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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
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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.
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