[240] Alluding to the custom of the harbingers, who in the royal progresses were wont to mark the lodgings of the several officers of the Court. _For Flavia_ should therefore be in italics. We now commonly write harbinger with the first vowel; but the ancients applied the second, which is more agreeable to the etymology. See Junius _v._ Harbour.--_Pegge._ To this explanation I shall only add that the office of harbinger remains to this day, and that the part of his duty above alluded to was performed in the latter part of the 17th century. Serjeant Hawkins, in his life of Bishop Ken, observes that when, on the removal of the Court to pass the summer at Winchester, that prelate's house, which he held in the right of his prebend, _was marked by the harbinger_ for the use of Mrs Eleanor Gwyn, he refused to grant her admittance; and she was forced to seek for lodgings in another place.--_Reed._ [241] The 4º of 1615 reads-- "Spight of a _last_ of Lelios." [242] [Edits., _two_.] [243] A term of astrology.--_Pegge._ "_Ascendant_ in astrology denotes the horoscope, or the degree of the ecliptic which rises upon the horizon at the time of the birth of any one. This is supposed to have an influence on his life and fortune, by giving him a bent to one thing more than another."--_Chambers's Dictionary._ [244] [Entrance to a house.] [245] Cornelius Agrippa, on "The Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences," 4º, 1569, p. 55, mentions _Apollonius:_ "They saie that Hierome made mention thereof, writinge to Paulinus, where he saithe, that _Apollonius Tianeus_ was a magitien, or a philosopher, as the Pithagoreans were." He is also noticed among those who have written on the subject of magic. Apollonius was born at Tyana about the time our Saviour appeared in the world. He died at the age of near or quite 100 years, in the reign of Nerva. By the enemies of Christianity he was reported to have worked miracles in the same manner as the Founder of our religion, and in the works of Dr Henry More is inserted a parallel between them. The degree of credit which the pagan miracles are entitled to is very clearly shown in Dr Douglas's learned work, entitled, "The Criterion, or Miracles Examined," 8º, 1757, p. 53. See a further account of Apollonius in Blount's translation of "The Two First Books of Philostratus, concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus," fol., 1680, and Tillemont's "Account of the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus," translated by Dr Jenkin, 8º, 1702. [246] Telescope. [247] A stroke of satire in regard to cuckoldom: there are others afterwards in this act.--_Pegge._ [248] Coriat the traveller.