for, when describing the Paradise of Fools, he does not forget to mention those

"Who to be sure of Paradise,

Dying, put on the Weeds of Dominick,

Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd."

And that the practice was not unfamiliar to ourselves at an earlier period is evident from a passage in the Berkeley MSS., in which “it is recorded that on the 13th of May 1220 (4th Hen. III.) died Robert the second Lord Berkeley æt" 55, or thereabouts, and was buried in the North Isle of the Church of the Monastery of St. Augustines (Bristol) over against the high Altar, in a Monck's Cowle, an usual fashion for great Peeres in those tymes, esteemed as an Amulet or Defensative to the Soule, and as a Scala Coeli, a Ladder of Life eternal."

Gaule (in his Mag-Astromancer Posed and Puzzel'd) inquires "whether Pericepts, Amulets, Præfiscinals, Phylacteries, Niceteries, Ligatures, Suspensions, Charmes, and Spels, had ever been used, applied, or carryed about, but for Magick and Astrologie? Their supposed efficacy (in curing Diseases and preventing of Perils) being taught from their fabrication, configuration, and confection, under such and such sydereal Aspects, Conjunctions, Constellations." His preceding observations upon alchymy are too pointed and sensible not to be retained: "Whether Alchymie (that enticing yet nice Harlot) had made so many Fooles and Beggars, had she not clothed or painted herself with such Astrological Phrases and Magical Practises? But I let this Kitchen Magick or Chimney Astrology passe. The sweltering Drudges and smoaky Scullions of it (if they may not bring in new fuel to the Fire) are soon taught (by their past observed folly) to ominate their own late Repentance. But, if they will obstinately persist, in hope to sell their smoak, let others beware how they buy it too dear." Among the Notable Things recorded by Gaule on the authority of Mizaldus we have the following: "A_piece of a Child's Navell string, born in a Ring, is good against the Falling Sickness, the pains of the Head, and the Collick."

Of a Mahometan negro, who with the ceremonial part of that religion retained all his ancient superstition, Mungo Park relates that in the midst of a dark wood he made a sign for the company to stop, when, taking hold of a hollow piece of bamboo that hung as an amulet round his neck, he whistled very loud three times. This he did, he explained, in order to ascertain what success would attend the journey. He then dismounted, laid his spear across the road, and, having said a number of short prayers, concluded with three loud whistles; after which he listened for some time as if in expectation of an answer, and, receiving none, intimated that the company might proceed without fear, as there was no premonition of danger.

In Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners are wood engravings of several Roman amulets, which were designed against fascination in general, but more particularly against that of the evil eye. Such, he observes, are still used in Spain by women and children, precisely as they were by the Romans in the olden time.

A DIVINATION differs from an omen in this particular, that the

latter is an indication of something that is to come to pass, which happens to a person, as it were by accident, without his seeking for it; whereas the former is the obtaining of the knowledge of futurity by some endeavour of his own, or by means which he personally uses designedly for that end.

Gaule has a copious enumeration of the several species of divination"Stareomancy, or divining by the Elements; Aeromancy, or divining by the Ayr; Pyromancy, by Fire; Hydromancy, by Water; Geomancy, by Earth; Theomancy, pretending to divine by the Revelation of the Spirit, and by the Scriptures or word of God; Damonomancy, by the suggestions of Evill Dæmons or Devils; Idolomancy, by Idolls, Images, Figures; Psychomancy, by Men's Souls, Affections, Wills, religious or morall Dispositions; Antinopomancy, by the Entrails of Men, Women, and Children; Theriomancy, by Beasts; Ornithomancy, by Birds; Ichthyomancy, by Fishes; Botanomancy, by Herbs; Lithomancy, by Stones; Cleromancy, by Lotts; Oniromancy, by Dreams; Onomatomancy, by Names; Arithmancy, by Numbers; Logarith mancy, by Logarithmes; Sternomancy, from the Breast to the Belly; Gastromancy, by the sound of, or Signes upon the Belly; Omphelomancy, by the Navel; Chiromancy, by the Hands; Pedomancy, by the Feet; Onychomancy, by the Nayles; Cephaleonomancy, by brayling of an Asses head; Tuphramancy, by Ashes; Capnomancy, by Smoak; Livanomancy, by burning of Frankin cence; Carromancy, by melting of Wax; Lecanomancy, by a basin of Water; Catoxtromancy, by looking Glasses; Chartomancy, by writing in Papers (this is retained in choosing valentines, &c.); "Macharomancy, by Knives or Swords; Chrystallomancy, by Glasses; Dactylomancy, by Rings; Coseinomancy, by Sieves; Axinomancy, by Sawes; Cattabomancy, by Vessels of brasse or other metall; Roadomancy, by Starres; Spatalamancy, by Skins, Bones, Excrements; Sciomancy, by Shadows; Astragalomancy, by Dice; Oinomancy, by Wine; Sycomancy, by Figgs; Typomancy, by the coagulation of Cheese; Alphitomancy, by Meal, Flower, or Branne; Crithomancy, by Grain or Corn; Alectromancy, by Cocks or Pullen; Gyromancy, by Rounds or Circles; Lampadomancy, by Candles and Lamps; and in one word for all, Nagomancy, or Necromancy, by inspecting, consulting, and divining by, with, or from the Dead."

To this ample list must be added a species entitled by Holiday (in his Technogamia) Anthropomancy.

The ancients had divinations by water, fire, earth, air; by the flight of birds, by lots, by dreams, by the wind, and other modes; and of the ancient hydromancy the following species of divination must, we suppose, be considered a vestige. An essayist in the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1731 introduces "a person surprising a Lady and her company in close cabal over their Coffee; the rest very intent upon one, who by her dress and inteliigence he guessed was a Tire

woman; to which she added the secret of divining by Coffee Grounds. She was then in full Inspiration, and with much solemnity observing the Atoms round the cup. On one hand sat a Widow, on the other a Maiden Lady, both attentive to the predictions to be given of their future fate. The Lady (his acquaintance), tho' married, was no less earnest in contemplating her Cup than the other two. They assured him that every Cast of the Cup is a picture of all one's life to come, and every transaction and circumstance is delineated with the exactest certainty."

The same practice is noticed in the Connoisseur (No. 56), where a girl is represented divining to find out of what rank her husband shall be: "I have seen him several times in Coffee Grounds, with a sword by his side and he was once at the bottom of a Tea Cup in a Coach and six with two Footmen behind it." To divination by water must likewise be referred a passage in a list of superstitious practices preserved in the Life of Harvey, the famous conjuror of Dublin (1728): "Immersion of wooden Bowls in Water, sinking incharmed and inchanted Amulets under Water, or burying them under a Stone in a Grave in a Church-yard." Among love divinations, to which we have referred in an early part of this volume, may be reckoned the dumb cake, so called because it was to be made without speaking; the prescribed rule being to go backwards up the stairs to bed, and to put the cake under the pillow, when dreams of lovers would ensue.

John of Salisbury enumerates no fewer than thirteen different kinds of diviners, or fortune-tellers, who in his time pretended to foretell future events, some by one means and some by another; and Gibbon mentions divination by arrows as an institution of great antiquity and fame in the East. The compendious mode which we find so humorously described in Hudibras is affirmed by Monsieur Le Blanc, in his Travels, to be employed in the East Indies

"Your modern Indian Magician

Makes but a hole in th' Earth to piss in,
And straight resolves all Questions by't,
And seldom fails to be i' th' right."

DIVINING ROD.

Divination by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel; and Hosea reproaches the Jews as being infected with the like superstition: "My people ask Counsel at their Stocks, and their STAFF declareth unto them." The use of rods for divination was not. however, peculiar to the Chaldeans, almost every nation which has pretended to that science having practised the same method. Heredotus mentions it as a custom of the Alani, and Tacitus, of the ancient Germans.

From Bell's MS. Discourse on Witchcraft (1705) we take the following account from Theophylact on the subject of rabdomanteia or rod divination: "They set up two Staffs; and having whispered some verses and incantations, the Staffs fell by the operation of Dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell, for

ward or backward, to the right or the left hand, and agreeably gave responses, having made use of the fall of their Staffs for their Signs."

In Henry's History of Great Britain we read that “after the AngloSaxons and Danes embraced the Christian Religion, the Clergy were commanded by the Canons to preach very frequently against Diviners, Sorcerers, Auguries, Omens, Charms, Incantations, and all the filth of the wicked and dotages of the Gentiles."

One of Sheppard's Epigrams (1651) runs thus

Virgula divina.

"Some Sorcerers do boast they have a Rod,
Gather'd with Vowes and Sacrifice,
And (borne about) will strangely nod
To hidden Treasure where it lies;
Mankind is (sure) that Rod divine,

For to the Wealthiest (ever) they incline."

Of this rod divination the vulgar notion, still prevalent in the north of England, of the hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore, a seam or stratum of coal, and the like, seems to be a vestige. The Virgula divina, or Baculus divinatorius, is a forked branch in the form of a Y cut off a hazel stick, by means whereof people have pretended to discover mines, springs, &c., underground; and the explanation of the operation is that, while the person who bears it walks very slowly over the places where he suspects mines or springs may be, the effluvia exhaling from the metals, or the vapour from the water impregnating the wood, make it dip or incline; which is the sign of a discovery. The author of the Living Librarie (1621) confesses, however, that "no Man can tell why forked Sticks of Hazill (rather than sticks of other Trees growing upon the very same places) are fit to shew the places where the Veines of Gold and Silver are; the sticke bending itselfe in the places, at the bottome, where the same Veines are ;" and Lilly's History of his Life and Times records a curious experiment, which he confesses to have failed, to discover hidden treasure by the hazel rod.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1752 we read of Linnæus that, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining wand; while he was upon his voyage to Scania, he was anxious to convince him of its insufficiency. For that purpose he concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus which grew by itself in a meadow, and challenged the secretary to find it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and Linnæus' mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present; so that, when he went to finish the experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted him, and pronounced that it could not lie the way they were going, but quite the contrary; accordingly they pursued the direction of his wand, and actually dug out the gold. Another such experiment, Linnæus exclaimed, would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him.

In the same work for November 1751 we read, that though for some years past the reputation of the divining rod had been on the decline, it had recently been revived with great success by an ingenious gentleman who, from numerous experiments, had good reason to believe its

effects to be more than those of imagination; his experience being that hazel and willow rods will actually answer with all persons in a good state of health, if they are used with moderation and at some distance of time, and after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. The hazel, willow, and elm, we are instructed by the writer of the paper, are all attracted by springs of water; some persons have the virtue intermittently, the rod in their hands attracting one half hour and repelling the next; and all metals, coals, amber, and limestone attract, but with different degrees of strength; the best rods being those of the hazel or nut tree, which are pliant and tough, and cut in the winter months. Preference is to be given to a shoot that terminates in an equal fork, of the length of about two feet and a half; but, as such a forked rod is rarely to be met with, two single ones, of a length and size, may be tied together with thread, and will serve the purpose as well. Accord ing to one authority, the experiment of a hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore is limited to St John Baptist's Eve, and the hazel requires to be of the same year's growth.

With the divining rod apparently is connected a lusus naturæ of ash-tree bough, resembling the lituus of the Roman augur and the Christian pastoral staff, which still maintains a place in the catalogue of popular superstitions. We remember to have seen one of these, which we thought extremely beautiful and curious, in the house of an old woman at Beer Alston in Devonshire, who declined parting with it on any account, thinking it would be unlucky to do so. A writer who has some observations on this subject in the second volume of the Antiquarian Repertory, thinks the lituus or staff with the crook at one end, which the augur bore as the badge of his office and the instrument with which he exercised it, was made not of metal, but of the substance above mentioned. Whether to call it a work of art or of nature may be doubted, he says. Some probably belonged to the former class, while others were found in plants of different sorts; of which Hogarth, who in his Analysis of Beauty calls them lusus naturæ, gives a specimen-a very elegant one-a branch of ash. The writer proceeds to say that he inclined to style it rather a distemper or distortion of nature, from its apparently being the effect of a wound by some insect which, piercing to the heart of the plant with its proboscis, poisons that, while the bark remains uninjured and proceeds in its growth, but formed into various stripes, depressions, and curves for want of the support designed by nature; and that the beauty of form to which some of these arrive might well consecrate them to the mysterious fopperies of heathenism, and their rarity might occasion imitations of them by art. The pastoral staff of the Church of Rome seems to have been formed from the vegetable lituus, though the general idea is that it is an imitation of the shepherd's crook. The engravings given in the Antiquarian Repertory are of carved branches of the ash.

DIVINATION BY VIRGILIAN, HOMERIC, OR BIBLE LOTS.

This is a species of divination performed by opening the works of Virgil and Homer, and the Bible, and observing the lines covered by