great laws of nature, and the mind is perpetually fluctuating between a wish for the one, and a dread of the other. To pretend boldly therefore to a power of beftowing happiness, or removing mifery, hardly ever failed, in the days of ignorance, to gain a man believers : and he feldom found difficulty in interesting the paffions of the people, provided he could by any means impofe upon their fenses. An attention to the principles of mechanism, to the operations of chymistry, to the virtues of plants, and to the various laws of nature, might produce discoveries incomprehenfible by simple men and a few remarkable inftances of the efficacy of mere natural caufes, would easily gain the poffeffors of those secrets the reputation of inflicting torment or of commanding pleasure at a wish. To enjoy the reputation and advantages of those fancied fupernatural powers, was not enough. Some pretended to have the art of communicating them to others: necromancy became of course a regular study; and the people at large, who could not aim at fuch occult fciences, were happy to fupply their want of knowledge, by the purchase of talifmans, amulets, or charms, in whofe virtues they placed a perfect and most wonderful confidence.

M

TALISMANS and Amulets have long engaged the attention of Eastern nations; and accurate rules have been laid down for their conftruction. The gem, the chryftal, the metal, or other fubftance, is ordered to be dug, or fearched for, when fome particular angel rules the day. It must be prepared or engraved under the influence of another; and the zemzemé, or prayer of a third must be prononunced over it, to give it that mysterious virtue for which it is esteemed. Different ceremonies are neceffary in gathering the herbs, and flowers; in cropping the hairs of camels, fea-cows, or other animals of which the amulets are formed: and the fufpending them round the necks of men, women, children, or animals, is performed with much precision and folemnity. Yet real knowledge might originally have given rife to what the views of the artful, and the fuperftition of the ignorant, afterwards perverted to the purposes of folly. An intelligent obferver might discover, that certain plants had their juices in high perfection at particular feafons; that fome fhould be gathered at fun-rife, when moist with dew; others at the meridian, when under the influence of the mid-day heat. He might imagine, that the external application of medicinal herbs, of mineral fubftances, of

tufts of hair or wool, whilft impregnated with the effluvia or perspiration of the animal, might have a falutary effect in various ailments; and experience would confirm the juftness of his conjecture. But the million, ever unable or unwilling to investigate natural caufes (especially when impreffed with a conviction, that every diftemper, and every miffortune, proceeded from the operations of malevolent fpirits, or the fascination of malignant eyes), would impute the cures which fuch applications performed, not to the effential qualities of their compounds, but to fupernatural agency, and uneffential and uneffential ceremony. They applied them, in confequence, without distinction, not only to the old and to the young, to the fick and to the healthy, to the brute creation as well as to rational beings; but placed even things inanimate under their protection. An afs's head, cabalistically prepared, and erected on a pole in a garden or field, was supposed to be an effectual defence against fascination, and a confequent scarcity of produce whilst a talifman, buried along with hidden treasure, was imagined to put it in perfect fafety, by rendering it invisible to every eye but thofe of the owner. Nothing indeed is more common in the Eaft than the burying of treasure and it took its rife from

that unfteady fyftem of government, which has in general prevailed on those countries. Ever apprehenfive of revolution and ruin, a rich man generally divdes his estate into three parts: one he employs in trade, or the neces fary purposes of life; another he invests in jewels, which he may easily carry off, if forced to fly; and the third he buries. As he intrufts nobody with the secret of this depofit, which he guards with his talisman, if he dies before he returns to the fpot, it is then loft to the world; till accident throws it in the way, perhaps, of fome fortunate peasant, when turning up his ground. Thofe discoveries of hidden treasure, and fudden tranfitions from poverty to riches, of which we read in Oriental tales, are by no means therefore quite ideal; but a natural confequence of the manners of the people. !

SEC T. IV.

Every

Qbfervations upon the old Perfian era. month, every day, and every action of man Supposed to have been under the fuperintendance of particular angels. Short account of the feftivals celebrated by the Perfians in honour of thofe angels. The Afiatics in general ftrongly attached to omens, aftrology, divination, and dreams,

To understand the machinery of Angels,

it will be proper to make fome previous obfervations on the ancient Perfian era, with which they are intimately connected. This was supposed to have been established by king Gemfhid, one of the Pifhdadian princes; the date of whofe reign feems too uncertain even for conjecture: though fome judicious writers place him about 800 years before Christ. On the day when the Sun entered Aries, he is faid to have made his first public entry into Iftakhar or Persepolis, which he had just finished; and to have ordered the era to com