events to certain favoured individuals appears to have had a wide range in ancient times; and this curiosity regarding futurity has exerted a powerful influence over the minds of men in every stage of civilization. Hence arose the consulting of oracles and the practice of divination amongst the ancients, and to the same principles we must attribute the credulity which at present exists with respect to the "_wise men_" who are to be found in almost every town and village in Lancashire. The means adopted by some of the oracles when responses were required, strangely remind us of the modern feats of ventriloquism; others can be well illustrated by what we now know of mesmerism and its kindred agencies; whilst these and clairvoyance will account for many of those where the agents are said by Eustathius to have spoken out of their bellies, or breasts, from oak trees, or been "cast into trances in which they lay like men dead or asleep, deprived of all sense and motion; but after some time returning to themselves, gave strange relations of what they had seen and heard." The ancient Greeks and Romans regarded dreams as so many warnings; they prayed to Mercury to vouchsafe to them a night of good dreams. In this county we still hold the same opinions; but our country maidens, having Christianized the subject, now invoke St. Agnes and a multitude of other saints to be similarly propitious. There are many other points of resemblance between the Folk-lore of Lancashire and that of the ancients. Long or short life, health or disease, good luck or bad, are yet predicted by burning a lock of human hair; and the fire is frequently poked with much anxiety when testing the disposition of an absent lover. Many persons may be found who never put on the _left_ shoe first; and the appearance of a _single_ magpie has disconcerted many a stout Lancashire farmer when setting out on a journey of business or pleasure. In the matter of sneezing we are just as superstitious as when the Romans left us. They exclaimed, "May Jove protect you," when any one sneezed in their presence, and an anxious "God bless you" is the common ejaculation amongst our aged mothers. To the same sources we may probably attribute the apprehensions which many Lancashire people entertain with respect to spilling the salt; sudden silence, or fear; lucky and unlucky days; the presence of thirteen at dinner; raising ghosts; stopping blood by charms; spitting upon, or drawing blood from persons in order to avert danger; the evil eye; and a multitude of other minor superstitions. We possess much of all this in common with the Saxons and the Danes, but the original source of a great, if not the greater portion, is probably that of our earliest conquerors.