Guy Mannering.

82 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
that night had introduced into the world. Struck with
this coincidence, Mannering repeated his calculations;
and the result approximated the events predicted, until,
at length, the same month, and day of the month, seemed
assigned as the period of peril to both.
It will be readily believed, that, in mentioning this
circumstance, we lay no weight whatever upon the pretended information thus conveyed. But it often happens,
such is our natural love for the marvellous, that we willingly contribute our own efforts to beguile our better
judgments. Whether the coincidence which I have
mentioned was really one of those singular chances,
which sometimes happen against all ordinary calculations; or whether Mannering, bewildered amid the
arithmetical labyrinth and technical jargon of astrology,
had insensibly twice followed the same clew to guide him
out of the maze; or whether his imagination, seduced by
some point of apparent resemblance, lent its aid to make
the, similitude between the two operations more exactly
accurate than it might otherwise have been, it is impossible to guess; but the impression upon his mind, that
the results exactly corresponded, was vividly and indelibly
strong.
He could not help feeling surprise at a coincidence so
singular and unexpected. "Does the devil mingle in the
dance, to avenge himself for our trifling with an art said
to be of magical origin? or is it possible, as Bacon and
Sir Thomas Browne admit, that there is some truth in a
sober and regulated astrology, and that the influence of
the stars is not to be denied, though the due application
of it, by the knaves who pretend to practise the art, is
greatly to be suspected? "-A moment's consideration of
the subject induced him to dismiss this opinion as fantas