AUGURY, OR DIVINATIONS DRAWN FROM THE FLIGHT AND FEEDING OP BIRDS.
The superstitious fondness of mankind for searching into futurity has
given rise to an infinite variety of extravagant follies. The Romans,
who were remarkably fertile in these sorts of demonological inventions,
suggested numerous ways of divination. With them all Nature had a voice,
and the most senseless beings, and most trivial things, the most
trifling incidents, became presages of future events; which introduced
ceremonies founded on a mistaken knowledge of antiquity, the most
childish and ridiculous, and which were performed with all the air of
solemnity and sanctity of devotion. Augury, or divinations founded on
the flight of birds, were not only considered by the Egyptians as the
symbols of the winds, but good and bad omens of every kind were founded
or rather derived from the flying of the feathered tribe. The birds at
this time had become wonderfully wise; and an owl, to whom, for reasons
not precisely known, light is not so agreeable as darkness, could not
pass by the windows of a sick person in the night, where the creature
was not offended by the glimmerings of a light or candle, but his
hooting must be considered as prophesying, that the life of the poor man
was nearly wound up.
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