found it desirable to
return to the old nomenclature in the fourth.

THE END.

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

_Edinburgh and London_

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These reflections were suggested to Tacitus by the conduct of
Thrasyllus (chief astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius), when his skill
was tested by his imperial employer after a manner characteristic of
that agreeable monarch. The story runs thus (I follow Whewell's
version): 'Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter,
were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff
in the island of Capreae. They reached this place by a narrow path,
accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their
return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their
trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the
ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results
of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he
had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined
the aspect of the stars, and while he did this showed hesitation, alarm,
increasing terror, and at last declared that "The present hour was for
him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius embraced him, and told him "he
was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape
it," and made him henceforward his confidential counsellor.' It is
evident, assuming the story to be true (as seems sufficiently probable),
that the emperor was no match for the charlatan in craft. It was a
natural thought on the former's part to test the skill of his astrologer
by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates--a thought so
natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long
before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not
been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a
poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was
attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to
him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a
counter-trick as Galeotti's in _Quentin Durward_ would have been unsafe.

[2] The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on the
fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made
Glendower boast:

At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes
Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth
Th