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Crystallus, Rock-crystal

Crystallus, Rock-crystal Page of 384 Cyanus, Lazulite Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
122
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
palm of a little boy's hand. This magic mirror may be seen preserved in the class of Crystals (quartz) in the British Museum. Dr. Dee had very ancient authority for such a mode of foreshowing the future, for Marbodus thus transcribes the precepts of some antique magus, though giving the Diadochus (simply mentioned by Pliny as resem­bling the Beryl) for the Crystal :—
" If e'er thou seek, where deep the rivers flow, To force the water-sprites the fates to show, Take the Diadochus upon thine hand ; No gem more potent o'er the fiendish band. Within its orb to thine affrighted eyes Shall myriad shapes of summon'd demons rise. But mark ! if brought in contact with a corse, Forthwith the gem shall lose its native force. Like to the Beryl shows the wondrous stone, That dreads the touch of one by death o'erthrown."
This mode of prying into the book of Fate had been established from time immemorial with the ancients. Spar-tean records that Didius Julianus in his despair, "be­sides using unhallowed spells, resorted to what is called divination by the mirror, wherein a boy blindfolded looks, after a charm has been uttered over his head:" adding that the boy descried in this manner the coming of Severus, and the death of Julianus.
Crystallus, Rock-crystal Page of 384 Cyanus, Lazulite
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