talked with pride of the deference that had been shown him on various occasions by the great ones of the earth, as well as of the general confidence in his knowledge of the celestial sciences, his use of the Mosaical rods, and his supernatural gifts of vaticination. The burgomaster, who had always understood that his friend's house was the resort of philosophers, and men of enlightened intellect, was surprised to hear this Archimago talk of the magical circle, recite Cornelius Agrippa's form of prayer for invoking the angel Salmonæus, and boast of his intimacy with the guardian angels of England, to whom he assigned the names of Salmael and Malchidael.

"

If I had the honour of an acquaintance with those spirits," said the burgomaster, «I would use my influence with them to procure a peace for the country

wood, on the part of King Charles the First, when that monarch was meditating his escape from Hampton Court, in the first instance, and subsequently from Carisbrook Castle. In 1647 he and Booker were both sent for to the head-quarters of Fairfax, the Parliament General, who addressed them in an obscure speech, of which, however, the object seems to have been to bespeak their interest and good offices for the cause in which he was embarked. To secure this point, Lilly received next year a present of 5ol. in cash, and an order from the Council of State for a pension of 100l. per annum. During the siege of Colchester, Lilly and Booker were summoned thither to encourage the soldiers, by predicting the capture of the place, in which they were luckily justified by the event. We have smiled, in our school exercises, at the Athenian general who wrote home for some more cattle, and a fresh supply of soothsayers, for the use of his army; but we see that the custom was not extinct in the 17th century; and although the form of the superstition may be altered in our own times, the feeling and the credulity still exist.

over which they preside: for it has gained but little by the war. Favour me with an introduction to your celestial friends, and I will try the effect of my own eloquence.">

It is only by deep study and painful ordeals,” replied Lilly, << that a man can arrive at that exalted privilege; but, if you desire it, I will teach you in six weeks to set up a figure, project a horoscope, and cast ́a nativity.» «What hey?” cried the burgomaster, who had a violent antipathy to quacks and pretenders to superiority of any sort. « And so make me a witch out of petticoats, the best name with which I can dignify you gentlemen astrologers, who ought to be liable to the same fate as your broomstick-riding sisters. No, Mijnheer Lilly, I am no pupil of yours, and no believer in your art. The future is a sealed book, only to be perused by reading the past, for the same causes in all ages will produce the same effects. Horace gave good advice, « quid sit futurum cras, fuge quærere." If we cannot avoid your pretended prophecies, we are better without knowing them: if we can, they are no predictions. As to the stars, they may help us to shape our course at sea but not ashore, for nothing but egregious vanity can have ever led us to believe that we are married from the day of our birth to one of those heavenly bodies. And yet we laugh at the Chinese lord of the celestial empire, for dubbing himself brother to the sun and moon. Hey, Slapperloot! we are truly a strange race!»

« In all ages people have been believers in our noble art,» ́ exclaimed Lilly, tartly.—« And in all ages they

have been equally deluded," replied Beverning. «Soothsayers and aruspices have seen as far into the millstone with the aid of beasts' entrails, and the flight of birds, as you have by serving a subpoena upon the stars, but no further. These errors were excusable in the infancy of the world, for abuse precedes use. Superstition, alchemy, and astrology, have been the parents of religion, chemistry, and astronomy. The old folks have now become superannuated, and ought to be formally deposed. Away with the dotards!»

« For superstition we have nothing to say," resumed Lilly; «but the learned books that have been written upon alchemy and astrology sufficiently attest the reality of those sciences."

"

Ay, as this Phoenix feather, which our worthy host has just shown me, proves the existence of the bird,” said Beverning. « Donder ende blixem! I want patience when I behold a man in rags pretend to the possession of the philosopher's stone, a blind buzzard, who cannot see his way out of his present difficulties, affect an insight into futurity, and a hen-pecked zany, who is governed by his wife, claiming mastery over the stars and angels." No personal allusion was intended by this last speech, but as it happened that the almanackmaking empiric, with all his prescience, had married a termagant, whose star proved ascendant in his family horoscope, he took the observation in high; dudgeon, seized the first opportunity of withdrawing with his friends, and in his next year's almanack fell foul of the whole Dutch nation, in revenge for this supposed insult from an individual of their community.

If his previous estimate of his friend's discernment was rather lowered by this specimen of visitants, the burgomaster observed many things in his museum and library which were still less calculated to exalt it. In the former, among much that was valuable, there was trash which none but a whimsical and credulous man would have admitted; in the latter there was an undue preponderance of those abstruse treatises, which are considered elaborate foolery by men of sense, and reverenced as oracles of human wisdom by all true believers in the occult and supernatural. They served, however, to beguile the tedium of his unaccustomed idleness: there were, besides, abundance of other books, and more appropriate society, to cheer his hours; and the kindness of his host was precisely of that nature which he liked,-frank and hospitable, without being obtrusive and importunate.

From the moment of Jocelyn's departure from Rotterdam, Constantia's habitual seriousness had deepened into a depression of spirits, for which, at first, she in vain endeavoured to account. A frank heart and acute intellect like hers were not, however, long to be deceived, and a rigorous scrutiny into her own feelings soon convinced her that the secret source of her uneasiness was the loss of his society. Every other now became doubly distasteful to her. Imagination exalted that which she could no longer enjoy; contrast threw a deeper shade of degradation over that which still remained to her; she sequestered herself from all communion with her own sphere, devoting herself, however, with an increased zeal to her pious exercises, and her

extensive offices of charity. By a beautiful provision of Nature, virtue and charity bless the actor as well as the object, and she never more effectually assuaged her own sorrows than when she was relieving those of others.

From many of these consolatory pursuits she was, of course, cut off by her sudden removal, and her sojourn among strangers. Her mind, no longer absorbed in those occupations which had abstracted it from painful contemplations, again began to prey upon itself; and she was soon destined to encounter a privation that overwhelmed her with fresh sorrows, and finally plunged her into the very depths of despondency.

After returning one afternoon from the play, whither he had accompanied his host, her father complained of a slight indisposition, which he treated with the habitual indifference engendered by a long course of uninterrupted health. His altered looks on the ensuing morning alarmed his daughter, who in vain urged him to defer his intended visit to London. He went, and although he returned still worse, he obstinately refused all medical advice, having unfortunately imbibed a prejudice against all practitioners of physic, as impostors, who assumed a power of changing the fixed intentions of Heaven, and altering the destiny of man. His friends and his daughter, not participating in his prejudice, and marking with dismay the progress of his malady, at length sent for a physician, who had no sooner examined his patient, than he pronounced his complaint to be the spotted fever, and expressed great doubts as to his recovery. This declaration instantly