it, such person will invariably employ some such phrase to show you that he does not mean to do it injury, or to cast a spell of _jettatura_ upon it. The modern Greeks are even more jealous of praise, and if you compliment a child of theirs, you are expected to spit three times at him and say, [Greek: Na maen baskanthaes], ("May no evil come to you!") or mutter [Greek: Skordo], ("Garlic,") which has a special power as a counter-charm. So, too, in Corsica, the peasants are strict believers in the _jettatura_ of praise, which they call _l'annocchiatura_,--supposing, that, if any evil influence attend you, your good wishes will turn into curses. They are therefore very careful in praising, and sometimes express themselves in language the very reverse of what they intend,--as, "'_Va, coquine!'_ says Bandalaccio, in M. Merimée's pleasant story of "Colomba," '_sois excommuniée, sois maudite, friponne!' Car Bandalaccio, superstitieux comme tous les bandits, craignait de fasciner les enfans en les addressant les bénédictions et les éloges. On sait que les puissances mystérieuses qui président à l'annocchiatura ont la mauvaise habitude d'exécuter le contraire de nos souhaits._" Perhaps our familiar habit of calling our children "scamp" and "rascal," when we are caressing them, may be founded on a worn-out superstition of the same kind. But it is not only praise administered by others which may inflict evil upon us,--we must also be specially careful not to have too "gude a conceit of ourselves," lest we thereby draw down upon us the fate of a certain Eutelidas, who, having regarded his image in the water with peculiar self-satisfaction and laudation, immediately lost his health, and from that time forward was afflicted with sore diseases. During a supper at the house of Metrius Florus, where, among others, Plutarch, Soclarus, and Caius, the son-in-law of Florus, were guests, a curious and interesting conversation took place on the subject of the _Fascinum_, which is reported by Plutarch in one of his Symposia. The existence of the power of fascination was admitted by all, and a philosophical explanation of its phenomena was attempted. In reply to some suggestions of Plutarch, Soclarus says there is no doubt that their ancestors fully believed in this power, and then cites the case of Eutelidas as being well known to his auditors, and celebrated by some poet in these lines:-- "Eutelidas was once a beauteous youth, But, luckless, in the wave his face beholding, Himself he fascinates, and pines away." [1] [Footnote 1: Plutarchi _Symp_. V. Prob. VII.]