the cures said to be performed by it; and people come from all parts of Scotland, and even as far up in England as Yorkshire, to get the water in which the stone is dipped, to give their cattle, when ill of the murrain especially, and black leg. A great many years ago, a complaint was made to the ecclesiastical courts, against the Laird of Lee, then Sir James Lockhart, for using witchcraft. It is said, when the plague was last at Newcastle, the inhabitants sent for the Lee-penny, and gave a bond for a large sum in trust for the loan; and that they thought it did so much good, that they offered to pay the money, and keep the Lee-penny; but the gentleman. would not part with it. A copy of this bond is very well attested to have been among the family papers, but supposed to have been spoiled along with many more valuable ones, about fifty years ago, by rain getting into the charter-room, during a long minority, and no family residing at Lee. The most remarkable cure performed upon any person, was that of Lady Baird, of Sauchton Hall, near Edinburgh; who having been bit by a mad dog, was come the length of hydrophobia; upon which, having sent to beg the Lee-penny might be sent to her house, she used it for some weeks, drinking and bathing in the water it was dipped in, and was quite recovered. This happened above eighty years ago; but it is very well attested, having been told by the lady of the then Laird of Lee, and who died within these thirty years. She also told, that her husband, Mr. Lockhart, and she were entertained at Sauchton Hall, by Sir Robert Baird and his lady, for several days, in the most sumptuous manner, on account of the lady's recovery, and in gratitude for the loan of the Lee-penny so long, as it was never allowed to be carried from the house of Lee. N.B. It was tried by a lapidary, and found to be a stone; but of what kind he could not tell.] DIVINATION. "Tu ne quæsieris scire (netas) quem mihi, quem tibi Tentaris numeros." Since 'tis impiety to pry Into the rolls of destiny, Hor. Carm. lib. i. Od. 11. Heed not the secrets they impart DIVINATIONS differ from omens in this, that the omen is an indication of something that is to come to pass, which happens to a person, as it were by accident, without his seeking for it; whereas divination is the obtaining of a knowledge of something future, by some endeavour of his own, or means which he himself designedly makes use of for that end. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 165, enumerates as follows the several species of divination : "Stareomancy, or divining by the elements; Aeromancy, or divining by the ayr; Pyromancy, by fire; Hydromancy, by water; Geomancy, by earth; Theomancy, pretending to divine by the revelation of the Spirit, and by the Scriptures, or word of God; Dæmonomancy, by the suggestions of evill dæmons or devils; Idolomancy, by idolls, images, figures; Psychomancy, by men's souls, affections, wills, religious or morall dispositions; Antinopomancy, by the entrails of men, women, and children; Theriomancy, by beasts; Ornithomancy, by birds; Ichthyomancy, by fishes; Botanomancy, by herbs; Lithomancy, by stones; Cleromancy, by lotts; Oniromancy, by dreams: Onomatomancy, by names; Arithmancy, by numbers; Logarithmancy, by logarithmes; Sternomancy, from the breast to the belly; Gastromancy, by the sound of, or signes upon the belly; Omphelomancy, by the navel; Chiromancy, by the hands; Pedomancy, by the feet; Onychomancy, by the nayles; Cephaleonomancy, by brayling of an asses head; Tuphramancy, by ashes; Capnomancy, by smoak; Livanomancy, by burning of frankincense; Carramancy, by melting of wax; Lecanomancy, by a basin of water; Catoxtromancy, by lookingglasses; Chartomancy, by writing in papers (this is retained in choosing Valentines, &c.); Macharomancy, by knives or swords; Chrystallomancy, by glasses; Dactalomancy, by rings; Coseinomancy, by sieves; drinomancy, by sawes; Cattabo mancy, by vessels of brasse or other metall; Roadomancy, by, starres; Spatalamancy, by skins, bones, excrements; Scyomancy, by shadows; Astragalomancy, by dice; Oinomancy, by wine; Sycomancy, by figgs; Typomancy, by the coagulation of cheese; Alphitomancy, by meal, flower, or branne; Crithomancy, by grain or corn; Alectromancy, by cocks or pullen; Gyromancy, by rounds or circles; Lampadomancy, by candles and lamps; and in one word for all, Nagomancy, or Necromancy, by inspecting, consulting, and divining by, with, or from the dead." In Holiday's Marriage of the Arts, 4to., is introduced a species of divination not in the above ample list of them, entitled Anthropomancie. There were among the ancients divinations by water, fire, earth, air; by the flight of birds, by lots, by dreams, by the wind, &c. I suppose the following species of divination must be considered as a vestige of the ancient hydromancy. An essayist in the Gent. Mag. for March, 1731, i. 110, introduces a person surprising a lady and her company in close cabal over their coffee; the rest very intent upon one, who by her dress and intelligence he guessed was a tire-woman; to which she added the secret of divining by coffee-grounds; she was then in full inspiration, aud with much solemnity observing the atoms round the cup; on one hand sat a widow, on the other a married lady, both attentive to the predictions to be given of their future fate. The lady (his acquaintance), though marryed, was no less earnest in contemplating her cup than the other two. They assured him that every cast of the cup is a picture of all one's life to come; and every transaction and circumstance is delineated with the exactest certainty." From the Weekly Register, March 20, No. xc. The same practice is noticed in the Connoisseur, No. 56, where a girl is represented divining to find out of what rank her husband shall be: "I have seen him several times in coffee-grounds, with a sword by his side; and he was once at the bottom of a teacup in a coach and six, with two footmen behind it." To the divination' by water also must be referred the following passage in a list of superstitious practices preserved in the Life of Harvey, the famous Conjurer of Dublin, 8vo, Dubl. 1728, p. 58: "Immersion of wooden bowls in water, sinking See a prodigious variety of these divinations, alphabetically enumerated and explained, in Fabricii Bibliographia Antiquaria, cap. xxi. Consult also Potter's Greek Antiq. vol. i. pp. 348 et seq. incharmed and inchanted amulets under water, or burying them under a stone in a grave in a churchyard.' Among love divinations may be reckoned the dumb-cake, so called because it was to be made without speaking, and afterwards the parties were to go backwards up the stairs to bed, and put the cake under their pillows, when they were to dream of their lovers. See Strutt's Manners and Customs, iii. 180. ["Dumb-cake.-A species of dreaming-bread, prepared by unmarried females, with ingredients traditionally suggested in witching doggerel. When baked, it is cut into three divisions: a part of each to be eaten, and the remainder to be put under the pillow. When the clock strikes twelve, each votary must go to bed backwards, and keep a profound silence, whatever may appear. Indeed, should a word be uttered, either during the process or before falling asleep, the charm is broken, and some direful calamity may be dreaded. Those who are to be married, or are full of hope, fancy they see visions of their future partners hurrying after them; while they who are to live and die old maids are not very sanguine of obtaining their errand, seeing nothing at all."] We read the following in the Gent. Mag. for September, 1734, iv. 488, from Bayle: "There's no prescribing against truth from universal tradition, or the general consent of mankind; because, so we must receive all the superstitions the Roman people borrowed from the Tuscans, in the matter of augury, prodigy, and all the pagan impertinencies in the point of divination as incontestible truths." John of Salisbury enumerates no fewer than thirteen different kinds of diviners of fortune-tellers, who (in his time) pretended to foretell future events, some by one means and some by another. De Nugis Curialium, lib. i. c. 12, p. 36. Divination by arrows, says Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall, x. 345, is ancient, and famous in the East. The following compendious new way of magical divination, which we find so humorously described in Butler's Hudibras, as follows, is affirmed by M. Le Blanc, in his Travels, to be used in the East Indies: "Your modern Indian magician Makes but a hole in th' earth to pisse in, And straight resolves all questions by't, DIVINING ROD. DIVINATION by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Hosea, too, reproaches the Jews as being infected with the like superstition: "My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them." Chap. iv. 12. Not only the Chaldeans used rods for divination, but almost every nation which has pretended to that science has practised the same method. Herodotus mentions it as a custom of the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans. See Cambridge's Scribleriad, book v. note on line 21. I find the following on this subject in Bartholini Causæ contemptæ a Danis Mortis, p. 676: "Virgis salignis divinasse Scythas, indicat libro quarto Herodotus, eamque fuisse illis traditam a majoribus divinationem. Et de Alanis, Scytharum gente, idem memorat Ammianus Marcellinus: futura miro præsagiunt modo: nam rectiores virgas vimineas colligentes, easque cum incantamentis quibusdam secretis præstituto tempore discernentes, aperte quid portendatur norunt."" 66 In the manuscript Discourse on Witchcraft, 1705, written by Mr. John Bell, p. 41, I find the following account from Theophylact on the subject of rabdomanteia, or rod divination : They set up two staffs, and having whispered some verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the operation of dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell, forward or backward, to the right or left hand, and agreeably gave responses, having made use of the fall of their staffs for their signs." Dr. Henry, in his History of Great Britain, tells us, ii. 550, that "after the Anglo-Saxons and Danes embraced the Christian religion, the clergy were commanded by the canons to preach very frequently against diviners, sorcerers, auguries, omens, charms, incantations, and all the filth of the wicked and dotages of the Gentiles." He cites Johnson's Eccles. Canons, A.D. 747, c. 3. The following is from Epigrams, &c., by S. Sheppard, Lond. 1651, lib. vi., Epigr. 1. p. 141, " Virgula divina : "Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod, |