disposed to press further conviviality. He admitted, however,
Mannering's plea of weariness, and, conducting him to his sleeping
apartment, left him to repose for the evening.




CHAPTER IV

Come and see' trust thine own eyes
A fearful sign stands in the house of life,
An enemy a fiend lurks close behind
The radiance of thy planet O be warned!

COLERIDGE, from SCHILLER


The belief in astrology was almost universal in the middle of the
seventeenth century; it began to waver and become doubtful towards
the close of that period, and in the beginning of the eighteenth
the art fell into general disrepute, and even under general
ridicule. Yet it still retained many partizans even in the seats
of learning. Grave and studious men were both to relinquish the
calculations which had early become the principal objects of their
studies, and felt reluctant to descend from the predominating
height to which a supposed insight into futurity, by the power of
consulting abstract influences and conjunctions, had exalted them
over the rest of mankind.

Among those who cherished this imaginary privilege with undoubting