e considered as forming a prominent and
important feature in the history of the human mind. It is certainly one
link of the degrading chain of superstitions which have long enslaved
mankind, but which are now quivering to their fall. The desire for power
to pry into hidden things, and more especially events to come, is
inherent in the human race, and has always been considered as of no
ordinary importance, and rendered the supposed possessors objects of
reverence and fear. The belief in astrology, or the power to read in the
stars the knowledge of futurity, from time immemorial has been
considered as the most difficult of attainment, and important in its
results. And by the aid of a little supernatural machinery, both
magicians and astrologers exercised the most unlimited influence over
the understandings of their adherents. An astrologer, only two or three
centuries since, was a regular appendage to the establishments of
princes and nobles. Sir Walter Scott has drawn an interesting portrait
of one in _Kenilworth_; and the eagerness with which the Earl of
Leicester listened to his doctrines and predictions, affords a good
specimen of the manners of those times. The movements of the heavenly
bodies, (imperfectly as they were then understood,) seemed to afford the
most plausible vehicle for these "oracles of human destiny;" and even
now, while we are tracing these lines, the red and glaring appearance of
the planet Mars, shining so beautifully in the south-east, is considered
by the many as a forerunner and sign of long wars and much bloodshed:

These dreams and terrors magical,
These miracles and witches,
Night walking sprites, et cetera,
Esteem them not two rushes.

Mankind are universally prone to the belief in omens, and the casual
occurrence of certain contingent circumstances soon creates the easiest
of theories. Should a bird of good omen, in ancient times, perch on the
standard, or hover about an army, the omen was of good import, and
favourable to conquest. Should a raven or crow accidentally fly over the
field of action, the spirits of the combatants would be proportionably
depressed. Should a planet be shining in its brilliancy at the birth of
any one whose fortunes rose to pre-eminence, it was always thought to
exert an influence over his future destiny. Such was the origin of many
of our later superstitions, which "grew with their growth, and
strengthened with their strength," till the more extensive in