firing that fuch a Thing might happen, if they were to fucceed, and God was fometimes fo condescending as to grant them their Defire. Thus we read, That * Jonathan accompany'd only by his Armour Bearer, not fearing the Steepness of the Rocks, nor Multitudes of Enemies, attempted the Garrison of the Philistines and conquered, through a Token of this Nature. If they fay, fays he to his Armour-Bearer, Tarry untill we come up, then we will fand fill in our Place, and will not go up unto them; but if they fay come up unto us, then we will go up; for the LORD hath delivered them into our Hands, and this fhall be a Sign unto us. And fo indeed it came to pafs, GOD who had infpired Jonathan with this Thought, directing the Tongues of the others according to his Wishes. In like Manner, when the good old Servant of Abraham had arrived at the City of Nahor, to find a Wife for his Master's Son; we have him defiring of Gop, that the Sign of the Woman he should pitch upon, might be her faying, Drink, and I will give thy Camels Drink alfo. † And he said, O Lord GOD of my Mafter Abraham, I pray thee Send me good Speed this Day, and fhew Kindness unto my Mafter Abraham: Behold, I ftand here by the Well of Water, and the Daughters of the

* Sam. i. 14. iii. 20. + Gen. xxiv. 12.

Men

Men of the City come out to draw Water. And let it come to pass, that the Damfel to whom I fball Jay, let down thy Pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall fay, Drink, and I will give thy Camels Drink alfo: Let the fame be fhe that thou hast appointed for thy Servant Ifaac; and thereby fhall I know that thou haft fhewed Kindness unto my Mafter. This happened according to his Prayer, by which he knew that the LORD had profpered his Journey. Now this Custom we know the Philistines imitated, when they would know whether they had been afflicted by the God of Ifrael for keeping the Ark. * They took the Ark of the LORD, and laid it on a Cart, and fent it away. And they faid, If it goeth by the Way of his own Coaft to Beth-fhemoth, then he hath done us this great Evil.

In thefe early Ages of the World, GoD petmitted fuch Things upon extraordinary Occafions, to be afked by his own People. But they were only peculiar to thofe Times. We have no Warrant for doing the like: It becomes not us to prefcribe Means to God, by which we may judge of our future Succefs, but to depend on his Power and Wisdom, his Care and Providence. The Obfervation of Omens, fuch as the falling of Salt, a Hare

* Sam. i. 6, 9.

croffing

croffing the Way, of the Dead-Watch, of Crickets, &c. are finful and diabolical: They are the Inventions of the Devil, to draw Men from a due Trust in GOD, and make them his own Vaffals. For by fuch Obfervations as thefe, they are the Slaves of Superftition and Sin, and have all the While no true Dependance upon GOD, no Truft in his Providence.

OBSERVATIONS

V

Ο Ν

CHAPTER

IX.

Arious are the popular Superftitions with regard to Omens-To these our Author has hinted at, many more may be added.

The breaking a Looking Glass is accounted a very unlucky Accident.-Mirrors were formerly used by Magicians in their fuperftitious and diabolical Operations; and there was an antient Kind of Divination by the Looking Glass: * Hence it fhould feem the present popular Notion.

When our Cheek burns, or Ear tingles, we usually fay fomebody is talking of us-a Conceit of great Antiquity, and ranked among fuperftitious Opinions by Pliny+-Dr. Browne fuppofes this to have proceeded from the Notion of a fignifying Genius,

eft.

or

*See the Greek Scholia on the Nubes of Ariftophanes, p. 169. + Abfentes tinnitu aurium præfentire fermones de fe receptum

Thus

or univerfal Mercury, that conducted Sounds to their distant Subjects and taught to hear by Touch. It is accounted unlucky to deftroy Swallows;This is probably a Pagan Relique. We read in Ælian, that these Birds were facred to the Penates, or household Gods of the Antients, and therefore were preferved. They were honoured antiently as the Nuncios of the Spring.-The Rhodians are faid to have had a folemn anniversary Song, to welcome in the Swallow. See Anacreon's Ode to that Bird.

I think it is Mr Addison that supposes the popular Ballad of the Babes in the Wood to have preferved the Lives of many Robin Redbreafts. The fubfequent Stanza places them in a very favourable Point of View:

"No Burial this pretty Pair

"Of any Man receives,

"Till Robin-red-breaft painfully

"Did cover them with Leaves."

Vide Dr. Percy's Collect. Ballads.

The antient Augurs foretold Things to come by the chirping or finging of certain Birds*-the Crow, Thus also the Diftich noted by Dalecampius:

Garrula quid totis refonas mihi noctibus auris ?
Nefcio quem dicis nunc meminisse mei?

Morefin enumerates fome of these fuperftitious Omens:-The croaking of Ravens, the hooting of Owls, the unfeasonable meeting with Cocks, the Hornedness of the Moon, the cloudy rifing of the Sun, the shooting of Stars, the coming in and going out of frange Cats, the fudden Fall of Hens from the Houfe-Top, &c.Corvorum crocitatum fuper tecto, bubonum bubulatum in tranfitu, Gallorum gallinaceorum cucurritum intempeftivum- lunæ corniculationem, Solis nubilum ortum, ftellarum trajectiones in Aerefelium peregrinarum egreffum, ingreffum-Gallinarum fubitum è tecto cafum ftupent, &c. Deprav. Rel. Orig. p. 21.

*The antient Britons made Ufe of the Hare for the Purposes of Divination. They were never killed for the Table. 'Tis perhaps from hence that they have been accounted ominous by the Vulgar. Cæfar. p. 89.

the

the Pye, the Chough, &c. hence perhaps the old womanifh Obfervation, that when the Pye chatters, we shall have Strangers*.

It is vulgarly thought unlucky to kill Spiders. -Can this be in Support of the Scotch Proverb, "Dirt bodes luck?" However this be, it ferves in many Places for an Apology for the Laziness of Housewives, in not destroying the Cobwebs†.

There was an antient Custom of opening fome celebrated Poem, as Homer's or Virgil's, and whatever Paffage prefented itself firft to the Eye constituted a Kind of Answer by Oracle: It was called the Sortes Homerica and Sortes Virgiliana.-The Superftitious among the antient Chriftians practifed a fimilar Kind of Divination, by opening the Old or New Teftament. Mr Pennant gives us an Account of another Sort of Divination, used in Scotland, called " reading the Speal Bone, or the Blade"bone of a Shoulder of Mutton well fcraped‡. "When Lord Loudon, he fays, was obliged to "retreat before the Rebels to the Ifle of Sky, a "common Soldier, on the very Moment the Battle ❝ of Culloden was decided, proclaimed the Victory "at that Distance, pretending to have discovered the "Event by looking through the Bone." p. 155.

*Editha perfuaded her Hufband to build a Monaftery at Ofney, upon the chattering of Pies. Lambarde's Dict. p. 260.

This is alfo tranfmitted from the Magicians of antient Rome. See Pliny's Natural Hiftory.-Prefages and Prognoftications were made from their Manner of weaving their Webs.

ઃઃ

In the Diary of Elias Afhmole, Efq; 11th April, 1681, he acquaints us, "I took early in the Morning a good Dofe of Elixir, "and hung three Spiders about my Neck, and they drove my Ague away-Deo gratias." Afhmole was a judicial Aftrologer, and the Patron of the renowned Mr. Lilly. Par nobile fratrum! Mr. Shaw fays, picked: No Iron mult touch it. Vide Tacit. Annal. 14.

One