Like the Catholic priesthood, who rule the ignorant by the force of superstition, leaders have been induced to profess the possession of this faculty, to overawe their proselytes by their own deeper knowledge; as Numa vaunted his intimacy with the nymph Egeria at her fountain.
For this purpose, even the Corsican general, Pascal Paoli, assumed the profession of a seer, and the mystery of his prescience was on the lips of every Corsican. When Boswell asked, if the fulfilments of his prophecies were frequent, a Corsican grasped a bundle of his hair, and whispered, “Tante, tante, signore!”
But I will not play the dullard, Astrophel, while you, with your legendary romance, charm the listening ears of ladyes fayre. I will have my turn of story-telling, (avoiding the myriads of queer tales, told by superstitious and unlettered visionaries, on the look out for marvels, by servant maids and rustics, and silly people, the chief actors in ghost stories). And therefore, in the face of these negative conclusions, even of Johnson, hear one unparalleled story, culled from the rich treasury of Master Aubrey’s “Miscellanies.” It was of an earl of Caithness, who, desirous of ascertaining the distance of a vessel which was laden with wine for his cellars, proposed a question to a seer. The answer was, “At the distance of four hour’s sail.” It may be some doubt was expressed of the truth of this oracle; for, to prove his gift of clairvoyance, he laid before the earl the cap of a seaman in the ship, which he had that moment taken off his head. The vessel duly arrived, and lo! a sailor claimed the cap in the seer’s hand, affirming that, four hours before, it had been blown from his head by the gale. Is not this the very acme of effrontery?
Carolan, the inspired bard of Erin, confessed he could not compose a planxty for a certain lady of Sligo, even when he made an effort to celebrate her wondrous beauty; and one day in despair he threw away his harp and fell into a lament, that some evil genius was hovering over him: from his harp strings, (in contrast with those of Anacreon,) he could sweep only a mournful music, and he thence _prophesied_, and that truly, the death of the lady within the year.