divination by smoke, the ancients practised in two ways: they threw seeds of jasmine or poppy in the fire, watching the motion and density of the smoke they emitted, or they observed the sacrificial smoke. If the smoke was thin, and shot up in a straight line, it was a good omen.
Cheiromancy (or Palmistry), divination by the hand, was worked up into an elaborate system by Paracelsus, Cardan, and others. It has long been practised by the gipsies, by itinerant fortune-tellers, and other cheats; and recently an attempt has been made to give it a fashionable character.
Coscinomancy was practised by means of a sieve and a pair of shears or forceps. The forceps or shears were used to suspend a sieve, which moved (like the axe in axinomancy) when the name of a guilty person was mentioned.
Crystallomancy, divining by means of a crystal globe, mirror, or beryl. Of this science of prediction, Dr. Dee was the great English professor; but the reader will doubtless remember the story of the Earl of Surrey and his fair ‘Geraldine.’
Geomancy, divination by casting pebbles on the ground.
Hydromancy, divination by water, in which the diviner showed the figure of an absent person. ‘In this you conjure the spirits into water; there they are constrained to show themselves, as Marcus Varro testifieth, when he writeth how he had seen a boy in the water, who announced to him in a hundred and fifty verses the end of the Mithridatic war.’
Oneiromancy, divination by dreams, is still credited by old women of both sexes. Absurdly baseless as it is, it found believers in the old time among men of culture and intellectual force. Archbishop Laud attached so much importance to his dreams that he frequently recorded them in his diary; and even Lord Bacon seems to have thought that a prophetic meaning was occasionally concealed in them.
Onychomancy, or Onymancy, divination by means of the nails of an unpolluted boy.
Pyromancy, divination by fire. ‘The wife of Cicero is said, when, after performing sacrifice, she saw a flame suddenly leap forth from the ashes, to have prophesied the consulship to her husband for the same year.’ Others resorted to the blaze of a torch of pitch, which was painted with certain colours. It was a good omen if the flame ran into a point; bad when it divided. A thin-tongued flame announced glory; if it went out, it signified danger; if it hissed, misfortune.
Rabdomancy, divination by the rod or wand, is mentioned by Ezekiel. The use of a hazel-rod to trace the existence of water or of a seam of coal seems a survival of this practice. But enough of these follies:
‘Necro-, pyro-, geo-, hydro-, cheiro-, coscinomancy,
With other vain and superstitious sciences.’
Tomkis, ‘Albumazar,’ ii. 3.
FOOTNOTES
2. Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturæ et de Nullitate Magiæ.
3. Laches, oversight.
4. This patriotic sentiment would seem to show that the book was written or published about the time of the Spanish Armada.
5. Hermes Trismegistus (‘thrice great’), a fabulous Chaldean philosopher, to whom I have already made reference. The numerous writings which bear his name were really composed by the Egyptian Platonists; but the mediæval alchemists pretend to recognise in him the founder of their art. Gower, in his ‘Confessio Amantis,’ says:
‘Of whom if I the namès calle,
Hermes was one the first of alle,
To whom this Art is most applied.’
The name of Hermes was chosen because of the supposed magical powers of the god of the caduceus.
6. That is, costard, or apple, mongers.
7. See Appendix to the present chapter, p. 58.
8. The pentageron, or pentagramma, is a mystic figure produced by prolonging the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect one another. It can be drawn without a break in the drawing, and, viewed from five sides, exhibits the form of the letter A (pent-alpha), or the figure of the fifth proposition in Euclid’s First Book.
9. From the Greek φόβος, fear; φόβητρα, bugbears.
10. Bad puns were evidently common on the stage before the days of Victorian burlesque.
11. So Shakespeare, ‘1 Hen. IV.,’ iii. Falstaff says: ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento house.’
12. So in the ‘Passionate Pilgrim’:
‘Save the nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast uptill a thorn.’
13. A peripatetic, or walking philosopher. Observe the facetiousness in ‘Aristotle’s stamp.’ Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetics.
14. Fabius Cunctator, or the Delayer, so called from the policy of delay which he opposed to the vigorous movements of Hannibal. One would suppose that the humour here, such as it is, would hardly be perceptible to a theatrical audience.
15. In the old German ‘Faustbuch,’ the title of ‘Prince of the North’ is given to Beelzebub.
16. Demogorgon, or Demiourgos—the creative principle of evil—figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, in the fourth century; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (‘Gierusalemme Liberata’), and Ariosto (‘Orlando Furioso’). Marlowe speaks, in ‘Tamburlaine,’ of ‘Gorgon, prince of Hell.’ Spenser, in ‘The Faery Queen,’ refers to—
‘Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night,
At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.’
Milton, in ‘Paradise Lost,’ alludes to ‘the dreaded name of Demogorgon.’ Dryden says: ‘When the moon arises, and Demogorgon walks his round.’ And he is one of the dramatis personæ of Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’: ‘Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom.... A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of power.’
