faith was an old clergyman with whom Mannering was placed during
his youth. He wasted his eyes in observing the stars, and his
brains in calculations upon their various combinations. His pupil,
in early youth, naturally caught some portion of his enthusiasm,
and laboured for a time to make himself master of the technical
process of astrological research; so that, before he became
convinced of its absurdity, William Lilly himself would have
allowed him 'a curious fancy and piercing judgment in resolving a
question of nativity.'

On the present occasion he arose as early in the morning as the
shortness of the day permitted, and proceeded to calculate the
nativity of the young heir of Ellangowan. He undertook the task
secundum artem, as well to keep up appearances as from a sort of
curiosity to know whether he yet remembered, and could practise,
the imaginary science. He accordingly erected his scheme, or
figure of heaven, divided into its twelve houses, placed the
planets therein according to the ephemeris, and rectified their
position to the hour and moment of the nativity. Without troubling
our readers with the general prognostications which judicial
astrology would have inferred from these circumstances, in this
diagram there was one significator which pressed remarkably upon
our astrologer's attention. Mars, having dignity in the cusp of
the twelfth house, threatened captivity or sudden and violent
death to the native; and Mannering, having recourse to those
further rules by which diviners pretend to ascertain the vehemency
of this evil direction, observed from the result that three
periods would be particularly hazardous--his fifth, his tenth, his
twenty-first year.