Chap. 5.] THE VAIlTOirS BRANCHES OF MAGIC, 
427 
Such being the fact, then, we cannot too highly appreciate 
the obligation that is due to the Eoman people, for having put 
an end to those monstrous rites, in accordance with which, to 
murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and 
to eat ^ his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health. 
CHAP. 5. (2.) — THE VAKIOUS BKAITCHES OF MAGIC. 
According to what Osthanes tells us, there are numerous 
sorts of magic. It is practised with water, for instance, with 
balls, by the aid of the air, of the stars, of lamps, basins, hatchets, 
and numerous other appliances ; means by which it engages 
to grant a foreknowledge of things to come, as well as converse 
with ghosts and spirits of the dead. All these practices, how- 
ever, have been proved by the Emperor 'Nero, in our own day, 
to be so many false and chimaerical illusions ; entertaining as 
he did a passion for the magic art, unsurpassed even by his 
enthusiastic love for the music of the lyre, and for the songs of 
tragedy ; so strangely did his elevation to the highest point 
of human fortune act upon the deep-seated vices of his mind ! 
It was his leading desire to command the gods of heaven, and 
no aspiration could he conceive more noble than this. Never 
did person lavish more favours upon any one of the arts ; and 
for the attainment of this, his favourite object, nothing was 
wanting to him, neither riches, nor power, nor aptitude at 
learning, and what not besides, at the expense of a suffering 
world. 
It is a boundless, an indubitable proof, I say, of the utter 
falsity of this art, that such a man as JSTero abandoned it ; and 
would to heaven that he had consulted the shades below, and 
any other spirits as well, in order to be certified in his sus- 
picions, rather than commissioned the denizens of stews and 
brothels to make those inquisitions of his [with reference to 
the objects of his jealousy]. Eor assuredly there can be no 
Ajasson seems inclined to suggest that this may possibly bear reference 
to the Christian doctrines of redemption and the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. 
*i These kinds of divination, rather than magic, were called hydromancy, 
sphseromancy, aeroraancy, astromancy, lychnomancy, lecanomancy, and 
axinomancy. See Rabelais, B. iii. c. 25, where a very full account is given 
of the Magic Art, as practised by the ancients. Coffee-grounds, glair of 
eggs, and rose-leaves, are still used in France for purposes of divination 
by the superstitious. 
