0« Popular IHuJiom. 29 



Ihe direfts the hunters to their prey, and the warriors 

 to the enemy, and is rewarded with a fhare of the 

 fpoils ; but the unhappy female who afpires to this 

 dignity, and whofe prefages are fallacious, (for there 

 are frequendy rivals) never efcapes without a fevere 

 beating. Thefe circumftances recall to the mind 

 Csefar's account of the ancient Germans, and they 

 are not the only ones in which the Indians ftrongly 

 refemble the Celts. 



A perfuafion fo general and fo permanent mull 

 depend on affociations not more remote than thofe 

 enumerated, but when we trace it, through the 

 viciffitudes of governments, and alterations of man- 

 ners, to the very clofe of the laft century ; when we 

 difcover that fome of the firft men in rank and 

 abilities, of fo late a period, fupported it, and that 

 fober and learned writers have defended it a few 

 years back, we muft admit the influence of long- 

 eftablilhed cufl:om, and the dignity of antiquity to 

 have powerfully alTifted this delufion. Artifice and 

 credulity have alfo confpired to its permanency ; and 

 the Aftrological phyficians, founding their opinions 

 on fome phaenomena in the courfe of difeafes, 

 which later obfervations feem to extend *, had their 

 full fhare in this operation. Cardan was one of the 

 moft celebrated medical aftrologers, and boafts with 

 much fatisfaftion, that on being informed of the 

 fymptoms for which Hamilton, Archbifhop of St. 



* See Dr. Balfour's OHf. 



Andrews 



