Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/64

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
54
GUY MANNERING.

cundum artem, as well to keep up appearances, as from a sort of curiosity to know whether he yet remembered, and could practise, the imaginary science. He accordingly erected his scheme, or figure of heaven, divided into its twelve houses, placed the planets therein according to the Ephemeris, and rectified their position to the hour and moment of the nativity. Without troubling our readers with the general prognostications which judicial astrology would have inferred from these circumstances, in this diagram there was one significator, which pressed remarkably upon our astrologer's attention. Mars having dignity in the cusp of the twelfth house, threatened captivity, or sudden and violent death, to the native; and Mannering, having recourse to those further rules by which diviners pretended to ascertain the vehemency of this evil direction, observed, from the result, that three periods would be particularly hazardous—his fifth—his tenth—his twenty-first year.