Guy Mannering.

O8 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
CHAPTER IV.
Come and see! trust thine own eyes,
A fearful sign stands in the house of life,
An enemy; a fiend lurks close behind
The radiance of thy planet-O be warned!
COLEnIDGE,from SCHLLER.
THE belief in astrology was almost universal in the
middle of the seventeenth century; it began to waver
and become doubtful towards the close of that period, and
in the beginning of the eighteenth the art fell into general
disrepute, and even under general ridicule. Yet it still
retained many partisans, even in the seats of learning.
Grave and studious men were loth to relinquish the calculations which had early become the principal objects of
their studies, and felt: reluctant to descend from the predominating height to which a supposed insight into
futurity, by the power of consulting abstract influences
and conjunctions, had exalted them over the rest of
mankind.
Among those who cherished this imaginary privilege
with undoubting faith, was an old clergyman, with whom
Mannering was placed during his youth. He wasted his
eyes in observing the stars, and his brains in calculations
upon their various combinations. His pupil, in early
youth, naturally caught some portion of his enthusiasm,
and laboured for a time to make himself master of the
technical process of astrological research; so that, before