With that conviction he took up
his abode at Northampton, and remained there for the next thirty-one
years, until he left it for his grave at Lisbon; in fact, he passed at
Northampton the whole of his public life. It must, therefore, be
allowed to stand upon the records of sortilegy, that in the main
direction of his life--not, indeed, as to its spirit, but as to its
form and local connections--a Protestant divine of much merit, and
chiefly in what regards practice, and of the class most opposed to
superstition, took his determining impulse from a variety of the
_Sortes Virgilianae_.
This variety was known in early times to the Jews--as early, indeed, as
the era of the Grecian Pericles, if we are to believe the Talmud. It is
known familiarly to this day amongst Polish Jews, and is called
_Bathcol_, or the _daughter of a voice_; the meaning of which
appellation is this:--The _Urim and Thummim_, or oracle in the
breast-plate of the high priest, spoke directly from God. It was,
therefore, the original or mother-voice. But about the time of
Pericles, that is, exactly one hundred years before the time of
Alexander the Great, the light of prophecy was quenched in Malachi or
Haggai; and the oracular jewels in the breast-plate became
simultaneously dim.
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