A

consummate, a brawling, and a suspicious egotist-he will hear no one but himself, no opinion but his own. In his own house he is a bear; in the house of another, a nuisance; and every where a nil desideratum. Self-eulogy is his most constant theme; and his loathsome flattery, either applied to himself or others, is invariably bespattered with the most impious invocations of the Deity, to witness his rebellious professions of patience, submission, abstinence, and every other exotic virtue, which he knows only by name. His cant is of the basest and most servile description; and for the attainment of some object, however pitiful or paltry, important or consequential, he is the same venal wretch all over. Where his expectations are defeated, and the yearnings of his bowels unappeased, his sycophancy is succeeded by slander, impertinence, insult, and the most unfounded suspicion. The cringing, wriggling wretch, at length, having wormed himself through a world of unpitied degradation, filth, and obscenity, attempts, at the end of his career, to offer up to his God, what has been indignantly rejected by the Devil-he dies as he lived, a

pauper, equally to fortune and fame-without one redeeming qualification to keep alive even his name, which is never mentioned unless mingled with that kindred contempt and insignificance to which it was by nature and existence so closely allied.

Popular traditions are always worth recording; they illustrate traditions and exemplify manners: they tend to throw off the thraldom of the intellect of man, and stimulate him to exertions compatible with the intentions of his existence. It is with this view that the materials of which the following pages are composed, have been collected. Priestcraft, the foster-mother of superstition, is now sunk too far below the horizon ever to set again in our illumined hemisphere. The history of their former influence may, nevertheless, enlighten and amuse, as well as guard the tender ideas from receiving impressions calculated to stupify the reason and riper judgment; thus withdrawing the flimsy veil of error and credulity, by an exposure of those fallacies too often credited, because frequently passed over without the aid of investigation through the more refined medium of moral and physical research.

OBSERVATIONS ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTITIONS, &c.

N

THE mind of man is naturally so addicted to the marvellous, that, notwithstanding the brilliant eruscations of knowledge that have been elicited and diffused out of chaotic darkness since the establishment of the Christian religion, and the revival of learning and the arts, the influence still of ancient superstition is by no means entirely annihilated. At the present period, however, it is principally confined to the uneducated portion of the community; although, at a more remote period, its limits were by no means so circum scribed. A belief in the existence of apparitions, witches, sorcerers, and magicians, is still credulously supported in many parts of the world, though less so in civilized Europe than in other countries, Lapland and some parts of Sweden and Norway excepted. But how much must it astonish us when we look back to the distant ages of Greece and Rome, the nurseries of the sciences and the arts, to find the greatest heroes and statesmen imbibing and fostering the same ridiculous prej dices, and strenuously cultivating the same belief, paying obedience to augurs, oracles, and sooth

B

preju

sayers, on whose contradictory and equivocal inferences their prosperity or adversity was made to depend. In fact, little more than a century ago, do we not behold things still more extravagantly credulous and ferocious; namely, the burning of women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, incidents of which we have given in the body of this work, a crime much more innocent than that of priestcraft, which triumphantly prevailed at the very same period, and which still holds the minds of thousands in subjection?

A belief in judicial astrology was supported and cultivated by men remarkable for their extraordinary genius and talents.

Legends, miracles, prophecies, &c. are relics of superstitious ages. What also is extraordinary, is, that few species of superstition, if any, originated with the populace. They were the inventions of barbarous ages before the dawn of reason-afterwards the fabrications of men actuated by ambition, and a desire to servilize the human mind.

As regards the Romans only, a people whom we are taught from our infancy to respect, and who, indeed, in their better days, were truly venerable for their virtue and valour, what is there in their history more astonishing than their implicit belief in augury*? Their belief in omens or pre

* The discipline of the augurs is of very ancient date, having been prohibited by Moses, in Leviticus. The cup put in Joseph's sack, was that used by Joseph to take auguries by. In its more general signification, augury comprises all the different kinds of divination, which Varrow distinguishes into four species of augury, according to the four elements; namely, pyromancy, or augury by fire; aeromancy, or augury by the air;

ternatural appearances of the heavenly bodies, in eclipses, comets, and dreadful thunder-storms, may be forgiven. They had made small progress in astronomy; they had not learnt that an eclipse is a matter of common calculation; and that storms are, in most cases, highly beneficial to the earth, and nowise connected with past or future events. But when we find them giving implicit credit to their priests, who thought proper to predict good or evil, merely from the appearance of the entrails of sacrificed animals, from the flight of birds, from chickens, foxes, &c. we are at a loss to conceive how a deception of this kind could have prevailed, without being detected and exposed by the good sense of the people. The mob alone, or the common soldiers and sailors, were not merely influenced by the reports of the augurs*; their kings or commanders undertook no expedition without consulting these oracles, and were always unsuccessful, if they confided so much in themselves as to disregard their opinions. In some cases, it is easy to suppose that they might have been in concert with the augurs, to promote some favourite point, to raise an enthusiasm in the people in their favour, or to inspire the soldiers with fortitude in some dangerous enterprise. But it is not so easy to suppose that this was always the case, because, upon the evidence of their historians, it appears that there was generally but little connexion behydromancy, or augury by the water; and geomancy, or augury by the earth. See DIVINATION. The Roman augurs took their presages concerning futurity from birds, beasts, and the appearances of the heavens, &c.

* See AUGURS.