lanetary
influence threatened her with death or imprisonment in her thirty-ninth
year. She was at this time eighteen; so that, according to the result of
the scheme in both cases, the same year threatened her with the same
misfortune that was presaged to the native or infant whom that night had
introduced into the world. Struck with this coincidence, Mannering
repeated his calculations; and the result approximated the events
predicted, until at length the same month, and day of the month, seemed
assigned as the period of peril to both.

It will be readily believed that, in mentioning this circumstance, we lay
no weight whatever upon the pretended information thus conveyed. But it
often happens, such is our natural love for the marvellous, that we
willingly contribute our own efforts to beguile our better judgments.
Whether the coincidence which I have mentioned was really one of those
singular chances which sometimes happen against all ordinary
calculations; or whether Mannering, bewildered amid the arithmetical
labyrinth and technical jargon of astrology, had insensibly twice
followed the same clue to guide him out of the maze; or whether his
imagination, seduced by some point of apparent resemblance, lent its aid
to make the similitude between the two operations more exactly accurate
than it might otherwise have been, it is impossible to guess; but the
impression upon his mind that the results exactly corresponded was
vividly and indelibly strong.

He could not help feeling surprise at a coincidence so singular and
unexpected. 'Does the devil mingle in the dance, to avenge himself for
our trifling with an art said to be of magical origin? Or is it possible,
as Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne admit, that there is some truth in a sober
and regulated astrology, and that the influence of the stars is not to be
denied, though the due application of it by the knaves who pretend to
practise the art is greatly to be suspected?' A moment's consideration of
the subject induced him to dismiss this opinion as fantastical, and only
sanctioned by those learned men either because they durst not at once
shock the universal prejudices of their age, or because they themselves
were not altogether freed from the contagious influence of a prevailing
superstition. Yet the result of his calculations in these two instances
left so unpleasing an impression on his mind that, like Prospero, he
mentally relinquished his art, and resolved, neither i