A superstition akin to palmistry is onymancy, or divination by the finger-nails, which is still a widespread object of belief. Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," describing it, admits that conjectures "of prevalent humours may be gathered from the spots on the nails," but rejects the sundry prognostications usually derived from them, such as "that spots on the tops of the nails signify things past, in the middle things present, and at the bottom events to come; that white specks presage our felicity, blue ones our misfortunes; that those in the nail of the thumb have significations of honour, of the fore-finger riches." As practised at the present day, this mode of divination differs in various counties. Thus, in Sussex, we are told by Mrs. Latham that the fortune-tellers commence with the thumb, and say "A gift," judging of its probable size by that of the mark. They then touch the fore-finger, and add "A friend;" and should they find a spot upon the nail of the middle finger, they gravely affirm it denotes the existence of an enemy somewhere. It is the presence or absence of such a mark on the third finger that proves one's future good or ill success in love; whereas one on the little finger is a warning that the person will soon have to undergo a journey. Again, some profess to be able to tell events by the face, or "look-divination"--a species of physiognomy which was formerly much believed in by all classes of society, and may still be met with in country villages. Indeed, there is scarcely a mark on the face which has not been supposed to betoken something or other; and in a book of "Palmistry and Physiognomy," translated by Fabian Withers, 1656, are recorded sundry modes of divination from "upright eyebrows, brows hanging over, narrow foreheads, faces plain and flat, lean faces, sad faces, sharp noses, ape-like noses, thick nostrils," &c. However foolish these may appear, yet there will always be simple-minded persons ready to make themselves miserable by believing that the future events of their life--either for weal or woe--are indelibly written on their face. Equally illogical and fanciful is that pseudo-science, astrology, whereby the affairs of men, it is said, can be read from the motions of the heavenly bodies. A proof of the extensive belief at the present day in this mode of divination may be gathered from the piles of "Zadkiel's Almanacks" which regularly appear in the fashionable booksellers' windows about Christmas-time. That educated people, who must be aware how names of stars and constellations have been arbitrarily given by astronomers, should still find in these materials for calculating human events, is a curious case of superstitious survival. Very many, for instance, are firmly convinced that a child born under the "Crab" will not do well in life, and that another born under the "Waterman" is likely to meet with a watery death, and so forth. This science,