Part 42

In his life of Henry VIII. Lord Herbert notices the great fall of the price of relics at the dissolution of the monasteries. “The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell, insomuch as I find by our records, that a piece of St. Andrew’s finger, (covered only with an ounce of silver,) being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king’s commissioners, who, upon surrender of any foundation, undertook to pay the debts, refusing to pay the price again;” that is, they did not choose to repay the forty pounds, to receive a piece of the finger of St. Andrew. About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-Sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Road of Grace, at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace, and a far-famed relic at Hales in Gloucestershire, of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was showed in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin: and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrim at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the blood of a duck, renewed every week, and put into a phial; one side of which was opaque, and the other transparent; either side of which was turned to the pilgrim which the monk thought proper. The success of the pilgrim depended on the oblations he had made. Those who were scanty in their offerings, were the longest in getting a sight of the blood. When a man was in despair he usually became generous.

THE END.

W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

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Footnote 1:

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; hydromancy, 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.

Footnote 2:

See AUGURS.

Footnote 3:

A coal starting out of the fire prognosticates either a purse or a coffin, as the imagination may figure either one or the other represented upon it: the death-watch, a species of ticking spider, the inseparable companion of old houses and old furniture, is, when heard, a sure prognostic of a death in the family: the sediment of the sugar, in the form of froth, rising to the top of a cup of tea, is an infallible presage of the person going to receive money: the itching of the palm of the hand, which is to be immediately rubbed on wood, “that it may come to good,” or on brass, “that it may come to pass,” &c. is the certain foreboding of being about to have money paid or otherwise transferred.

Footnote 4:

These are but a very small proportion of the minor species of superstitions which influence weak and uninstructed minds in all countries. The vulgar, even in the most enlightened periods, are not entirely exempt from belief in the powers of sorcery and magic, and other fantastical and imaginary agencies, such as Exorcisms, Charms, and Amulets. It is pleasing, however, to contrast the present times, in which there is almost an extinction of these delusions, with ages not very remote. It is only 182 years, (counting from 1819) since great numbers of persons were condemned to death, in the ordinary course of law, and executed for witchcraft, in England; and only 119 years (from the same date) since the like disgraceful proceedings took place in Scotland. The like trials, convictions, and executions, took place in New England, in the end of the 17th century. See Evelyn’s Memoirs, vol. xi. p. 35.

Footnote 5:

Du Cange has remarked, that the common expression, “May this piece of bread choke me!” originates with this custom. The anecdote of Earl Godwin’s death by swallowing a piece of bread, in making this asseveration, is recorded in our history. If it be true, it was a singular misfortune.

Footnote 6:

Dr. Fludd, or, as he stated himself in Latin, De Fluctibus, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fludd, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth, was born at Milgate in Kent; and died at his own house in Coleman-Street, September 8, 1637. He was a strenuous supporter of the Rosicrucian philosophy; was considered a man of some eminence in his profession, and by no means an insignificant writer.

Footnote 7:

Melancthon was also a believer in judicial astrology, and an interpreter of dreams. Richelieu and Mazarine were so superstitious as to employ and pension Morin, another pretender to astrology, who cast the nativities of these two able politicians. Nor was Tacitus himself, who generally appears superior to superstition, untainted with this folly, as may appear from the twenty-second chapter of the sixth book of his Annals.

Footnote 8:

The noted THUMERSEN, in the seventeenth century, was invested at Berlin with the respective offices of printer to the court, bookseller, almanack-maker, astrologer, chemist, and first physician. Messengers daily arrived from the most respectable houses in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and even from England, for the purpose of consulting him respecting the future fortunes of new-born infants, acquainting him with the hour of their nativity, and soliciting his advice and directions as to their management. Many volumes of this singular correspondence are still preserved in the Royal library at Berlin. He died in high reputation and favour with his superstitious contemporaries; and his astrological Almanack is still published in some of the less enlightened provinces of Germany.

Footnote 9:

I so well remember the Chaldean predictions to Pompey, to Crassus, and to this same Cæsar, that none of them should die, but full of years and glory, and in his house, that I am surprised that there are yet some persons capable to believe those, whose predictions are every day contradicted and refuted by the court.

Footnote 10:

Antipater and Achinapolus have shewn, that Genethliology should rather be founded on the time of the conception than on that of the birth.

Footnote 11:

Astrologers and wise men of the present day, thanks to a statute or two in the civil code, limit their star-gazing faculties to the making of calendars or almanacks.

Footnote 12:

In 1523, the astrologers having prophesied incessant rains and fearful floods, the abbot of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, built a house on Harrow-the-Hill, and stored it with provisions. Many persons followed his example and repaired to high places. However, no extraordinary floods appearing, the disappointed soothsayers pacified the people by owning themselves mistaken just one hundred years in their calculation.—HALL.