ause of such vestiges occurring is now explained and
apologised for.

It is here worthy of observation that, while the astrological doctrines
have fallen into general contempt, and been supplanted by superstitions
of a more gross and far less beautiful character, they have, even in
modern days, retained some votaries.

One of the most remarkable believers in that forgotten and despised
science was a late eminent professor of the art of legerdemain. One would
have thought that a person of this description ought, from his knowledge
of the thousand ways in which human eyes could be deceived, to have been
less than others subject to the fantasies of superstition. Perhaps the
habitual use of those abstruse calculations by which, in a manner
surprising to the artist himself, many tricks upon cards, etc., are
performed, induced this gentleman to study the combination of the stars
and planets, with the expectation of obtaining prophetic communications.

He constructed a scheme of his own nativity, calculated according to such
rules of art as he could collect from the best astrological authors. The
result of the past he found agreeable to what had hitherto befallen him,
but in the important prospect of the future a singular difficulty
occurred. There were two years during the course of which he could by no
means obtain any exact knowledge whether the subject of the scheme would
be dead or alive. Anxious concerning so remarkable a circumstance, he
gave the scheme to a brother astrologer, who was also baffled in the same
manner. At one period he found the native, or subject, was certainly
alive; at another that he was unquestionably dead; but a space of two
years extended between these two terms, during which he could find no
certainty as to his death or existence.

The astrologer marked the remarkable circumstance in his diary, and
continued his exhibitions in various parts of the empire until the period
was about to expire during which his existence had been warranted as
actually ascertained. At last, while he was exhibiting to a numerous
audience his usual tricks of legerdemain, the hands whose activity had so
often baffled the closest observer suddenly lost their power, the cards
dropped from them, and he sunk down a disabled paralytic. In this state
the artist languished for two years, when he was at length removed by
death. It is said that the diary of this modern astrologer will soon be
given to the public.

The fact,