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CHAPTER IV

_Of Palmistry, showing the various Judgments drawn from the Hand._

Being engaged in this fourth part to show what judgment may be drawn,
according to physiognomy, from the several parts of the body, and coming
in order to speak of the hands, it has put me under the necessity of
saying something about palmistry, which is a judgment made of the
conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the
various lines and characters nature has imprinted in their hands, which
are almost as serious as the hands that have them.

The reader should remember that one of the lines of the hand, and which
indeed is reckoned the principal, is called the line of life; this line
encloses the thumb, separating it from the hollow of the hand. The next
to it, which is called the natural line, takes its beginning from the
rising of the forefinger, near the line of life, and reaches to the
table line, and generally makes a triangle. The table line, commonly
called the line of fortune, begins under the little finger, and ends
near the middle finger. The girdle of Venus, which is another line so
called begins near the first joint of the little finger, and ends
between the fore-finger and the middle finger. The line of death is that
which plainly appears in a counter line to that of life, and is called
the sister line, ending usually as the other ends; for when the line of
life is ended, death comes, and it can go no farther. There are lines in
the fleshy parts, as in the ball of the thumb, which is called the mount
of Venus; under each of the fingers are also mounts, which are governed
by several planets; and the hollow of the hand is called the plain of
Mars.

I proceed to give judgment from these several lines:--In palmistry, the
left hand is chiefly to be regarded, because therein the lines are most
visible, and have the strictest communication with the heart and brain.
In the next place, observe the line of life, and if it be fair, extended
to its full length, and not broken with an intermixture of cross lines,
it shows long life and health, and it is the same if a double line
appears, as there sometimes does. When the stars appear in this line, it
is a signification of great losses and calamities; if on it there be the
figures of two O's or a Q, it threatens the person with blindness; if it
wraps itself about the table line, then does it promise wealth and
honour to be