these Princes prognosticated, he assured her that he had calculated them with the utmost exactness, and that according to the principles of his art, the State had nothing to apprehend from either of them. He let them know this as soon as he could, and told them that he had given this answer purely from regard for them, not from any result of his schemes, the matter being in its nature undiscoverable by astrology. The Imperial astrologers in China excused themselves once for a notable failure in their art, with more notable address. The error indeed was harmless, except in its probable consequences to themselves; they had predicted an eclipse, and no eclipse took place. But instead of being abashed at this proof of their incapacity the ready rogues complimented the Emperor, and congratulated him upon so wonderful and auspicious an event. The eclipse they said portended evil, and therefore in regard to him the Gods had put it by. An Asiatic Emperor who calls himself Brother to the Sun and Moon, might well believe that his relations would go a little out of their way to oblige him, if the Queen of Navarre could with apparent sincerity declare her belief that special revelations are made to the Great, as one of the privileges of their high estate, and that her mother, that Catherine de Medici, whose name is for ever infamous, was thus miraculously forewarned of every remarkable event that befell her husband and her children, nor was she herself, without her share in this privilege, though her character was not more spotless in one point than her mother's in another. _De ces divins advertissemens_, she says, _je ne me veux estimer digne, toutesfois pour ne me taire comme ingrate des graces que j'ay receües de Dieu, que je dois et veux confesser toute ma vie, pour luy en rendre grace, et que chacun le loue aux merveilles des effets de sa puissance, bonté, et misericorde, qu'il luy a plû faire en moy, j'advoueray n'avoir jamais esté proche de quelques signalez accidens, ou sinistres, ou heureux, que j'en aye eu quelque advertissement ou en songe, ou autrement; et puis bien dire ce vers,_ _De mon bien ou mon mal, mon esprit m'est oracle._ CHAPTER CXCVIII. PETER HOPKINS' VIEWS OF ASTROLOGY. HIS SKILL IN CHIROMANCY, PALMISTRY, OR MANUAL DIVINATION WISELY TEMPERED.—SPANISH PROVERB AND SONNET BY BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA.—TIPPOO SULTAN.—MAHOMETAN SUPERSTITION.—W. Y. PLAYTES' PROSPECTUS FOR THE HORN BOOK FOR THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE SIGNS OF SALVATION. _Seguite dunque con la mente lieta, Seguite, Monsignor, che com' io dico, Presto presto sarete in su la meta._ LUDOVICO DOLCE.