It is very possible and probable, that, at the
outset of his career, he was a real believer in the truth and
lawfulness of his art, and that he afterwards felt no
inclination to part with so pleasant and so profitable a
delusion: like his patron, Cromwell, whose early fanaticism
subsided into hypocrisy, he carefully retained his folly as a
cloak for his knavery. Of his success in deception, the present
narrative exhibits abundant proofs. The number of his dupes was
not confined to the vulgar and illiterate, but included
individuals of real worth and learning, of hostile parties and
sects, who courted his acquaintance and respected his
predictions. His proceedings were deemed of sufficient
importance to be twice made the subject of a parliamentary
inquiry; and even after the Restoration--when a little more
scepticism, if not more wisdom, might have been expected--we
find him examined by a Committee of the House of Commons,
respecting his fore-knowledge of the great fire of London. We
know not whether it 'should more move our anger or our mirth,'
to see an assemblage of British Senators--the cotemporaries of
Hampden and Falkland--of Milton and Clarendon--in an age which
roused into action so many and such mighty energies--gravely
engaged in ascertaining the causes of a great national calamity,
from the prescience of a knavish fortuneteller, and puzzling
their wisdoms to interpret the symbolical flames, which blazed
in the mis-shapen wood-cuts of his oracular publications.
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