There is no end of fabulous writings of the class we call novels and romances, and no end of deceptions which we patronize as tricks of legerdemain; the one gratifies our imagination and fancy, the other takes our common sense by surprise; but all these are harmless because only presented to us for our amusement. Delusion, however, assumes a startling character when romance in the form of mystic writings, and jugglery in the form of pretended communication with the spirit-world demand our respect and serious attention, by claiming to have a divine origin. But hallucination of the human intellect, as we shall see, is not confined to such remote visionary speculations, and it is not unimportant to remark that in mathematics, as in physics, and in other branches of investigation, there is a singular persistency in upholding errors. A contemporary astrologer, assuming the pseudonym of Zadkiel, tauntingly observes in his preface to a recent publication: "_This is the age of inquiry_; and yet prejudice continues to press down her leaden foot upon the neck of examination in this matter"--that is, Astrology. Now with this reproof before us we hope to discuss the subject with becoming propriety. ASTROLOGY. The splendour of the sun by day, the glories of the firmament by night, together with the sublimity of all celestial phenomena, attract alike the attention of the most simple and the most intellectual among mankind. The distance, the magnitude, and the grandeur of the entire planetary system while exciting emotions of awe, reverence, and devotion among the mass of the human race, have at the same time been studied from the earliest period of man's history to the present time superstitiously by one class of observers, and scientifically by another. As the telescope was not invented before the 17th century, it is evident that the study of Astronomy without that instrument must previously have been pursued under amazing difficulties; and we might have expected that when first used by Galileo at Venice in 1609, its introduction would have been hailed without a dissentient voice. Such, however, was not the fact, according to Sir David Brewster,[8] who says:--