Meanwhile, to poor Kaviak it was being plainly demonstrated what an awful fate descended on a person so unlucky as to part with his amulet.

It seemed as if the commandant had much the same as told me he was depending upon the Minute Boys to bring him word of the first sign or sound of danger, and I was nervously afraid lest, by some unlucky chance, I might disappoint him.

In this department of astrology (judicial) we meet with all the idle conceits about the horary reign of planets, the doctrine of horoscopes, the distribution of the houses, the calculation of nativities, fortunes, lucky and unlucky hours, and other ominous fatalities.

CHAPTER XX. CELESTIAL INFLUENCESOMENSCLIMACTERICSPREDOMINATIONSLUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYSEMPIRICS, &C. Astrologers, among other artifices, have used their best endeavours, and employed all the rules of their art, to render those years of our age, which they call climacterics, dangerous and formidable.

Astrologers have also brought under their inspection and controul the days of the year, which they have presumed to divide into lucky and unlucky days; calling even the sacred scriptures, and the common belief of christians, in former ages, to their assistance for this purpose.

The twenty-fourth of February in the Bisextile years was considered so unlucky, that Valentinian (Ammiam.

But we find, in like manner, the same day lucky and unlucky to the same people.

And Valentinian's unlucky day was that on which Charles V, another Roman Emperor, promised himself the best good fortune.

Friday is deemed on unlucky day for engaging in any particular business, and there are few, if any, captains of ships who would sail from any port, on this day of the week for their destination.

This prejudice of lucky and unlucky days has existed at all times and in all nations; but if knowledge and civilization have not removed it, they have at least diminished its influence.

In a Riga journal (Rigaische Stadblatter, No. 3657, anno 1822, edited by M. Sontag) there are several passages relative to a letter from heaven, and which is no other than a catalogue of lucky and unlucky days.

Among the country people this idea is equivalent to the doctrine of fatality; and if they commit faults or even crimes, on the days which are marked as unlucky, they do not consider themselves as guilty, because they were predestined.

These, with a scrupulous adherence to lucky and unlucky days, are the prevailing popular superstitions in the three duchies; a great number of which, especially among the Esthonians, are connected with their ancient mythology.

The piannet, as we call her in the North of England, is the most unlucky of all birds, to see singly at any time; this, however, does not often happen, except a short time during incubation; they either appear in pairs or in families; but even this last appearance is as alarming to our grandmothers.

A belief amongst boys, that to harm or disturb the nests of the redbreast or swallow is unlucky, appears very general throughout the kingdom; and the keen bird-nester, who prides himself on the quantity of eggs blown and strung bead-fashion, here often gets mortified by finding his trophies destroyed by the housewife who considers their presence as affecting the safety of her crokery ware.

But how can you explain such absurdities as Friday being an unlucky day, and the terror of spilling salt, or meeting an old woman? "Poiet.

If you are absolutely persuaded that this is an unlucky day, it is certainly better to go yourself and tell them you have strong reasons for putting off business till another time."

For twenty miles we discoursed about the properties of steam, probabilities of carriages by ditto, till all my science, and more than all, was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping my torment by getting up on the outside, when, getting into Bishops Stortford, my gentleman, spying some farming land, put an unlucky question to me,What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we should have this year?

In an unlucky moment he made bold to lay hold of the parson, but a piece of the broken barriers in the hands of a flat-boatman felled him to the sod, the terrible crowd swept over him, the lariat was cut and the giant parson hurled the tiger upon the buffalo's back.

I had been long afraid of this resolution, and therefore concealed from her some little unlucky adventures that happened in those times when I was left by myself.

On hearing this, Balin went straight to the woman and said, "It is unlucky for you that I have found you to-day.

In 1744, Johnson rolled off from his powerful pen, with as much ease as a thick oak a thunder-shower, the sounding sentences which compose the "Life of Savage," and which shall for ever perpetuate the memory and the tale of that "unlucky rascal."

The well-known line which provoked the ridicule of critics like Juvenal and Quintilian, because of the unlucky jingle peculiarly unpleasant to a Roman ear: "O fortunatam natam me consule Romam!" expresses the sentiment whichrhyme or no rhyme, reason or no reasonhe was continually repeating in some form or other to himself and to every one who would listen.

"Ah! Sire," said the delighted courtier, perfectly unsuspicious of the real meaning of the monarch, "had not the same unlucky disease under which your Majesty is also suffering attacked the Connétable, I should ere this have been a husband.

Speaking strictly, a more unlucky combination of different stylesthe pyramidal façade of Lombard architecture and the long thin lights of German Gothic, for examplea clumsier misuse of ill-appropriated details in the heavy piers of the nave, or a more disastrous adjustment of the monster windows to the main lines of the nave and aisles, could scarcely be imagined.