iv
CONTENTS.
| MODERN PROPHECIES. | ||
Terror of the approaching day of judgment—A comet the signal of that day—The prophecy of Whiston—The people of Leeds greatly alarmed at that event—The plague in Milan—Fortune-tellers and Astrologers—Prophecy concerning the overflow of the Thames—Mother Shipton—Merlin—Heywood—Peter of Pontefract—Robert Nixon—Almanac-makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
222-241 | |
| FORTUNE-TELLING. | ||
Presumption and weakness of man—Union of Fortune-tellers and Alchymists—Judicial astrology encouraged in England from the time of Elizabeth to William and Mary—Lilly the astrologer consulted by the House of Commons as to the cause of the Fire of London—Encouragement of the art in France and Germany—Nostradamus—Basil of Florence—Antiochus Tibertus—Kepler—Necromancy—Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Arnold Villeneuve—Geomancy—Augury—Divination: list of various species of divination—Oneiro-criticism (interpretation of dreams)—Omens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
242-261 | |
| THE MAGNETISERS. | ||
The influence of imagination in curing diseases—Mineral magnetisers—Paracelsus—Kircher the Jesuit—Sebastian Wirdig—William Maxwell—The Convulsionaries of St. Medard—Father Hell—Mesmer, the founder of Animal Magnetism—D'Eslon, his disciple—M. de Puysegur—Dr. Mainauduc's success in London—Holloway, Loutherbourg, Mary Pratt, &c.—Perkins's "Metallic Tractors"—Decline of the science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
262-295 | |
| INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD. | ||
Early modes of wearing the hair and beard—Excommunication and outlawry decreed against curls—Louis VII.'s submission thereto the cause of the long wars between England and France—Charles V. of Spain and his courtiers—Peter the Great—His tax upon beards—Revival of beards and moustaches after the French Revolution of 1830—The King of Bavaria (1838) orders all civilians wearing moustaches to be arrested and shaved—Examples from Bayeux tapestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
296-303 | |
