Messengers
daily arrived from the most respectable houses in Germany, Poland,
Hungary, Denmark, and even from England, for the purpose of consulting
him respecting the future fortunes[76] of their new-born infants,
acquainting him with the hour of the nativity, and soliciting his advice
and directions as to their management. Many volumes of this singular
correspondence are still preserved in the royal library at Berlin. The
business of this fortunate adept increased so rapidly, that he found it
necessary to employ a number of subaltern assistants, who, together with
their master, realized considerable fortunes. He died in high reputation
and favour with his superstitious contemporaries.
The famous Melancthon was a believer in judicial astrology, and an
interpreter of dreams. Richelieu and Mazarin were so superstitious as to
employ and pension Morin, another pretender to astrology, who cast the
nativities of these two able politicians. Nor was Tacitus himself, who
generally appears superior to superstition, untainted with this folly,
as may be seen from his twenty-second chapter of the sixth book of his
Annals.
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