RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.^ 



carrying his sick child to the houses of his idols, and praying all 

 night by their consecrated stones, shews the same progress in hu- 

 manity and reason, as the Hindoos strewing fresh flowers and pour- 

 ing oil on the stone of their benevolent Maha Deva, and covering 

 it with new-shorn wool. Do not both remind us of the sacrifices 

 offered to the genius or guardian angel of a Roman with wine and 

 fragrant odours ? — and even of the Hebrew altar of incense and 

 hbations?" 



You might trace such simihtudes much farther," rejoined the 

 clergyman: — "What can more resemble our rehcs of popular 

 superstition than the barley-cake and gifts distributed at an an- 

 cient Roman's wedding, and the lamentations or outcries made to 

 awaken him if possible during the first seven days after his death ? 

 Our cottagers still preserve the custom of receiving the last breath 

 of a dying relative f 'om his Hps, and the nearest of his kindred 

 commit his head to the earth, as we find among the politest na- 

 tions of the continent was once their custom. Tho half- penny put 

 into the dead man's mouth, the funeral feast given to the poor, 

 and ihe wailing of hired mourners, have been recorded in all an- 

 nals of our northern ancestors and neighbours — from Norway 

 even to the Appennines. From the Esquimaux of Baffin's Bay to 

 the point of Cape Horn, from the Calmuc Tartars to the Tonga 

 Islanders, we cannot find either colony or nation that has not de- 

 vised some poetical circumstance, or some mysterious mode of di- 

 vination, to signify their choice in love or marriage. The business 

 of fortune-telling is as old as the world, and the mischievous ser- 

 pent himself seems to have begun his operations in Eden by tell- 

 ing our grandmother Eve her fortune." 



" When I sailed to Aleppo," said the captain, now perceiving 

 an avenue for himself into the conversation, "I bought of an Ar- 

 menian Jew, in exchange for some of my merchandise, a most 

 strange book, which had been compiled from the works of the 

 Rabbis about 200 years, and I brought it with me here, Doctor, 

 as an addition to your library. But, with respect to your opinion 

 of superstition, I should rather call it the pleasure of human na- 

 ture in what relates to the merry occasions of life, such as we 

 have seen to-day. And one must own there is something plausi- 

 ble enough in the devices men have found to give consequence to 

 trifles. When I was at Japan, the people shewed me several hot 

 , springs, which, as they assured me, were purgatories for certain 



