English—with names that left no doubt: St. John's
Wort, Hedge Hyssop, Celadine, Monkshood,
Rue, Holy Thistle, and the like. Nor were these
the only curiosities in which this strange
warehouse abounded. There were bones shadowed
forth in obscure corners, bones of the elk, skulls
of horses and dogs, a complete skeleton of a cat,
and sundry glass jars containing objects impossible
to identify preserved in spirits. All seemed
jumbled, too, in inextricable confusion, but yet
it is a fact that Mr. Cornelius Vampi knew
perfectly well where to lay his hand upon anything
that he wanted, from the stuffed alligator to the
jar of snails to which his celebrated corn-plaister
was so largely indebted.

But not more different was Mr. Cornelius
Vampi's shop from that of a chemist and
druggist than was Mr. Vampi himself, from the
smug gentleman who has been described above.
He was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a large
abdomen, and the jolliest red face that ever was
seen. It did you good only to see him smile
and to hear the rich loud tones of his jovial voice.
This man had been gifted with a perfectly well-
ordered nature, and all the wheels of his
machinery worked so glibly and so easily, that a
degree of serenity was the result which compelled
him at times—as he once informed an intimate
friend—"to wear a scrubbing-brush next his
skin because he was too happy."

And perhaps it would be a difficult thing to
find a happier man than our friend the herbalist.
Entirely absorbed in a number of occupations,
all to him of surpassing interest, distracted by
these and by the numerous experiments of a
medical sort connected with the herbs in which
he dealt, and in whose virtues he was a profound
believer, applied to continually by the poor
people in this poor neighbourhood for advice in
their ailments, for they all believed in him
implicitly, and got benefit from the very tone of
the man's mind if not from his medicaments,
Mr. Cornelius was occupied every moment of
his life, and that in a manner entirely congenial
to his tastes. Nor was this all. In addition to
his medical studies, there was another kind of
knowledge in the pursuit of which our friend
was even more eager than in hunting out the
hidden virtues of his favourite herbs. Cornelius
Vampi was an astrologer.

Strange as this announcement may appear, it
was nevertheless true that here was a man keeping
a shop in a poor street in the metropolis, and
in the nineteenth century, who was yet a
profound believer in the stars, and in their influence
for good or evil on the lives of his fellow-
citizens.

He had, at the top of that very house of which
the herbalist's shop formed the lower part, a
garret which he had converted into a sort of
observatory, and from which, on clear nights, he
was able to study all the planets, making his
combinations and deductions therefrom entirely
to his own satisfaction. Here, too, and on his
favourite hobby, he had not hesitated to lay out
money. He had got a telescope of very fair
power mounted on a stand, a celestial globe, and
all sorts of expensive instruments, while the
walls were decorated with charts showing the
situations of the heavenly bodies, besides a row
of book-shelves, on which were displayed the
works of Copernicus and Newton cheek-by-jowl
—for Cornelius combined the sciences of
astrology and astronomy—with his favourites
Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa.

All the time that our good friend Vampi
could spare from his shop duties below was
devoted to the prosecution of his favourite
studies in the observatory above. Here he sat
late in the night at work, for he could do with
little sleep, and his herculean strength seemed
to set weariness at defiance. Here he studied
the stars in the interests of those persons—
a much more numerous class than might have
been supposed—who came to consult him as to
their future careers. Here, having once got
the day and hour of the nativities of his different
clients, he was able to ascertain what fortunes
and misfortunes were in store for them, when
and under what circumstances their matrimonial
career was to begin, and how it was likely to
prosper, when danger was to be apprehended,
and when an avalanche of prosperity and happiness.
He would seriously warn one against
going near water on a certain day, for instance,
and would quote his own example as corroborative
of the warning, relating how, on a certain
day, when his own horoscope had foretold that
he should be in danger by water, he had shut
himself up in his room determined not to stir
out of it all day; how he had been sent for at a
certain hour to the shop to attend to a matter
which was beyond the province of his assistant;
how he had in his haste kicked over a pail of
water which was standing on the stairs, and,
being kept some time with no opportunity of
changing his wet shoes and stockings, had
caught an inflammation of the lungs which had
well-nigh finished him. He would tell another,
that on the day after to-morrow he must be on
his guard against the animal creation, which was
dead against him on that day, and would caution
his client not so much as to get into an omnibus,
or cross over the street, or caress a dog or a cat
during the twenty-four hours.

All these predictions and warnings he would
back up by quotations from the horoscope of
the particular individual with whose destiny he
happened to be concerned—quotations couched
in terms wholly unintelligible to the many,
mystifying statements about "Mercury breaking
into the house of Mars," and other jargon of
the craft. Nor did it in the least affect the
reputation of our sage, or diminish his own
confidence in his powers of vaticination, when these
prophecies failed utterly to be fulfilled. For
was it not always possible to say—yes, and to
believe, for Cornelius was an honest man—that
adverse influences had been suddenly brought
to bear, or that his client had, under his direction,
been able so to act as to defeat the malignant
intentions of the inimical planets?

Such was the individual whose ruddy countenance
showed behind the counter of the