be one of those unhappy persons who, their dim eyes being unable
to penetrate the starry spheres, and to discern therein the
decrees of heaven at a distance, have their hearts barred against
conviction by prejudice and misprision.'

'Truly,' said Sampson, 'I opine with Sir Isaac Newton, Knight, and
umwhile master of his Majesty's mint, that the (pretended) science
of astrology is altogether vain, frivolous, and unsatisfactory.'
And here he reposed his oracular jaws.

'Really,' resumed the traveller, 'I am sorry to see a gentleman of
your learning and gravity labouring under such strange blindness
and delusion. Will you place the brief, the modern, and, as I may
say, the vernacular name of Isaac Newton in opposition to the
grave and sonorous authorities of Dariot, Bonatus, Ptolemy, Haly,
Eztler, Dieterick, Naibob, Harfurt, Zael, Taustettor, Agrippa,
Duretus, Maginus, Origen, and Argol? Do not Christians and
Heathens, and Jews and Gentiles, and poets and philosophers, unite
in allowing the starry influences?'

'Communis error--it is a general mistake,' answered the inflexible
Dominie Sampson.

'Not so,' replied the young Englishman; 'it is a general and well-
grounded belief.'

'It is the resource of cheaters, knaves, and cozeners,' said
Sampson.

'Abusus non tollit usum.--The abuse of anything doth not abrogate