418 INFLUENCE OF THE 



the one ought to be performed, or collecting of the 

 other attempted ; and still this belief so lingers in 

 the ruder minds of many of our peasantry, that 

 some things cannot be performed unless the u sign 

 is favourable:" if, in defiance of these admoni- 

 tions^ we persist, and accident ensues, it creates no 

 surprise, warning having been given by the vox 

 stellarum. That the heavenly bodies ruled the 

 destinies and influenced all the actions of man's 

 life, though originating, perhaps, in craft, and 

 nourished by ignorance, was not wholly an unna- 

 tural conception, knowing the powers of the moon 

 upon the waters of the ocean, and her probable im- 

 pulses in mental aberrations ; and this mysterious 

 body may further operate collaterally upon the 

 mind, exciting, in certain states, particular sensa- 

 tions. We do " not kiss our hands, or bow down 

 before the moon," but many who should behold her 

 as now, walking in brightness through the concave 

 of the heavens, the stars flashing and gleaming 

 about her with all the accompaniments of solemnity, 

 would have their minds subdued to contemplative 

 calmness. These awful and occult bodies have in- 

 nocently been called the abode of spirits departed 

 from the world ; and though the mind cannot con- 

 ceive any true notion of an after state, yet there 

 are few, perhaps, who have meditated upon futurity 

 but have devised some system, such a scale of hap- 

 piness, humanly now judging, as would satisfy 

 their minds to enjoy ; and we muse upon the capa- 

 city of bliss that these bodies may possess, and the 



