existed between the Austin Friars and the Jesuits. The Father-general of the Austin Friars was dining with the Jesuits; and on the table being removed, he entered into a formal discourse of the superiority of the monastic order, and charged the Jesuits, in unqualified terms, with assuming the title of “Fratres,” while they held not the three vows, which other monks were obliged to consider as sacred and binding. The general of the Austin Friars was very eloquent and very authoritative: and the superior of the Jesuits was very unlearned, but not quite half a fool. He was rather careless about entering the list of controversy with the Austin Friar, but arrested his triumph by asking him if he would see one of his Friars who pretended to be nothing more than a Jesuit, and one of the Austin Friar’s who religiously performed the above-mentioned three vows, show instantly which of them would be the readiest to obey his superiors? The Austin Friar consented. The Jesuit then turning to one of his brothers, the Holy Friar Mark, who was waiting on them, said, “Brother Mark, our companions are cold; I command you, in virtue of the holy obedience you have sworn to me, to bring here instantly out of the kitchen fire, and in your hands, some burning coals, that they may warm themselves over your hands.” Father Mark instantly obeys, and to the astonishment of the Austin Friars, brought in his hands a supply of red burning coals, and held them to whoever thought proper to warm himself; and at the command of his superior, returned them to the kitchen hearth. The general of the Austin Friars, with the rest of his brethren, stood amazed; he looked wistfully on one of his monks, as if he wished to command him to do the like; but the Austin Monk, who perfectly understood him, and saw this was not a time to hesitate, observed,—“Reverend Father, forbear, and do not command me to tempt God! I am ready to fetch you fire in a chafing dish, but not in my bare hands.” The triumph of the Jesuits was complete; and it is not necessary to add, that the miracle was noised about, and that the Austin Friars could never account for it, notwithstanding their strict performance of the three vows.

ASTROLOGY, &c.

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilt of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers (traitors), by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a Divine thrusting on; an admirable evasion of whoremaster to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa Major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.—Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled at my bastardizing.”—Shakspeare.

It is a singular fact, that men the most eminent for their learning were those who indulged most in the favourite superstition of judicial Astrology; and as the ingenious Tenhove observes, whenever an idea germinates in a learned head, it shoots with additional luxuriance. At the present time, however, a belief in judicial Astrology can only exist in the people, who may be said to have no belief at all; for mere traditional sentiments can hardly be said to amount to a belief.

It is said that Dr. Fludd[^[6]] was in possession of the MSS. of Simon Forman, the Astrologer. We have seen that the studies of Mathematics, Astronomy, and Medicine, were early united in several persons connected with the faculty of medicine. Real Astronomy gave birth to judicial Astrology; which offering an ample field to enthusiasm and imposture, was eagerly pursued by many who had no scientific purpose in view. It was connected with various juggling tricks and deceptions, affected an obscure jargon of language, and insinuated itself into every thing in which the hopes and fears of mankind were concerned. The professors of this pretended science were at first generally persons of mean education, in whom low cunning supplied the place of knowledge. Most of them engaged in the empirical practice of physic, and some, through the credulity of the times, even arrived at a degree of eminence in it; yet since the whole foundation of their art was folly and deceit, they nevertheless gained many proselytes and dupes, both among the well-informed and the ignorant.

When Charles the First was confined, Lilly, the famous Astrologer, was consulted for the hour that should favour his escape.

A story, which strongly proves how much Charles II. was bigoted to judicial astrology, and whose mind was certainly not unenlightened, is recorded in Burnet’s History of his own times. The most respectable characters of the age, Sir William Dugdale, Elias Ashmole, Dr. Grew, and others, were members of an astrological club[^[7]]. Congreve’s character of Foresight, in Love for Love, was then no uncommon person, though the humour now is scarcely intelligible. Dryden cast the nativities of his sons; and, what is remarkable, his prediction relating to his son Charles, was accomplished. This incident is of so late a date, one might hope it would have been cleared up; but, if it be a fact, it must be allowed that it forms a rational exultation for its irrational adepts.

In 1670, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars, prevailed in France among the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Medicis brought Henry IV. then a child, to old Nostradamus, whom antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the reverend seer, with a beard which “streamed like a meteor in the air,” terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage. Will it be credited, that one of these magicians, having assured Charles IX. that he would live as many days as he should turn about on his heels in an hour, standing on one leg, that his Majesty every morning performed that solemn exercise for an hour; the principal officers of the court, the judges, the chancellors, and generals, likewise, in compliment, standing on one leg, and turning round!

It has been reported of several famous for their astrological skill, that they have suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions: this has been said of Cardan, and Burton the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.

It is curious to observe the shifts to which astrologers are put when their predictions are not verified. Great winds were predicted, by a famous adept, about the year 1586. No unusual storms, however, happened. Bodin, to save the reputation of the art, applied it as a figure to some revolutions in the state, and of which there were instances enough at that moment. Among their lucky and unlucky days, they pretend to give those of various illustrious persons and of families. One is very striking:—Thursday was the unlucky day of our Henry VIII. He, his son Edward VI. Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, all died on a Thursday! This fact had, no doubt, great weight in this controversy of the astrologers with their adversaries.

The life of Lilly, the astrologer, written by himself, is a curious work. He is the Sidrophel of Butler. It contains so much artless narrative, and at the same time so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the truth. In a sketch of the state of astrology in his day, those adepts, whose characters he has drawn, were the lowest miscreants of the town. They all speak of each other as rogues and impostors. Such were Booker, George Wharton, Gadbury, who gained a livelihood by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as in 1650, to the 18th century. In Ashmole’s life an account of these artful impostors may be found. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. This seems a true statement of facts. But Lilly informs us, that in his various conferences with angels, their voice resembled that of the Irish! The work is certainly curious for the anecdotes of the times it contains. The amours of Lilly with his mistress are characteristic. By his own accounts, he was a very artful man; and managed matters admirably which required deception and invention.

In the time of the civil wars, astrology was in high repute. The royalists and the rebels had their astrologers as well as their soldiers! and the predictions of the former had a great influence over the latter. On this subject, it may gratify curiosity to notice three or four works which bear an excessive price; a circumstance which cannot entirely be occasioned by their rarity; and we are induced to suppose, that we still have adepts in this science, whose faith must be strong, or whose scepticism weak.

The Chaldean sages were nearly put to the route by a quarto park of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber, in 1691. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race, and his personalities made them feel more sore. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with “A defence of Judiciall Astrologye, in answer to a treatise lately published by Mr. John Chamber. By Christopher Knight. Printed at Cambridge, 1603.” This is a handsome quarto of about 500 pages. Sir Christopher is a learned and lively writer, and a knight worthy to defend a better cause. But his Dulcinea had wrought most wonderfully on his imagination. This defence of this fanciful science, if science it may be called, demonstrates nothing, while it defends every thing. It confutes, according to the Knight’s own ideas: it alleges a few scattered facts in favour of astrological predictions, which may be picked up in that immensity of fabling which disgraces history. He strenuously denies, or ridicules, what the greatest writers have said against this fanciful art, while he lays great stress on some passages from obscure authors, or what is worse, from authors of no authority. The most pleasant part is at the close, where he defends the art from the objections of Mr. Chamber, by recrimination. Chamber had enriched himself by medical practice, and when he charges the astrologers by merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches fire, and shews by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art by its professors attempting to subsist on it, or for the objections which may be raised against its vital principles, we ought by this argument most heartily to despise the medical science and medical men! He gives here all he can collect against physic and physicians, and from the confessions of Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna and Agrippa, medicine appears to be a vainer science than even astrology! Sir Christopher is a shrewd and ingenious adversary; but when he says he only means to give Mr. Chamber oil for his vinegar, he has totally mistaken its quality.

The defence was answered by Thomas Vicars, in his “Madnesse of Astrologers.”

But the great work is by Lilly; and entirely devoted to the adepts. He defends nothing; for this oracle delivers his dictum, and details every event as matters not questionable. He sits on the tripod; and every page is embellished by a horoscope, which he explains with the utmost facility. This voluminous monument of the folly of the age, is a quarto, valued at some guineas! It is entitled, “Christian Astrology, modestly treated of in three Books, by William Lilly, student in Astrology, 2nd edition, 1659.” There is also a portrait of this arch rogue, and astrologer! an admirable illustration for Lavater!

Lilly’s opinions, and his pretended science, were such favourites of the age, that the learned Gataker wrote professedly against this popular delusion. Lilly, at the head of his star-expounding friends, not only formally replied to, but persecuted Gataker annually in his predictions, and even struck at his ghost, when beyond the grave. Gataker died in July 1654, and Lilly having written in his Almanack of that year, for the month of August, this barbarous Latin verse:—

Hoc in tumbo, jacet presbyter et nebulo!

Here in this tomb lies a presbyter and a knave!

He had the impudence to assert, that he had predicted Gataker’s death! But the truth is, it was an epitaph to the “lodgings to let:” it stood empty, ready for the first passenger to inhabit. Had any other of that party of any eminence died in that month, it would have been as appositely applied to him. But Lilly was an exquisite rogue, and never at a fault. Having prophesied, in his Almanack for 1650, that the parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, when taken up by a messenger during the night, he contrived to cancel the page, printed off another, and shewed his copies before the committee, assuring them that the others were none of his own, but forged by his enemies.

PRACTICAL ASTROLOGY, &c.

By the word Astrology (derived from the Greek αστηρ, a star, and λογος, a discourse,) is meant the art of prognosticating or foretelling events[^[8]] by the Aspects, Positions, and Influence of the HEAVENLY BODIES.

By Aspect is to be understood an angle formed by the rays of two planets meeting on earth, able to execute some natural power or influence; which may be better explained by the following table.

This art, or rather this conjectural science, is principally divided into Natural and Judiciary.

NATURAL ASTROLOGY

Is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as CHANGE OF WEATHER, WINDS, STORMS, HURRICANES, THUNDER, FLOODS, EARTHQUAKES, and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Goad, Mr. Boyle, and Dr. Mead, pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the diversity of seasons from the situations, habitudes, and motions of the planets; and to explain an infinity of phenomena by the contemplation of the stars. The Honourable Mr. Boyle admitted, that all physical bodies are influenced by the heavenly bodies; and the Doctor’s opinion, in his treatise concerning the Power of the Sun and Moon, &c. is in favour of the doctrine. But these predictions and influences are ridiculed and entirely exploded by the most esteemed modern philosophers, of which the reader may have a learned specimen in Rohault’s Tract. Physic. pt. ii. c. 27.

JUDICIAL OR JUDICIARY ASTROLOGY

Is a further pretence to discover or foretel MORAL EVENTS, or such as have a dependence on the FREEDOM OF THE WILL. In this department of astrology we meet with all the idle conceits about the HORARY REIGN of planets, the DOCTRINE OF HOROSCOPES, the DISTRIBUTION OF THE HOUSES, the CALCULATION OF NATIVITIES, FORTUNES, LUCKY and UNLUCKY HOURS, and other ominous fatalities.

The professors of this conjectural science maintain “that the Heavens are one great book, wherein God has written the history of the world; and in which every man may read his own fortune and the transactions of his time. This art, say they, had its rise from the same hands as Astronomy itself: while the ancient Assyrians, whose serene unclouded sky favoured their celestial observations, were intent on tracing the paths and periods of the heavenly bodies; they discovered a constant settled relation or analogy between them and things below; and hence were led to conclude these to be the parcæ, or fates or destinies, so much talked of, which preside at our birth, and dispose of our future fate.”

The study of Astrology, so flattering to human curiosity, got early admission into the favour of mankind, especially of the weak, ignorant, and effeminate, whose follies induced the avaricious, crafty, and designing knaves, to recommend and promote it for their own private interest and advantage.

Origin of Astrology.

We meet with the first accounts of Astrology in Chaldea; and at Rome it was known by the name of the Babylonish calculation; against which Horace very wisely cautioned his readers—

—— nec Babylonios

Tentaris numeros.—Lib. l. od. xi.

that is, consult not the tables or planetary calculations used by Astrologers of Babylonish origin. This therefore was the opinion of the Romans on the subject of Astrology. Others have ascribed the invention of this deception to the Arabs: be this as it may, judicial Astrology has been too much used by the priests of all nations to increase their own power and emoluments.

The Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks and Romans, furnish us with innumerable instances of the extent to which Astrology was carried for interested purposes. Brahmins in India, who take upon themselves to be the arbiters of good and evil hours, and who set an extravagant price upon their pretended knowledge of planetary influence and predictions, maintain their authority at the present day by similar means. Nor among the Christians, notwithstanding the enlightened era in which we live, are we without our Astrologers, as well as its admirers and advocates; for though they may not have all pursued and adopted the same technical method, still it is certain, that whoever pretends to discover future events by other means than through the light of Divine revelation, may be properly classed under the species of judicial Astrologers.

Astrological Schemes, &c.

Those who pretend to reduce the practice of Astrology to a system, present the world with certain schemes formed upon the Aspects of the planets, and attribute certain qualities or powers to each sign. Thus, to discover the influence of the heavens over the life of a person, they erect a THEME, at the given time of the moment the person was born, by which the Astrologers pretend to discover the star that presided, or in what part of the hemisphere it was placed, when the individual came into the world. The erection of this THEME they perform, or at least pretend to reform, with the assistance of the celestial globe, or planisphere, with regard to the fixed stars; but with respect to the planets, they do it with Astronomical tables. To accomplish these, they have recourse to a semi-circle, which they call POSITION, by which they represent the six great circles passing through the intersection of the Meridian and Horizon, and dividing the Equator into twelve equal parts. The spaces included between these circles, are what they call the twelve HOUSES; which they refer to the twelve triangles marked in their theme; placing six of those HOUSES above and six underneath the horizon.

The first of the HOUSES under the horizon toward the East, they call the Horoscope, or House of Life; the second, the House of Wealth; the third, the House of Brothers; the fourth, the House of Parents, &c.; as is clearly expressed in the following lines:

Vita, lucrum, fratres, genitor, natique Valetud,

Uxor, Mors, pietas, et munia, amici inimici.

Which, translated by some English students in Astrology, runs thus:

The first house shews life, the second wealth doth give;

The third how brethren, fourth how parents live;

Issue the fifth; the sixth diseases bring;

The seventh wedlock, and the eighth death’s sting;

The ninth religion; the tenth honour shews;

Friendship the eleventh, and twelfth our woes.

Table of the Twelve Houses.

Astrologers draw their table of the TWELVE HOUSES into a triple quadrangle prepared for the purpose, of which there are four principal angles, two of them falling equally upon the horizon, and the other two upon the meridian, which angles are sudivided into 12 triangles for the 12 houses, in which they place the 12 signs of the Zodiac, to each of which is attributed a particular quality,—viz.

1.— Aries, denoted by the sign ♈︎, is, in their extravagant opinion, a masculine, diurnal, cardinal, equinoctial, easterly sign, hot and dry,—the day house of Mars.

Having thus housed their signs and directed them in their operations, they afterwards come to enquire of their tenants, what planet and fixed stars they have for LODGERS, at the moment of the nativity of such person; from whence they draw conclusions with regard to the future incident of that person’s life. For if at the time of that person’s nativity they find Mercury in 27° 52 min. of Aquarius, and in the sextile aspect of the horoscope, they pretend to foretel that that infant will be a person of great sagacity, genius, and understanding; and therefore capable of learning the most sublime sciences.

Astrologers have also imagined, for the same ridiculous purpose, to be in the same houses different positions of the signs and planets, and from their different aspects, opposition and conjunction, and according to the rules and axioms they have prescribed to themselves and invented, have the sacrilegious presumption to judge, in dernier resort, of the fate of mankind, though their pretended art or science is quite barren either of proofs or demonstrations.

Signs to the Houses of the Planets.

The planets have allowed themselves each, except Sol and Luna, two signs for their houses; to Saturn, Capricorn and Aquarius; to Jupiter, Sagittarius and Pisces; to Mars, Aries and Scorpio; to Sol, Leo; to Venus, Taurus and Libra; to Mercury, Gemini and Virgo; and to Luna, Cancer.

Angles or Aspects of the Planets.

By their continual mutations among the twelve signs, the planets make several angles or aspects; the most remarkable of which are the five following, viz.—

☌ Conjunction.—Δ Trine.—☐ Quadrate.—⚹ Sextile.—☍ Opposition.

A Conjunction is when two planets are in one and the same degree and minute of a sign; and this, according to Astrological cant, either good or bad, as the planets are either friends or enemies.

A Trine is when two planets are four signs, or 120 degrees distant, as Mars in twelve degrees of Aries, and Sol in twelve degrees of Leo. Here Sol and Mars are said to be in Trine Aspect. And this is an aspect of perfect love and friendship.

A Quadrate Aspect is when two planets are three signs, or 90 degrees distant, as Mars in 10 degrees, and Venus in 10 degrees of Leo. This particular aspect is of imperfect enmity, and Astrologers say, that persons thereby signified, may have jars at sometime, but of such a nature as may be perfectly reconciled.

A Sextile Aspect, is when two planets are two signs, or 60 degrees distant, as Jupiter in 15 degrees of Aries; and Saturn in 15 degrees of Gemini; here Jupiter is in a sextile aspect to Saturn. This is an aspect of friendship.

An Opposition is, when two planets are diametrically opposite, which happens when they are 6 signs, or 180 degrees (which is one half of the circle) asunder; and this is an aspect of perfect hatred.

A Partile Aspect, is when two planets are in a perfect aspect to the very same degree and minute.

Dexter Aspects, are those which are contrary to the succession of signs; as a planet, for instance, in Aries, casts its sextile dexter to Aquarius.

Sinister Aspect, is with the succession of signs, as a planet in Aries, for example, casts its sextile sinister in Gemini.

In addition to these, Astrologers play a number of other diverting tricks; hence we read of the Application—Prohibition—Translation—Refrenation—Combustion—Exception—Retrogradation, &c. of planets.

The Application of Planets.

Application of the planets is performed by Astrologers in three different ways.

1. When a light planet, direct and swift in its motion, applies to a planet more ponderous and slow in motion; as Mercury in 8° of Aries, and Jupiter in 12° of Gemini, and both direct; here Mercury applies to a sextile of Jupiter, by direct application.

2. When they are both retrograde, as Mercury in 20° of Aries, and Jupiter in 15° of Gemini; here Mercury, the lighter planet, applies to the sextile aspect of Jupiter; and this is by retrogradation.

3. When one of the planets is direct, and the other retrograde; for example, if Mercury were retrograde in 18° of Aries, and Jupiter direct in 14° of Gemini; in this case Mercury applies to a sextile of Jupiter, by a retrograde motion.

Prohibition,

is when two planets are applying either by body or aspect; and before they come to their partile aspect, another planet meets with the aspect of the former and prohibits it.

Separation,

is when two planets have been lately in conjunction, or aspect, and are separated from it.

Translation of Light and Virtue,

is when a lighter planet separates from the body or aspect of a heavier one, and immediately applies to another superior planet, and so translates the light and virtue of the first planet to that which it applies to.

Refrenation,

is when a planet is applied to the body or aspect of another; and, before it comes to it, falls retrograde, and so refrains by its retrograde motion.

Combustion.

A planet is said to be combust of Sol, when it is within 8° 30″ of his body, either before or after his conjunction: but Astrologers complain, that a planet is more afflicted when it is applying to the body of Sol, than when it is separating from combustion.

Reception,

is when two planets are in each other’s dignities, and it may either be by house, exultation, triplicity, or term.

Retrogradation,

is when a planet moves backward from 20° to 9°, 8°, 7°, and so out of Taurus into Aries.

Frustration,

is when a swift planet applies to the body or aspect of a superior planet; and before it comes to it, the superior planet meets with the body or aspect of some other planet.

The Dragon’s Head and Tail.

To the seven planets, viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, and Luna; Astrologers add, two certain nodes or points, called the Dragon’s head, distinguished by this sign ☋, and the Dragon’s tail by ☊. In those two extremities of the beast, our students in Astrology place such virtues, that they can draw from thence wealth, honour, preferments, &c. enough to flatter the avarice, ambition, vanity, &c. of the fools who follow them. Sensible, however, that the admirers of this art support their principles and defend their doctrines by examples founded on their own experience and on the authority of history; there is no necessity for us here to expose the weakness and futility of their arguments. Tully’s proof will suffice; who, amidst the darkest clouds of superstition and ignorance, and in the very heyday of paganism and idolatry, and whilst religion itself seemed to countenance Astrology, inveighs severely against it in Lib. 2, de devinat. “Quam multa ego Pompeis, quam multa Crasso, quam multa huic ipsi Cæsari a Chaldæis dicta memini, neminem eorum nisi senectute, nisi domi, nisi cum clantate esse moriturum? ut mihi per Mirum videatur quem quam extare, qui etiam nunc credastis, quorum predicta quotidie videat re et eventis refelli[^[9]].”

Climacteric.

Astrologers have used their best artifices, and employed all the rules of their art, to render those years of our age, which they call climacterics, dangerous and formidable.

Climacterick from the Greek, κλιμακτης, which means by a scale or ladder, is a critical year, or a period in a man’s age, wherein, according to Astrological juggling, there is some notable alteration to arise in the body; and a person stands in great danger of death. The first climacterick, say they, is the seventh year of a man’s life; the rest are multiples of the first, as 21, 49, 56, 63, and 84; which two last are called the grand climactericks, and the danger more certain.

Marc Ficinus accounts for the foundation of this opinion: he tells us there is a year assigned for each planet to rule over the body of a man, each in his turn; now Saturn being the most maleficent (malignant) planet of all, every seventh year, which falls to its lot, becomes very dangerous; especially those of 63 and 84, when the person is already advanced in years. According to this doctrine, some hold every seventh year an established climacteric; but others only allow the title to those produced by the multiplication of the climacterical space by an odd number, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c. Others observe every ninth year as a climacterick.

There is a work extant, though rather scarce, by Hevelius, under the title of Annus Climactericus, wherein he describes the loss he sustained by his observatory, &c. being burnt; which, it would appear, happened in his grand climacterick. Suetonius says, that Augustus congratulated his nephew upon his having passed his first grand climacterick, of which he was very apprehensive.

Some pretend that the climacterick years are fatal to political bodies, which perhaps may be granted, when they are proved to be so to natural ones; for it must be obvious that the reason of such danger can by no means be discovered, nor what relation it can have with any of the numbers above-mentioned. Though this opinion has a great deal of antiquity on its side; Aulus Gellius says, it was borrowed from the Chaldeans, who, possibly, might receive it from Pythagoras, whose philosophy turned much on numbers, and who imagined an extraordinary virtue in the number 7.

The principal authors on the subject of climactericks, are Plato, Cicero, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius, among the ancients; Argol, Magirus, and Salmatius, among the moderns. St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Beda, and Bœtius, all countenance the opinion.

Lucky and Unlucky Days.

Astrologers have also brought under their inspection and controul the days of the year, which they have presumed to divide into lucky and unlucky days; calling even the sacred scriptures, and the common belief of Christians, in former ages, to their assistance for this purpose. They pretend that the 14th day of the first month was a blessed day among the Israelites, authorised therein, as they pretend, by the several following passages out of Exodus, c. xii. v. 18, 40, 41, 42, 51. Leviticus, c. xxiii. v. 5. Numbers, c. xxviii. v. 16. “Four hundred and thirty years being expired of their dwelling in Egypt, even in the self same day departed they thence.”

With regard to evil days and times, Astrologers refer to Amos, c. 5, v. 13, and c. vi. v. 3. Ecclesiasticus, c. ix. v. 12. Psalm, xxxvii. v. 19. Obadiah, c. xii. Jeremiah, c. xlvi. v. 21, and to Job cursing his birth day, chap. iii. v. 1 to 11. In confirmation of which they also quote a calendar, extracted out of several ancient Roman catholic prayer books, written on vellum, before printing was invented, in which were inserted the unfortunate days of each month, as in the following verses;—

January.—Prima dies mensis, et septima truncat ensis.

February.—Quarta subit mortem, prosternit tertia fortem.

March.—Primus mandentem, disrumpit quarta bibentem.

April.—Denus et undenus est mortis vulnere plenus.

May.—Tertius occidit, et Septimus ora relidit.

June.—Denus Pallescit, quindenus fædera nescit.

July.—Ter denus mactat, Julii denus labefactat.

August.—Prima necat fortem, perditque secunda cohortem.

September.—Tertia Septembris, et denus fert mala membris.

October.—Tertius et denus, est sicut mors alienus.

November.—Scorpius est quintus, et tertius est vita tinctus.

December.—Septimus exanguis, virosus denus ut Anguis.

This poetry is a specimen of the rusticity and ignorance at least of the times; and is a convincing proof that Christianity had yet a very strong tincture of the Pagan superstitions attached to it, and which all the purity of the gospel itself, to this very day, has not been able entirely to obliterate.

That the notion of lucky and unlucky days owes its origin to paganism, may be proved from Roman history, where it is mentioned that that very day four years, the civil wars were begun by Pompey the father; Cæsar made an end of them with his son, Cneius Pompeius being then slain; and that the Romans accounted the 13th of February an unlucky day, because on that day they were overthrown by the Gauls at Allia; and the Fabii attacking the city of the Recii, were all slain with the exception of one man: from the calendar of Ovid’s “Fastorum,” Aprilis erat mensis Græcis auspicatissimus; and from Horace, lib. 2, ode 13, cursing the tree that had nearly fallen upon it; ille nefasto posuit die.

The number of remarkable events that happened on some particular days have been the principal means of confirming both Pagans and Christians in their opinion on this subject. For example, Alexander the Great, who was born on the 6th of April, conquered Darius and died on the same day. The Emperor Bassianus Caracalla was born and died on a sixth day of April. Augustus was adopted on the 19th of August, began his Consulate, conquered the Triumviri, and died the same day.

The Christians have observed that the 24th of February was four times fortunate to Charles the Fifth. That Wednesday was a fortunate day to Pope Sixtus V. for on a Wednesday he was born, on that day made a Monk, on the same day made a General of his order, on that day created a Cardinal, on that day elected Pope, and also on that day inaugurated. That Thursday was a fatal day to Henry VIII. King of England, and his posterity, for he died on a Thursday; King Edward VI. on a Thursday; Queen Mary on a Thursday; and Queen Elizabeth on a Thursday. The French have observed that the feast of Pentecost had been lucky to Henry III. King of France, for on that day he was born, on that day elected king of Poland, and on that day he succeeded his brother Charles IX. on the throne of France.

Genethliaci.

(From γενεθλη, origin, generation, nativity.)

These, so called in Astrology, are persons who erect Horoscopes; or pretend what shall befal a man, by means of the stars which presided at his nativity[^[10]]. The ancients called them Chaldæi, and by the general name mathematici: accordingly the several civil and canon laws, which we find made against the mathematicians, only respect the Genethliaci, or Astrologers; who were expelled Rome by a formal decree of the senate, and yet found so much protection from the credulity of the people, that they remained unmolested. Hence an ancient author speaks of them as hominum genus, quod in civitate nostra sempe et vetabitur, et retinebitur.

Genethliacum, (Genethliac poem,)

Is a composition in verse, on the birth of some prince, or other illustrious person; in which the poet promises him great honours, advantages, successes, victories, &c. by a kind of prophecy or prediction. Such, for instance, is the eclogue of Virgil to Pollio, beginning

Sicelides Musæ, paulo majora Canamus.

There are also Genethliac speeches or orations, made to celebrate a person’s birth day.

Barclay’s Refutation of Astrology.

Astrological superstition, it is said, transcended from the Chaldeans, who transmitted it to the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks derived it, whence it passed to the Romans, who, doubtless, were the first to disseminate it over Europe, though some will have it to be of Egyptian origin, and ascribe the invention to Cham; but it is to the Arabs that we owe it. At Rome, the people were so infatuated with it, the Astrologers, or, as they are called, the mathematicians, maintained their ground in spite of all the edicts to expel them out of the city[^[11]].

The Brahmins introduced and practised this art among the Indians, and thereby constituted themselves the arbiters of good and evil hours, which gives them vast authority, and in consequence of this supererogation, they are consulted as Oracles, and take good care they never sell their answers but at a good price.

The same superstition, as we have already shewn, has prevailed in more modern ages and nations. The French historians remark, that, in the time of Queen Catherine of Medicis, Astrology was in so great repute, that the most inconsiderable thing was not undertaken or done without consulting the stars. And in the reigns of king Henry III. and IV. of France, the predictions of Astrologers were the common theme of the court conversation.

This predominant humour in the French court was well rallied by Barclay in his Argenis, lib. ii, on account of an Astrologer who had undertaken to instruct king Henry in the event of a war then threatened by the faction of the Guises.

“You maintain,” says Barclay, “that the circumstances of life and death depend on the place and influence of the celestial bodies, at the time when the child first comes to light; and yet you own, that the heavens revolve with such vast rapidity that the situation of the stars is considerably changed in the least moment of time. What certainty then can be in your art, unless you suppose the midwives constantly careful to observe the clock, that the minute of time may be conveyed to the infant, as we do his patrimony? How often does the mother’s danger prevent this care? And how many are there who are not touched with this superstition? But suppose them watchful to your wish; if the child be long in delivery; if, as is often the case, a hand or the head come first, and be not immediately followed by the rest of the body; which state of the stars is to determine for him; that, when the head made its appearance, or when the whole body was disengaged? I say nothing of the common errors of clocks, and other time-keepers, sufficient to elude all your cares.

“Again, why are we to regard only the stars at his nativity, and not those rather which shone when the fœtus was animated in the womb? and why must those others be excluded, which presided while the body remained tender, and susceptible of the weakest impression, during gestation?

“But setting this aside, and supposing, withal, the face of the heavens accurately known, whence arises this dominion of the stars over our bodies and minds, that they must be the arbiters of our happiness, our manner of life, and death? Were all those who went to battle, and died together, born under the same position of the heavens? and when a ship is to be cast away, shall it admit no passengers but those doomed by the stars to suffer shipwreck? or rather, do not persons born under every planet go into the combat, or aboard the vessel; and thus, notwithstanding the disparity of their birth, perish alike? Again, all who were born under the same configuration of the stars do not live or die in the same manner. All, who were born at the same time with the king, monarchs? Or are all even alive at this day? I saw M. Villeroy here; nay, I saw yourself: were all that came into the world with him as wise and virtuous as he; or all born under your own stars, astrologers like you? If a man meet a robber, you will say he was doomed to perish by a robber’s hand; but did the same stars, which, when the traveller was born, subjected him to the robber’s sword, did they likewise give the robber, who perhaps was born long before, a power and inclination to kill him? For you will allow that it is as much owing to the stars that the one kills, as that the other is killed. And when a man is overwhelmed by the fall of a house, did the walls become faulty, because the stars had doomed him to perish thereby; or rather, was his death not owing to this, that the walls were faulty? The same may be said with regard to honours or employ: because the stars which shone at a man’s nativity, promised him preferment; could those have an influence over other persons not born under them, by whose suffrages he was to rise? or how do the stars at one man’s birth annul, or set aside, the contrary influences of other stars, which shone at the birth of another?

“The truth is, supposing the reality of all the planetary powers; as the sun which visits an infinity of bodies with the same rays, has not the same effect on all, as some things are hardened thereby, as clay; others softened, as wax; some seeds cherished, others destroyed; the tender herbs scorched up, others secured by their coarser juice: so, where so many children are born together, like a field tilled so many different ways, according to the various health, habitude, and temperament of the parents, the same celestial influx must operate differently. If the genius be suitable and towardly, it must predominate therein: if contrary, it will only correct it. So that to foretel the life and manners of a child, you are not only to look into the heavens, but into the parents, into the fortune which attended the pregnant mother, and a thousand other circumstances utterly inaccessible.

“Further, does the power that portends the new-born infant a life, for instance of forty years; or perhaps a violent death at thirty; does that power I say, endure and reside still in the heavens, waiting the destined time, when, descending upon earth, it may produce such an effect? Or is it infused into the infant himself; so that being cherished, and gradually growing up together with him, it bursts forth at the appointed time, and fulfils what the stars had given it in charge? Exist in the heavens it cannot; in that depending immediately on a certain configuration of the stars; when that is changed the effect connected with it must cease, and a new, perhaps a contrary one, takes place. What repository have you for the former power to remain in, till the time comes for its delivery? If you say it inherits or resides in the infant, not to operate on him till he be grown to manhood; the answer is more preposterous than the former; for this, in the instance of a shipwreck, you must suppose the cause why the winds arise, and the ship is leaky, or the pilot, through ignorance of the place, runs on a shoal or a rock. So the farmer is the cause of the war that impoverishes him; or of the favourable season, which brings him a plenteous harvest.

“You boast much of the event of a few predictions, which, considering the multitude of those your art has produced, plainly confess its impertinency. A million of deceptions are industriously hidden and forgot, in favour of some eight or ten things which have succeeded[^[12]]. Out of so many conjectures, it must be preternatural if some do not hit; and it is certain, that, by considering you only as guessers, there is no room to boast you have been successful therein. Do you know what fate awaits France in this war; and yet are not apprehensive what shall befal yourself? Did you not foresee the opposition I was this day to make you? If you can say whether the king will vanquish his enemies, find out first whether he will believe you.

Des Cartes and Agrippa, as they inveigh much against some other sciences, especially Agrippa, so the latter of them does not favour or spare astronomy, but particularly astrology, which he says, is an art altogether fallacious, and that all vanities and superstitions flow out of the bosom of astrology, their whole foundation being upon conjectures, and comparing future occurrences by past events, which they have no pretence for, since they allow that the heavens never have been, nor ever will be, in one exact position since the world commenced, and yet they borrow the effects and influence of the stars from the most remote ages in the world, beyond the memory of things, pretending themselves able to display the hidden natures, qualities, &c. of all sorts of animals, stones, metals, and plants, and to shew how the same does depend on the skies, and flow from the stars. Still Eudoxus, Archelaus, Cassandrus, Halicarnassus, and others, confess it is impossible, that any thing of certainty should be discovered by the art of judicial astrology, in consequence of the innumerable co-operating causes that attend the heavenly influences; and Ptolemy is also of this opinion. In like manner those who have prescribed the rules of judgments, set down their maxims so various and contradictory, that it is impossible for a prognosticator out of so many various and disagreeable opinions, to be able to pronounce any thing certain, unless he is inwardly inspired with some hidden instinct and sense of future things, or unless by some occult and latent communication with the devil. And antiquity witnesseth that Zoroaster, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cæsar, Crassus, Pompey, Diatharus, Nero, Julian the Apostate, and several others most addicted to astrologers’ predictions, perished unfortunately, though they were promised all things favourable and auspicious. And who can believe that any person happily placed under Mars, being in the ninth, shall be able to cast out devils by his presence only; or he who hath Saturn happily constituted with Leo at his nativity, shall, when he departs this life, immediately return to heaven, yet are the heresies maintained by Petrus Aponensis, Roger Bacon, Guido, Bonatus, Arnoldus de Villanova, philosophers; Aliacensis, cardinal and divine, and many other famous Christian doctors, against which astrologers the most learned Picus Mirandola wrote twelve books, so fully as scarcely one argument is omitted against it, and gave the death blow to astrology! Amongst the ancient Romans it was prohibited, and most of the holy fathers condemned, and utterly banished it out of the territories of Christianity, and in the synod of Martinus it was anathematized. As to the predictions of Thales, who is said to have foretold a scarcity of olives and a dearth of oil, so commonly avouched by astrologers to maintain the glory of their science, Des Cartes answers with an easy reason and probable truth, that Thales being a great natural philosopher, and thereby well acquainted with the virtue of water, (which he maintained was the principle of all things,) he could not be ignorant of the fruits that stood the most in need of moisture, and how much they were beholden to rain for their growth, which then being wanting, he might easily know there would be a scarcity without the help of astrology; yet if they will have it that Thales foreknew it only by the science of this art, why are not others who pretend to be so well skilled in its precepts, as able to have the same opportunities of enriching themselves? As for the foretelling the deaths of emperors and others, it was but conjectures, knowing most of them to be tyrants, and hated, and thereupon would they pretend to promise to others the empires and dignities, which sometimes spurring up ambitious minds, they neglected no attempts to gain the crown, the astrologers thereby occasioning murders, add advancements by secret instructions, rather than by any rules of art, which they publicly pretended to, to gloss their actions and advance the honour of their conjecturing science: by the same manner might Ascletarion have foretold the death of Domitian, and as for himself being torn to pieces by dogs, it was but a mere guess, for astrologers do not extend their predictions beyond death, and therefore he did not suppose his body would be torn to pieces after his death, as it proved, but alive as a punishment for his boldness in foretelling the death of the emperor, which being a common punishment, had it proved so, it had been by probability from custom, but not of the rules of astrology.—See Blome’s Body of Philosophy, pt. iii. chap. 14, in the history of Nature.

ON THE ORIGIN AND IMAGINARY EFFICACY OF
AMULETS & CHARMS,

In the Cure of Diseases, Protection from Evil Spirits, &c.

Amulets are certain substances to which the peculiar virtue of curing, removing, or preventing diseases, was attached by the superstitious and credulous; for which purpose they were usually worn about the neck or other parts of the body. The council of Laodicea prohibited ecclesiastics from wearing amulets and phylacteries, under pain of degradation. St. Chrysostome and Jerome were likewise zealous against the same practice. “Hoc apud nos,” says the latter, “superstitiosæ mulierculæ in parvulis evangeliis, et in crucis ligno, et istiusmodi rebus, quæ habent quidam zelum Dei, sed non juxta scientiam usque hodie factitant.”—Vide Kirch. Oedip. Egypt.

At the present day, although by no means entirely extinct, amulets have fallen into disrepute; the learned Boyle nevertheless considered them as an instance of the ingress of external effluvia into the habit, in order to shew the great porosity of the human body. He moreover adds, that he is persuaded “some of these external medicaments do answer;” for that he was himself subject to a bleeding from the nose; and being obliged to use several remedies to check this discharge, he found the moss of a dead man’s skull, though only applied so as to touch the skin until the moss became warm from being in contact with it, to be the most efficacious remedy. A remarkable instance of this nature was communicated to Zwelfer, by the chief physician to the states of Moravia, who, having prepared some troches, or lozenges of toads, after the manner of Van Helmont, not only found that being worn, as amulets, they preserved him, his domestics, and friends, from the plague, but when applied to the carbuncles or buboes, a consequence of this disease, in others, they found themselves greatly relieved, and many even saved by them. Mr. Boyle also shews how the effluvia, even of cold amulets, may, in the course of time, pervade the pores of the living animal, by supposing an agreement between the pores of the skin and the figure of the corpuscules. Bellini has demonstrated the possibility of this occurrence, in his last proposition de febribus; the same has also been shewn by Dr. Wainwright, Dr. Keil, and others. There were also verbal or lettered charms, which were frequently sung or chaunted, and to which a greater degree of efficacy was ascribed; and a belief in the curative powers of music has even extended to later times. In the last century, Orazio Benevoli composed a mass for the cessation of the plague at Rome. It was performed in St. Peter’s church, of which he was maestro di capella, and the singers, amounting to more than two hundred, were arranged in different circles of the dome; the sixth choir occupying the summit of the cupola.

The origin of amulets may be traced to the most remote ages of mankind. In our researches to discover and fix the period when remedies were first employed for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost in conjecture, or involved in fable; we are unable to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, and we find among the most uncultivated tribes, that medicine is cherished as a blessing, and practised as an art, as by the inhabitants of New Holland and New Zealand, by those of Lapland and Greenland, of North America and the interior of Africa. The personal feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and research to procure alleviation, the modification of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness; and the regulation and change of diet and habit, must intuitively have suggested themselves for the relief of pain, and when these resources failed, charms, amulets, and incantations, were the natural expedients of the barbarians, ever more inclined to indulge the delusive hope of superstition than to listen to the voice of sober reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history. The learned Dr. Warburton is evidently wrong, when he assigns the origin of these magical instruments to the age of the Ptolemies, which was not more than 300 years before Christ; this is at once refuted by the testimony of Galen, who tells us that the Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who lived 630 years before the Christian era, had written, that a green jasper cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied externally, would strengthen the stomach and organs of digestion. We have moreover the authority of the Scriptures in support of this opinion: for what were the ear-rings which Jacob buried under the oak of Sechem, as related in Genesis, but amulets? and we are informed by Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, (lib. viii. c. 2, 5,) that Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting its virtues; the root of the herb was concealed in a ring[^[13]], which was applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself remarks, that he himself saw a Jewish priest practise the art of Solomon with complete success in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribunes of the Roman army. Nor were such means confined to dark and barbarous ages; Theophrastus pronounced Pericles to be insane, because he discovered that he wore an amulet about his neck; and in the declining era of the Roman empire, we find that this superstitious custom was so general, that the Emperor Caracalla was induced to make a public edict, ordaining, that no man should wear any superstitious amulets about his person.

In the progress of civilization, various fortuitous incidents[^[14]], and even errors in the choice and preparation of aliments, must gradually have unfolded the remedial powers of many natural substances: these were recorded, and the authentic history of medicine may date its commencement from the period when such records began.

We are told by Herodotus, that the Chaldeans and Babylonians carried their sick to the public roads and markets, that travellers might converse with them, and communicate any remedies which had been successfully used in similar cases; this custom continued during many ages in Assyria: Strabo states that it also prevailed among the ancient Lusitanians, or Portuguese: in this manner, however, the results of experience descended only by oral tradition. It was in the temple of Æsculapius in Greece, that medical information was first recorded; diseases and cures were then registered on durable tablets of marble; the priests and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their application; and as these persons were ambitious to pass for the descendants of Æsculapius, they assumed the name of the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanias, Philostratus, and Plutarch, abound with the artifices of those early physicians. Aristophanes describes in a truly comic manner, the craft and pious avarice of these godly men, and mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they collected and put into bags the offerings on the altar. The patients, during this period, reposed on the skins of sacrificed rams, in order that they might procure celestial visions. As soon as they were believed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Æsculapius, imitating his manners, and accompanied by the daughters of the God, that is, by young actresses, thoroughly instructed in their parts, entered and delivered a medical opinion.

Definition of Amulets, &c.

All remedies working as it were sympathetically, and plainly unequal to the effect, may be termed Amulets; whether used at a distance by another person, or immediately about the patient: of these various are related. By the Jews, they were called Kamea; by the Greeks, Phylacteries, as already mentioned; and by the Latins, Amuleta or Ligatura; by the Catholics, Agnus Dei, or consecrated relicts, and by the natives of Guinea, where they are still held in great veneration, Fetishes. Different kinds of materials by these different people, have been venerated and supposed capable of preserving from danger and infection, as well as to remove diseases when actually present.

Plutarch relates of Pericles, an Athenian general, that when a friend came to see him, and inquiring after his health, he reached out his hand and shewed him his Amulet; by which he meant to intimate the truth of his illness, and, at the same time, the confidence he placed in these ordinary remedies.

Amulets still continue among us to the present day, indeed there are few instances of ancient superstition some parcel of which has not been preserved, and not unfrequently they have been adapted by men of otherwise good understanding, who plead in excuse, that they are not nauseous, cost little, and if they can do no good they can do no harm. Lord Bacon, whom no one can suspect of being an ignorant man, says, that if a man wear a bone ring or a planet seal, strongly believing, by that means, that he might obtain his mistress, or that it would preserve him unhurt at sea, or in battle, it would probably make him more active and less timid; as the audacity they might inspire would conquer and bind weaker minds in the execution of a perilous duty.

There are a variety of Amulets used by the common people for the cure of ague; and however this may be accounted for, whether by the imagination or the disease subsiding of its own accord, many have been apparently cured by them, when the Peruvian bark had previously failed. Agues, says Dr. Willis, resisting Amulets have often been applied to the wrist with success. Abracadabra written in a conical form, i. e. in the shape of an Isoceles triangle, beginning with A, then A B, A B R, and so on, and placed under each other, will have a good effect. The herb Lunaria, gathered by moonlight, we are assured by very respectable authorities, has performed some surprising cures. Naaman, we are told (numero deus impare gaudet) was cured by dipping seven times in the river Jordan. An old gentleman, of eighty years of age, who had nearly exhausted his substance upon physicians, was cured of a strangury, by a new glass bottle that had never been wet inside, only by making water in it, and burying it in the earth. There were also certain formalities performed at the pool of Bethseda for the cure of diseases. Dr. Chamberlayne’s Anodyne necklace for a long time was the sina qua non of mothers and nurses, until its virtue was lost by its reverence being destroyed; and those which have succeeded it have nearly run their race. The Grey Liverwort was at one time thought not only to have cured hydrophobia, but, by having it about the person, to have prevented mad dogs from biting them. Calvert paid devotions to St. Hubert for the recovery of his son, who was cured by this means. The son also performed the necessary rites at the shrine, and was cured not only of the hydrophobia, “but of the worser phrensy with which his father had instilled him.” Cramp rings were also used, and eel skins tied round the limbs, to prevent this spasmodic affection; and also by laying the sticks across on the floor in going to bed, have also performed cures this way. Numerous are the charms, amulets, and incantations, used even in the present day for the removal of warts. We are told by Lord Verulam (vol. iii. p. 234,) that when he was at Paris he had above an hundred warts on his hands; and that the English Ambassador’s lady, then at court, and a woman far above all superstition, removed them all only by rubbing them with the fat side of the rind of a piece of bacon, which they afterwards nailed to a post, with the fat side towards the south. In five weeks, says my Lord, they were all removed.

As Lord Verulam is allowed to have been as great a genius as this country ever produced, it may not be irrelevant to the present subject, to give, in his own words, what he has observed relative to the power of Amulets. After deep metaphysical observations in nature, and arguing in mitigation of sorcery, witchcraft, and divination, effects that far outstrip the belief in Amulets, he observes “we should not reject all of this kind, because it is not known how far those contributing to superstition depend on natural causes. Charms have not their power from contracts with evil spirits, but proceed wholly from strengthening the imagination; in the same manner that images and their influence, have prevailed in religion; being called from a different way of use and application, sigils, incantations, and spells.

Effect of the Imagination on the Mind, &c.

Imagination, indubitably, has a powerful effect on the mind, and in all these miraculous cures is by far the strongest ingredient. Dr. Strother says, the influence of the mind and passions works upon the body in sensible operations like a medicine, and is of far the greater force upon the juices than exercise. The countenance, he observes, betrays a good or wicked intention; and that good or wicked intention will produce in different persons a strength to encounter, or a weakness to yield to the preponderating side. “Our looks discover our passions; there being mystically in our faces, says Dr. Brown, certain characters, which carry in them the motto of our souls, and therefore probably work secret effects in other parts,” or, as Garth, in his “Dispensatory,” so beautifully illustrates the idea:

“Thus paler looks impetuous rage proclaim,

And chilly virgins redden into flame:

See envy oft transformed in wan disguise,

And mirth sits gay and smiling in the eyes:

Oft our complexions do the soul declare,

And tell what passions in the features are.

Hence ’tis we look, the wond’rous cause to find,

How body acts upon impassive mind.”

Addison, on the power and pleasure of the imagination (Spect. vol. vi.) concludes, from the pleasure and pain it administers here below, that God, who knows all the ways of afflicting us, may so transport us hereafter with such beautiful and glorious visions, or torment us with such hideous and ghastly spectres, as might even of themselves suffice to make up the entire of Heaven or Hell of any future being.

St. Vitus’ dance was cured by visiting the tomb of the saint, near Ulm, every May. Indeed, there is some reason in this assertion; for exercise and change of scene and air will cure many obstinate diseases. The bite of the Tarantula is cured by music; and what is more wonderful still, persons bitten by this noxious animal are only to be cured by certain tunes; thus, for instance, one might be cured with “Nancy Dawson,” while another could only reap a similar benefit from “Moll in the wood,” or “Off she goes.”

The learned Dr. Willis, whom we have already mentioned, in his treatise on Nervous diseases, does not hesitate to recommend Amulets in epileptic disorders. “Take,” says he, “some fresh Pæony roots, cut them into square bits, and hang them round the neck, changing them as often as they dry. In all probability the hint from this circumstance was taken for the Anodyne necklaces, which was in such strong requisition some time ago, and which produced so much benefit to the proprietors; as the doctor, a little further on, prescribes the same root for the looseness, fevers, and convulsions of children during the time of dentition, mixed, to make it appear more miraculous, with some elk’s hoof.

Turner, whose ideas on hydrophobia are so absurd, where he asserts, that the symptoms may not appear for forty years after the bite; and who asserts, “that the slaver or breath of such a dog is infectious; and that men bit, will bite like dogs again, and die mad; although he laughs at the Anodyne necklace, argues much in the same manner. It is not so very strange that the effluvia from external medicines entering our bodies, should effect such considerable changes, when we see the efficient cause of apoplexy, epilepsy, hysterics, plague, and a number of other disorders, consists, as it were in imperceptible vapours.

Lapis Ætites (blood stone) hung about the arm, by some similar secret means is said to prevent abortion, and to facilitate delivery, when worn round the thigh. Dr. Sydenham, in the iliac passion, orders a live kitten to be laid constantly on the abdomen; others have used pigeons split alive, and applied to the soles of the feet with success, in pestilential fevers and convulsions. The court of king David thought that relief might be obtained by external agents; otherwise they would not have advised him to seek a young virgin; doubtless thereby imagining that the virgin of youth would impart a portion of its warmth and strength to the decay of age. “Take the heart and liver of the fish and make a smoke, and the devil shall smell it and flee away.” (Tobit, c. vi.)

During the plague of London, arsenic was worn as an amulet against infection. During this melancholy period, Bradley says, that Bucklersbury was not visited with this scourge, which was attributed to the number of druggists and apothecaries living there.

During the plague at Marseilles, which Belort attributed to the larvæ of worms infecting the saliva, food, and chyle; and which, he says, were hatched by the stomach, took their passage into the blood, at a certain size, hindering the circulation, affecting the juices and solid parts, advised amulets of mercury to be worn in bags suspended at the chest and nostrils, either as a safeguard or as a means of cure; by which method, through the admissiveness of the pores, effluvia specially destructive of all venemous insects, were received into the blood. “An illustrious prince,” continues Belort, “by wearing such an amulet, escaped the small-pox.”

An Italian physician (Clognini) ordered two or three drachms of crude mercury to be worn as a defensive against the jaundice; and also as a preservative against the noxious vapours of inclement seasons: “it breaks,” he observes, “and conquers the different figured seeds of pestilential distempers floating in the air; or else, mixing with the air, kills them where hatched.”

Other philosophers have ascribed the power of mercury in these cases, to an elective faculty given out by the warmth of the body; which attracts the infectious particles outwards. For, say they, all bodies are continually emitting effluvia more or less around them, and some whether they be external or internal. The Bath waters change the colour of silver in the pockets of those who use them; mercury the same; cantharides applied externally (or taken inwardly) affects the urinary organ; and camphor, in the same manner, is said to be an antiphrodesiac. Quincey informs us, that by only walking in a newly-painted room, a whole company had the smell of turpentine in their urine. Yawning and laughing are infectious; so is fear and shame. The sight of sour things, or even the idea of them, will set the teeth on edge. Small-pox, itch, and other diseases, are infectious; if so, mercurial amulets bid fair to destroy the germ of some complaints when used only as an external application, either by manual attrition or worn as an amulet, or inhaled by the nose. One word for all; amulets, medicated or not, are precarious and uncertain; and, now a-day, are seldom resorted to, much less confided in.

Baglivi refines on the doctrine of effluvia, by ascribing his cures of the bite of the tarantula to the peculiar undulation any instrument or tune makes by its strokes in the air; which, vibrating upon the external parts of the patient, is communicated to the whole nervous system, and produces that happy alteration in the solids and fluids which so effectually contributes to the cure. The contraction of the solids, he says, impresses new mathematical motions and directions to the fluids; in one or both of which, is seated all distempers, and without any other help than a continuance of faith, will alter their quality, a philosophy as wonderful and intricate as the nature of the poison it is intended to expel; but which, however, supplies this observation, that, if the particles of sound can do so much, the effluvia of amulets may do more.

The Moors of Barbary, and generally throughout the Mahomedan dominions, the people are remarkably attached to charms, to which and nature they leave the cure of almost every distemper; and this is the more strongly impressed on them from the belief in predestination; which, according to this sect, stipulates the evils a man is to suffer, as well as the length of time it is ordained he should live upon the land of his forefathers: consequently, they conceive that the interference of secondary means would avail them nothing, an opinion said to have been entertained by King William, but by no means calculated for nations, liberty, and commerce; upon the principle, that when the one was entrenched upon, men would probably be more sudden in their revenge and dislike physic and its occupation, and when actuated with religious enthusiasm, nothing could stand them in any service.

“A long and intense passion on one object,” observes an old navy surgeon[^[15]], “whether of pride, love, anger, fear, or envy, we see have brought on some universal tremors; on others, convulsions, madness, melancholy, consumption, hecticks, or such a chronical disorder, as has wasted their flesh or their strength, as certainly as the taking in of any poisonous drugs would have done. Any thing frightful, sudden, and surprising, upon soft, timorous natures, not only shews itself in the countenance, but produces sometimes very troublesome consequences; for instance, a parliamentary fright will make even grown men sh-t themselves, scare them out of their wits, turn the hair grey. Surprise removes the hooping-cough; looking from precipices, or seeing wheels turn swiftly, gives giddiness, &c. Shall then these little accidents or the passions, (from caprice or humour perhaps,) produce those effects, and not be able to do any thing by amulets? No, as the spirits in many cases resort in plenty, we find where the fancy determines, giving joy and gladness to the heart, strength and fleetness to the limbs, lust a flagrancy to the eyes, palpitation, and priapism; so amulets, under strong imagination, is carried with more force to a distempered part; and, under these circumstances, its natural powers exert better to a discussion.

“The cures compassed in this manner are not more admirable than many of the distempers themselves. Who can apprehend by what impenetrable method the bite of a mad dog[^[16]] or tarantula should produce their symptoms? The touch of a torpedo, numbness? or a woman impress the marks of her longings and her frights on her fœtus? If they are allowed to do these, doubtless they may the other; and not by miracles, which Spinoza denies the possibility of, but by natural and regular causes, though inscrutable to us.

“The best way, therefore, in using amulets, must be in squaring them to the imagination of patients: let the newness and the surprise exceed the invention, and keep up the humour by a long roll of cures and vouchers: by these and such means many distempers, especially of women, that are ill all over, or know not what they ail, have been cured, I am apt to think, more by a fancy to the physician than his prescription; which hangs on the file like an amulet. Quacks again, according to their boldness and way of addressing (velvet and infallibility particularly) command success by striking the fancies of an audience. If a few, more sensible than the rest, see the doctor’s miscarriages, and are not easily gulled at first sight, yet when they see a man is never ashamed, in time jump in to his assistance.”

Our inability upon all occasions to appreciate the efforts of nature in the cure of disease, must always render our notions, with respect to the powers of art, liable to numerous errors and multiplied deceptions. Nothing is more natural, and at the same time more erroneous, than to attribute the cure of a disease to the last medicine that had been employed; the advocates of amulets and charms[^[17]] have ever been thus enabled to appeal to the testimony of what they are pleased to call experience, in justification of their superstitions; and cases which in truth ought to have been considered lucky escapes, have been triumphantly puffed off as skilful cures; and thus have medicines and practitioners alike acquired unmerited praise or unjust censure.

HISTORY OF POPULAR MEDICINES, ETC.—HOW INFLUENCED BY SUPERSTITION.

“Did Marcus say ’twas fact? then fact it is.

No proof so valid as a word of his.”

Devotion to authority and established routine has always been the means of opposing the progress of reason, the advancement of natural truths, and the prosecution of new discoveries; whilst, with effects no less baneful, has it perpetuated many of the stupendous errors which have been already enumerated, as well as others no less weighty, and which are reserved for future discussion.

To give currency to some inactive substance as possessing extraordinary, nay wonderful medicinal properties, requires only the sanction of a few great names; and when established upon such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their impotent batteries. In this manner have all the nostra and patent medicines got into repute that ever were held in any estimation. And the same devotion to authority which induces us to retain an accustomed remedy upon the bare assertion and presumption either of ignorance or partiality, will, in like manner, oppose the introduction of a novel practice with asperity, unless indeed it be supported by authorities of still greater weight and consideration.

The history of various articles of diet and medicine, will amply prove how much their reputation and fate have depended upon authority. For instance, it was not until many years after ipecacuanha had been imported into England, that Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV. succeeded in introducing it into practice: and to the praise of Katherine, queen of Charles II. we are indebted for the general introduction of tea into England. Tobacco, notwithstanding its fascinating powers, has suffered romantic vicissitudes in its fame and character; it has been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and eulogized by priests and kings[^[18]], and proscribed and protected by governments, whilst, at length, this once insignificant production of a little island, or an obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself through every climate, and in subjecting the inhabitants of every country to its dominion. The Arab cultivates it in the burning desert;—the Laplander and Esquimaux risk their lives to procure a refreshment so delicious in their wintry solitude;—the seaman, grant him but this luxury, and he will endure with cheerfulness every other privation, and defy the fury of the raging elements;—and, in the higher walk of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the palace and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this singular plant, commands an equal tribute of devotion and attachment. Nor is the history of the potatoe less extraordinary or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious influence of authority. In fact, the introduction of this valuable plant received, for more than two centuries, an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe in the midst of his court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation.

The history of the warm bath furnishes us with another curious instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable resources are so uniformly exposed. That, in short, which for so many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health, and the most efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had cured the emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath. The coldest water, therefore, was recommended on every occasion. This practice, however, was but of short duration. The popularity of the warm bath soon lost all its premature and precocious popularity; for, though it had restored the emperor to health, it shortly afterwards killed his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus; an event which at once deprived the remedy of its credit, and the physician of his popularity.[^[19]]

An illustration of the overbearing influence of authority, in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it, might be furnished in the history of the Peruvian bark. This heroic remedy was first brought to Spain in the year 1632, where it remained seven years before any trial was made of its powers. An ecclesiastic of Alcala was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639; but even at this period, its use was limited, and it would have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the Roman church, by whose protecting auspices it was enabled to gain a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Innocent the Tenth, at the intercession of Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish jesuit, ordered that its nature and effects should be duly examined, and on its being reported both innocent and salutary, it immediately rose into public notice. Its career, however, was suddenly arrested by its having unfortunately failed in the autumn 1652 to cure Leopold, Archduke of Austria, of a quartan intermittent: from this circumstance it had nearly fallen into disrepute.

As years and fashion revolve, so have these neglected remedies, each in its turn, risen again into favour and notice; whilst old receipts, like old almanacks, are abandoned, until the period may arrive that will once more adapt them to the spirit and fashion of the times. Thus it happens, that most of the new discoveries in medicine have turned out to be no more than the revival and readoption of ancient practices.

During the last century, the root of the male fern was retailed as a secret nostrum, by Madame Nouffleur, a French empiric, for the cure of the tapeworm: the secret was purchased for a considerable sum of money by Lewis XV. The physicians then discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in that complaint by Galen.

The history of popular remedies for the cure of gout, also furnishes ample matter for the elucidation of this subject.

The celebrated powder of the Duke of Portland, was no other than the diacentaureon of Cœlius Aurelianus, or the antidotos ex duobus centaureæ generibus of Ætius, the receipt for which a friend of his Grace brought with him from Switzerland; into which country, in all probability, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western parts of Europe.

The active ingredient of a no less celebrated remedy for the same disease, the eau médicinale, a medicine brought into fashion by M. Husson, whose name it bears, a military officer in the service of the King of France, about fifty years ago, has been discovered to be the colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron. Upon investigating the virtues of this medicine, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called Hermodactyllus, by Oribasius[^[20]] and Ætius[^[21]], but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose prescription consisted of hermodactyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin-seed, aniseed, and scammony, which, he says, will enable those who take it, to walk immediately. An inquiry was immediately instituted after this unknown plant, and upon procuring a specimen of it from Constantinople, it was actually found to be a species of colchicum.

The use of Prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately proposed by Dr. Majendie, a French physiologist, is little else than the revival of the Dutch practice in this complaint; for we are informed by Lumæus, in the fourth volume of his “Amenitates Acadamicæ,” that distilled laurel water was frequently used in Holland in the cure of pulmonary consumption. The celebrated Dr. James’s fever powder was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle, a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne’s complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The various secret preparations of opium which have been lauded as the discovery of modern times, may be recognised in the works of ancient authors.

ALCHYMY[^[22]].

The science, if it deserves to be distinguished by the name of Alchymy, or the transmutation of metals into gold, has doubtless been an imposition, which, striking on the feeblest part of the human mind, has so frequently been successful in carrying on its delusions.

The Corrina of Dryden (Mrs. Thomas) during her life, has recorded one of these delusions of Alchymy. From the circumstances, it is very probable the sage was not less deceived than his patroness. An infatuated lover of this delusive art met one who pretended to have the power of transmuting lead to gold; that is, in their language, the imperfect metals to the perfect one. This Hermetic philosopher required only the materials and time, to perform his golden operations. He was taken to the country residence of his patroness, a long laboratory was built, and that his labours might not be impeded by any disturbance, no one was permitted to enter into it. His door was contrived to turn on a pivot; so that, unseen and unseeing, his meals were conveyed to him without distracting the sublime contemplations of the sage.

During a residence of two years he never condescended to speak but two or three times in the year to his infatuated patroness. When she was admitted into the laboratory, she saw with pleasing astonishment, stills, immense cauldrons, long flues, and three or four Vulcanian fires, blazing at different corners of this magical mine: nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable figure of the dusty philosopher. Pale and emaciated with daily operations and nightly vigils, he revealed to her, in unintelligible jargon, his progress; and having sometimes condescended to explain the mysteries of the Arcana, she beheld or seemed to behold, streams of fluid, and heaps of solid ore, scattered around the laboratory. Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of lead. She began now to lower her imagination to the standard of reason. Two years had now elapsed, vast quantities of lead had gone in, and nothing but lead had come out. She disclosed her sentiments to the philosopher; he candidly confessed he was himself surprised at his tardy processes; but that now he would exert himself to the utmost, and that he would venture to perform a laborious operation, which hitherto he had hoped not to have been necessitated to employ. His patroness retired, and the golden visions of expectation resumed all their lustre.

One day as they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack followed by another loud as the report of cannon, assailed their ears. They hastened to the laboratory; two of the greatest stills had burst, and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are told that after another adventure of this kind, this victim to Alchymy, after ruining another patron, in despair swallowed poison.

Even more recently we have a history of an Alchymist in the life of Romney, the painter. This Alchymist, after bestowing much time and money on preparations for the grand projection, and being near the decisive hour, was induced, by the too earnest request of his wife, to quit his furnace one evening, to attend some of her company at the tea-table. While the projector was attending the ladies, his furnace blew up! In consequence of this event, he conceived such an antipathy against his wife, that he could not endure the idea of living with her again.

Henry IV. was so reduced by his extravagancies, that Evelyn observes in his Numismata, he endeavoured to recruit his empty coffers by an Alchymical speculation. The record of this singular proposition, contains “the most solemn and serious account of the feasibility and virtues of the philosopher’s stone, encouraging the search after it, and dispensing with all statutes and prohibitions to the contrary.” This record was very probably communicated (says an ingenious antiquary) by Mr. Selden to his beloved friend Ben Jonson, when he was writing his comedy of the Alchymist.