I leave that method of swelling distorted and commented trifles into volumes, to the writers of fable and romance; if I was to tell his adventures, with regard, for example, to women, that came to consult him, I might perhaps have not only written the stories of eleven thousand virgins that died maids, but have had relations to give of as many married women and widows, and the work would have been endless. All that I shall do therefore is to pick out one particular, each of a different kind, that there may be variety in the entertainment. Upon application to this dumb man, one is told in the middle of her health, that she shall die at such a time; another, that she shall sicken, and upon the moment of her recovery, have a suitor and a husband; a third, who is a celebrated beauty with a multitude of admirers round about her, that she shall never become a wife; a fourth, that is married, when she shall get rid of an uneasy husband; a fifth, that hath lost her goods, who stole them, where and when they shall be restored; a sixth, that is a merchant, when he shall be undone, and how and when he shall recover his losses, and be as great on the Exchange as ever; a seventh, that is a gamester, which will be his winning, and which his losing hour; an eighth, how he shall be involved in a law-suit, and whether the suit will have an adverse or a prosperous issue; a ninth, that is a woman, with choice of lovers, which she shall be most happy with for life; and so on to many others, where every prediction is perfectly new and surprising, and differs from the other in almost every circumstance. When a man has so extensive a genius as this at foretelling the future occurrences of life, one narrative of a sort is enough in conscience to present the reader with, and several of each kind would not methinks be entertaining, but tiresome; for he that can do one thing in these kinds by the power of prediction, can do ten thousand; and those who are obstinate in extenuating his talents, and calling his capacity in question, and that will not be convinced by one instance of his judgment, would not own the conviction if ten thousand instances were given them. The best passages I can recommend to their perusal are those where persons who came purposely to banter him under the colour of consulting him, and covered over their sly intentions with borrowed disguises, and came in masquerades, found all the jest turned upon themselves in the end, which they meant to our famous predictor, and had the discouragement of seeing their most concealed and deepest laid plots discovered, and all their most witty fetches and wily contrivances defeated, till they were compelled universally to acknowledge, that endeavouring to impose upon the judgment of our seer by any hidden artifice and cunning whatsoever, was effectually imposing upon their own. His unusual talent in this kind was so openly known, and so generally confessed, that his knowledge was celebrated in some of the