suggested by their
superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions
came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a
particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life; and what
can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the thought
first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are significant of
future events; and why did he think so? How did the 'grounds' of a
teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they now possess for
Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these absurdities be asked
_why_ they believe, they answer readily enough either that they
themselves or their friends have known remarkable fulfilments of the
ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must of necessity be
the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by these instructive
methods. But the persons who first invented those means of divination
can have had no such reasons. They must have possessed imaginations of
singular liveliness and not wanting in ingenuity. It is a pity that we
know so little of them.

[11] Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death within the
year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times during the
last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more cautious,
however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated, _secundum
artem_, by Raphael in 1828, with results 'sufficiently evincing the
surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological calculations,
when founded on the correct time of birth, and mathematically
calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of this
illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now
living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious
horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield
against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant
traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however,
Raphael omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of
Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had
corresponded with his horoscope.

[12] 'I have still observed,' says an old author, 'that your right
Martialist doth seldom exceed in height, or be at the most above a yard
or a yard and a half in height' (which is surely stint measure). 'It
hath been always thus,' said that right Martialist Sir Geoffrey Hudson
to Julian Peve