casting nativities, held, that every man's genius was the companion of his horoscope, and that the horoscope was tempered by it: hence proceeded that union of minds and friendship which was observed among some. This appears from Plutarch in his life of Anthony, concerning the genii of Anthony and C. Octavius. Those who have the curiosity of being farther informed in these astrological traditions, let them consult Ptolemy, Alcabitius, Albo Hali, Guido Bonat, &c."

Dallaway in his Tour to Constantinople, p. 390, tells us that astrology is a favorite folly with the Turks. Ulughbey," he says, amongst very numerous treatises, is most esteemed. He remarks the 13th, 14th, and 15th of each month as the most fortunate; the Ruz-nameh has likewise its three unlucky days, to which little attention is paid by the better sort. The sultan retains his chief astrologer, who is consulted by the council on state emergencies. When the treaty of peace was signed at Kainargi in 1774, he was directed to name the hour most propitious for that ceremony. The vizier's court swarms with such imposters. It was asserted that they foretold the great fire at Constantinople in 1782. There was likewise an insurrection of the Janissaries which they did not foretel, but their credit was saved by the same word bearing two interpretations of insurrection and fire. It may now be considered rather as a state expedient to consult the astrologer, that the enthusiasm of the army may be fed, and subordination maintained by the prognostication of victory."

CHIROMANCY, OR MANUAL DIVINATION BY PALMISTRY, OR LINES OF THE HAND.

IN Indagine's Book of Palmestry and Physiognomy, translated by Fabian Withers, 1656, there is a great waste of words on this ridiculous subject. The lines in the palm of the hand are distinguished by formal names, such as the table line, or line of fortune, the line of life or of the heart, the middle natural line, the line of the liver or stomach, &c. &c.

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&c., the triangle, the quadrangle. The thumb, too, and fingers, have their "hills" given them, from the tops of which these manual diviners pretended that they had a prospect of futurity. The reader will smile at the name and not very delicate etymon of it, given in this work to the little finger. It is called the ear-finger, because it is commonly used to make clean the ears. This does no great our to the delicacy of our ancestors.

Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 188, exposes the folly of palmistry, which tells us, "that the lines spreading at the bottom joynt of the thumb signe contentions; the line above the middle of the thumbe, if it meet roundabout, portends a hanging destiny; many lines transverse upon the last joynt of the fore-finger, note riches by heirdome; and right lines there are a note of a jovial nature; lines in the points of the middle finger (like a gridiron) note a melancholy wit, and unhappy; if the signe on the little finger be conspicuous, they note a good witt and eloquent, but the contrary, if obscure. Equal lines upon the first joynt of the ring-finger are marks of an happy wit." To strike another's palm is the habit of expression of those who plight their troth, buy, sell, covenant, &c. He that would see the vigour of this gesture in puris naturalibus must repaire to the horse-cirque or sheep-pens in Smithfield, where those crafty olympique merchants will take you for no chapman, unlesse you strike them with good lucke and smite them earneste in the palme." See Bulwer's, Chirologia, pp. 93, 105.

Agrippa, in his Vanity of Sciences, p. 101, speaking of chiromancy, says that it fancies seven mountains in the palm of a man's hand, according to the number of the seven planets; and by the lines which are there to be seen, judges of the complection, condition, and fortune of the person; imagining the harmonious disposition of the lines to be, as it were, certaine cælestial characters stampt upon us by God and nature, and which, as Job saith, God imprinted or put in the hands of men, that so every one might know his works; though it be plain that the divine author doth not there treat of vain chiromancy, but of the liberty of the will." He gives a catalogue of great names of such authors as have written on this science falsely so called, but observes that "none of them have been able to make any further progress than conjecture,

and observation of experience. Now that there is no certainty in these conjectures and observations, is manifest from thence, because they are figments grounded upon the will; and about which the masters thereof of equal learning and authority do very much differ."

Mason, in his Anatomie of Sorcery, 1612, p. 90, speaks of "vaine and frivolous devices, of which sort we have an infinite number also used amongst us, as namely in palmestry, where men's fortunes are told by looking on the palmes of the hande."

Newton, in his Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe, 1692, p. 145, under breaches of the eighth commandment, inquires whether the governors of the commonwealth "have suffered palmesters, fortune-tellers, stage-players, sawce-boxes, enterluders, puppit players, loyterers, vagabonds, land-leapers, and such like cozening make-shifts, to practise their cogging tricks and rogish trades within the circuite of his authoritie, and to deceive the simple people with their vile forgerie and palterie." By governors of the commonwealth" here, it should seem, he means justices of the peace.

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Dr. Ferrand, in his Love's Melancholy, 1640, p. 173, tells us that "this art of chiromancy hath been so strangely infected with superstition, deceit, cheating, and (if durst say so) with magic also, that the canonists, and of late years Pope Sixtus Quintus, have been constrained utterly to condemn it. So that now no man professeth publickely this cheating art, but theeves, rogues, and beggarly rascals; which are now every where knowne by the name of Bohemians, Egyptians, and Caramaras; and first came into these parts of Europe about the year 1417, as G. Dupreau, Albertus Krantz, and Polydore Vergil report."

ONYCHOMANCY, OR ONYMANCY,

DIVINATION BY THE FINGER-NAILS.

THERE was anciently a species of divination called onychomancy, or onymancy, performed by the nails of an unpolluted boy. Vestiges of this are still retained. Sir Thomas Browne,

as has been already noticed, admits that conjectures of prevalent humours may be collected from the spots in our nails, but rejects the sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them: such as that spots on the top of the nails signify things past, in the middle things present, and, at the bottom, events to come. That white specks presage our felicity, blue ones our misfortunes; that those in the nail of the thumb have significations of honour; of the fore-finger, riches.

DIVINATION BY SIEVE AND SHEARS.

BUTLER mentions this in his Hudibras, p. ii. canto iii. 1. 569: "Th' oracle of sieve and shears,

That turns as certain as the spheres."

In the Athenian Oracle, ii. 309, the divination by sieve and shears is called "the trick of the Sieve and Scissors, the coskiomancy of the ancients, as old as Theocritus." Theocritus's words are

Εἶπε και ̓Αγροιὼ ταλαθέα, κοσκινόμαντις,

̓Α πρὰν ποιολογεῦσα, παραιβατις, οἵνεκ ̓ ἐγὼ μὲν
Τὶν ὅλος ἔγκειμαι· τὺ δὲ μεῦ λόγον ουδένα ποιῇ.

Thus translated by Creech:

"To Agrio, too, I made the same demand,

A cunning woman she, I cross'd her hand:
She turn'd the sieve and sheers, and told me true,
That I should love, but not be lov'd by you."

"This," says Potter, in his Greek Antiquities, i. 352, "they called Kookivoμavreía: it was generally practised to discover thieves, or others suspected of any crime, in this manner: they tied a thread to the sieve, by which it was upheld, or else placed a pair of sheers, which they held up by two fingers; then prayed to the gods to direct and assist them; after that, they repeated the names of the persons under suspicion, and he, at whose name the sieve whirled round, or moved, was thought to have committed the fact. Another sort of divination was commonly practised upon the same account, which was called 'Αξινομαντεια.” At the end of the works of

で

Henry Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, 1567, p. 472, is a good representation, from an iron plate, of the mode of performing this species of divination by sieve and shears. The title of this part is: De speciebus Magiæ Cæremonialis, quam Goetiam vocant, Epitome per Georgium Pictorium Villinganum, Doctorem Medicum, nuperrime conscripta." "De Coscinomantia, cap. xxi. Huc enim coscinomantia scribenda venit, quæ, dæmone urgente, per cribrum divinationem suscitari docet, quis rei patratæ author sit, quis hoc commiserit furtum, quis hoc dederit vulnus, aut quicquid tale fuerit. Cribrum enim inter duorum astantium medios digitos, per forcipem suspendunt, ac dejeratione facta per sex verba, nec sibi ipsis, nec aliis intellecta, quæ sunt dies mies jeschet benedoftet, dovvina eniteaus, dæmonem in hoc compellum ut reo nominato (nam omnes suspectos nominare oportet) confestim circum agatur, sed per obliquum instrumentum è forcipe pendens, ut reum prodat: Iconem hic ponimus. Annis abactis plus minus triginta, ter hujus divinationis genere sum ipse usus ubi semper pro voto aleam cecidisse comperi. Hanc divinationem cæteris arbitrabantur veriorem, sicut etiam Erasmus scribit in proverbio, Cribro divinare." This occurs in Delrio, Disquisit. Magic. lib. iv. edit. fol. Lugd. 1612, p. 245: "Est Kooktroparreía, quæ usurpata veteribus (unde et adagium Cribro divinare,') cribrum imponebatur forcipi, forcipem binis digitis comprehendebant et elevabant, et præmissis verbis conceptis subjiciebant nomina eorum, de quibus suspicabantur eos furtum vel aliud occultum crimen patrasse: reum vero judicabant illum, quo nominato, cribrum tremebat, nutabat, movebatur, vel convertebatur, quasi qui digitis forcipem tenebat arbitratu suo cribrum movere non potuerit.'

In the directions for performing divination by "coscinomancie, or of a sieve," introduced in Holiday's Marturni riage of the Arts, 4to., the shears are to be fastened, and the side held up with the middle finger, then a mystical form of words said, then name those that are suspected to have been the thieves, and at whose name the sieve turns, he or she is guilty. This mode of divination is mentioned there also as being more general, and practised to tell who or who shall get such a person for their spouse or husband. Mason, in the Anatomie of Sorcerie, 1612, p. 91, enumerates, among the