[17] This answer of the oracle brings to our recollection the equally remarkable injunction of a modern seer to Sir William Windham, which is related in the memoirs of Bishop Newton. "In his younger years, when Sir William was abroad upon his travels, and was at Venice, there was a noted fortune-teller, to whom great numbers resorted, and he among the rest; and the fortune-teller told him, that he must beware of a white horse. After his return to England, as he was walking by Charing-Cross, he saw a crowd of people coming out and going in to a house, and inquired what was the meaning of it, was informed that Duncan Campbell, the dumb fortune-teller lived there. His curiosity also led him in, and Duncan Campbell likewise told him that he must beware of a white horse. It was somewhat extraordinary that two fortune-tellers, one at Venice and the other in London, without any communication, and at some distance of time, should both happen to hit upon the same thing, and to give the very same warning. Some years afterwards, when he was taken up in 1715, and committed to the Tower upon suspicion of treasonable practices, which never appeared, his friends said to him that his fortune wan now fulfilled, the Hanover House was the white horse whereof he was admonished to beware. But some time after this, he had a fall from a white horse, and received a blow by which he lost the sight of one of his eyes." [18] "When we come to consult thee," says he to Apollo, "if thou seest what is in the womb of futurity, why dost thou use expressions which will not be understood? If thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing us: if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek word whereby thou affirmest that Croesus should overthrow a great empire, was ill-chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Croesus conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou amuse us with thy ambiguities? What dost thou, wretch as thou art, at Delphi, employed in muttering idle prophecies!"--See "_Demonologia, or Natural Knowledge revealed_" p. 162. [19] See _Demonologia_, p, 163. [20] "Among the more learned, it is a pretty general opinion that all the oracles were mere cheats and impostures; calculated either to serve the avaricious ends of the heathenish priests, or the political views of the princes. Bayle positively asserts, that they were mere human artifices, in which the devil had no hand. In this opinion he is strongly supported by Van Dale, a Dutch physician, and M. Fontenelle, who have expressly written on the subject."--_Vide Demonologia_, op. citat. p. 159.