nostril, of ill-luck. A drop of blood from the nose, says Grose, commonly foretells either death or a very severe fit of illness; three drops being still more ominous. So in Burton's Anatomy we have: "To bleed three drops at the nose is an ill omen;" and in Holiday's Marriage of the Arts, "that your nose may never bleed only three drops at a time occurs among the omens deprecated. An epigram by Keuchenius explains the matter upon the principle of uneven numbers being agreeable as well to God as to man " "Cur nova stillantes designant funera guttæ, Parcæ superstitio. Numero Deus impare gaudet, Et numero gaudens impare vivit homo.' If in eating, says Grose, you miss your mouth and the victuals fall, it is very unlucky, and denotes the approach of sickness. HEAD OMENS. Gaule very justly denounces as vain, superstitious, and ridiculous the popularly current observations on heads; such as that a great head is a sign of a fool; a little head of a knave; a medium-sized head of a liberal wit; a sharp head of an impudent sot; and a round head of a senseless, irrational fellow. One cannot but think the citation of the last remark was not over well timed, for Gaule's book was printed in 1652, and, further, it was dedicated to the Lord General Cromwell. There is vulgar notion that men's hair will sometimes turn grey upon a sudden and violent fright. Shakespeare alludes to this in Falstaff's speech to Prince Henry: "Thy father's beard is turned white with the news." This whimsical opinion, Dr Grey annotates, was humorously bantered by a wag in a coffee-house, who, upon hearing a young gentleman give the same reason for the change of his hair from black to grey, observed that there was no great matter in it, and assured the company that he had a friend who wore a coat-black wig, which in an instant was turned grey by a fright. From a simile in Bodenham's Belvedere it should seem that our ancestors considered heaviness as an omen of impending evil 66 'As heaviness foretells some harme at hand, In Defoe's Memoirs of Duncan Campbel we read: “Others again, by having caught cold, feel a certain noise in their heads which seems to them like the sound of distant bells, and fancy themselves warned of some great misfortune;" and Grose represents that, when a person is suddenly taken with a shivering, it is a sign that some one has just then walked over the spot of his or her future grave. "Probably," it is added, "all persons are not subject to this sensation, otherwise the inhabitants of those parishes whose burial-grounds lie in the common footpath would live in one continued fit of shaking." HAND AND FINGER-NAILS. Sir Thomas Browne, while admitting that conjectures of prevalent humours may be derived from the spots in our nails, rejects the various divinations vulgarly raised thereupon. Melton's long catalogue of superstitious ceremonies includes this item-"To have yellow speckles on the nailes of one's hand is a greate signe of Death;" and he ob serves: "When the palme of the right hand itcheth, it is a shrewd sign he shall receive money." To the same effect writes Defoe in his Memoirs of Duncan Campbel: "Others have thought themselves secure of receiving money if their hands itched." In an old play we are instructed "When yellow spots do on your hands appear, Be certain then you of a corse shall hear ;” and similarly in Holiday's Marriage of the Arts," that a yellow Deathmould may never appeare upon your hand or any part of your body" occurs among the omens deprecated; where "Death-mould " probably stands for "Death-mole." The inquiry of a correspondent of the British Apollo (1708) as to the cause of the little white spots which sometimes grow under the finger-nails, and as to why they are called "gifts," elicited the answer that they are "from white glittering particles which are mixed with red in the blood, and happen to remain there some time;" and "the reason of their being called gifts is as wise an one as those of letters, winding-sheets, &c., in a candle." Washing one's hands in the same basin, or with the water used by another person for that purpose, is extremely unlucky, as Grose represents it. It infallibly forebodes a quarrel. According to Burton's Anatomy, the appearance of a black spot on the nails is a bad omen. To cut the nails on Friday or Sunday is accounted unlucky among the common people in several places. Thus Holiday deprecates the omen "that you may never pare your nailes upon a Friday;" while in Lodge's Wit's Miserie (1596) we have: “Nor will he paire his nailes White Munday to be fortunate in his love;" and in the comedy of Albumazar (1615) we read "He puls you not a haire, nor paires a naile, Nor stirs a foote, without due figuring The Jews, however, according to Addison's Present State of that People, superstitiously pare their nails on a Friday. "The set and statary times," writes Sir Thomas Browne, "of paring nails and cutting of hair is thought by many a point of consideration, which is perhaps but the continuation of an ancient superstition. To the Romans it was piacular to pare their nails upon the Nundina, observed every ninth day, and was also feared by others on certain days of the week, according to that of Ausonius: Ungues Mercurio, barbam Jove, Cypride crines.'" Gaule ridicules the popular belief that "a great thick Hand signes one not only strong but stout; a little slender Hand, one not only weak but timorous; a long Hand and long Fingers, betoken a Man not only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally ingenious; but those short, on the contrary, note a Foole and fit for nothing: an hard brawny Hand signes dull and rude; a soft Hand, witty but effeminate; an hairy Hand, luxurious; longe Joynts signe generous, yet if they be thick withal, not so ingenious; the often clapping and folding of the Hands note covetous; and their much moving in speech, loquacious; an ambidexter is noted for ireful, crafty, injurious; short and fat Fingers mark a Man out for intemperate and silly; but long and leane, for witty; if his Fingers crook upward, that shewes him liberal; if downward, niggardly ;-long Nailes and crooked, signe one brutish, ravenous, unchaste; very short Nails, pale, and sharp, shew him false, subtile, beguiling: and so round Nails, libidinous; but Nails broad, plain, thin, white, and reddish, are the tokens of a very good wit." A moist hand, it may be added, is vulgarly accounted an indication of an amorous constitution; and a dry one, it will occur to the reader, is enumerated among the characteristics of age and debility by the Chief Justice in the 2d Part of Henry IV. The custom of kissing the hand by way of salutation is supposed to be derived from the mode in which the ancient Persians worshipped the sun; which was by first laying their hands upon the mouth, and then lifting them up in adoration; a practice which obtains illustration from a passage in Job, a book replete with allusions to ancient manners: “If I beheld the Sun when it shined, or the Moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand." On the passage in Macbeth Steevens observes that it is a very ancient superstition that all sudden pains of the body, and other sensations which could not be accounted for naturally, presaged what was about to happen. In Dekker's Dead Terme (1607) occurs "What byting of the thumbs [at each other while the company are walking in St. Paul's] to beget quarrels." Of this singular mode of picking a quarrel we have an example in Romeo and Juliet "Abram. Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir? Sampson. No, Sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, Sir; but I bite my thumb, Sir. Gregory. Do you quarrel, Sir?" So in Lodge's Incarnate Devils (1596) we read: "I see Contempt marching forth, giving mee the fico with his thombe in his mouth, for concealing him so long from your eie-sight;" and in the Rules of Civility (a translation from the French, 1685): "'Tis no less disrespectful to bite the nail of your thumb by way of scorn and disdain, and, drawing your nail from betwixt your teeth, to tell them you value not this what they can do ; and the same rudeness may be committed with a fillip." Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, tells us that, to avoid approaching danger, children were taught to double the thumb within the hand. This was much practised while the terrors of witchcraft were operative. The thumbs of the dead also it was customary so to fold, in order to prevent the power of evil spirits over the deceased; the thumbs in that position forming a similitude of the character in the Hebrew alphabet commonly used to denote the name of God. CANDLE OMENS. The fungous parcels, as Sir Thomas Browne designates them, about the wicks of candles are commonly thought to foretell strangers. Among the Greeks, it may be interposed, the votary was sensible of the acceptance of his prayer from the way in which the flame darted its ejaculation. If the flame was bright, it was an auspicious omen. In the north, as well as in other parts of England, they are called letters at the candle, as if they were the forerunners of some strange news. These, says Sir Thomas with his usual pedantry of style, which, however, is amply atoned for by his good sense and learning, only indicate a moist and pluvious air, which hinders the avolation of the light and favillous particles, whereupon they settle on the snast; and that candles and lights burn blue and dim at the apparition of spirits may be true, he adds, if the ambient air be full of sulphureous spirits, as often happens in mines. Melton records the conventional notion on this head: "If a candle burne blew, it is a signe that there is a spirit in the house, or not farre from it." A collection of tallow rising up against the wick of a candle is styled a winding-sheet, explains Grose, and deemed an omen of death in the family. In Willsford's Nature's Secrets are several items of information on this point. Thus: "If the flame of a candle, lamp, or any other fire does wave or wind itself where there is no sensible or visible cause, expect some windy weather." "When candles or lamps will not so readily kindle as at other times, it is a sign of wet weather near at hand." "When candles or lamps do sparkle and rise up with little fumes, or their wicks swell with things on them like mushrums, are all signs of ensuing wet weather." The innkeepers and brothel-owners of Amsterdam, we learn from Putanisme d'Amsterdam (1681), account these "fungous parcels," which they call "good men," lucky when they burn long and brilliant, in which case they suppose them to bring customers; whereas, when they soon go out, they imagine the customers already under their roofs will presently depart. Boyle's tenth meditation in his Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects (1665) is upon "a thief in the candle,"-" which, by its irregular way of making the flame blaze, melts down a good part of the tallow, and will soon spoil the rest, if the remains are not rescued by the removal of the thief (as they call it) in the candle." And Defoe, in the Memoirs of Duncan Campbel, writes: "I have seen people who, after writing a letter, have prognosticated to themselves the ill success of it if by any accident it happened to fall on the ground. Others have seemed as impatient, and exclaiming against their want of thought if, through haste or forgetfulness, they have chanced to hold it before the fire to dry: but the mistake of a word in it is a sure ornen that whatever request it carries shall be refused." The Irish, when they put out a candle, say, “May the Lord renew the light of Heaven!" A spark at the candle, according to Grose, denotes that the person opposite to it will shortly receive a letter; while a fungus in it predicts the visit of a stranger from the part of the country nearest the object. Others, again, say it implies the arrival of a parcel. It will be remembered that the daughters of the Vicar of Wakefield, in their waking dreams, had their omens too. They saw rings in the candle. OMENS AT THE BARS OF GRATES; PURSES AND COFFINS. A flake of soot hanging at the bars of the grate, says Grose, similarly to the fungus in the candle, denotes the visit of a stranger from the part of the country nearest the object. Cowper's Winter Evening pleasantly records the fireside tradition "Me oft has Fancy, ludicrous and wild, Sooth'd with a waking dream of houses, tow'rs, I gaz'd, myself creating what I saw. Nor less amus'd have I quiescent watch'd Though still deceived, some stranger's near approach.” In his Memoirs of Duncan Campbel, Defoe refers to the fire as affording a kind of divination to the omen-mongers; who see "swords, guns, castles, churches, prisons, coffins, wedding-rings, bags of money, men and women, or whatever they wish or fear, plainly deciphered in the glowing coals;" and among Nature's Secrets Willsford discloses the following: When our common fires burn with a pale flame, they presage foul weather. If the fire makes a huzzing noise, it is a sign of tempests near at hand. When the fire sparkles very much, it is a sign of rain. When pots are newly taken off the fire, if they sparkle (the soot upon them being aflame), it presages rain. When the fire scorches and burns more vehemently than usual, it is a sign of frosty weather; but, if the live coals shine brighter than ordinary at other times, rain may be looked for. If wood or any other fuel crackles and emits wind more than ordinary, it is an evident sign of tempestuous weather near at hand; and the sudden and plentiful falling of soot heralds rain. Ramsey's Elminthologia (1668) has it that the popular superstition as to the falling of salt towards people extended also to fire; the latter being taken as ominous of anger-" then they expect anger;" while Molinæus interprets the sudden eruption of flame from a dead fire (ex cineribus) as betokening joy. Childish fancies associated with fires are adverted to by Cowper |