'
This conduct endeared him so much to the City, and made him so welcome
at their clubs, that at last he grew sick of their cramming, and endless
invitations.
He now tried a new sphere of action; and instead of returning, as he
might have done, to the court, retreated into the most obscure corners
of the metropolis; and again changing his name and dress, gave himself
out as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to find out
inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible remedies; to know, by
astrology, all the past, and to foretell the future.
If the reign of Charles was justly deemed an age of high civilization,
it was also one of extreme credulity. Unbelief in religion went hand in
hand with blind faith in astrology and witchcraft; in omens,
divinations, and prophecies: neither let us too strongly despise, in
these their foibles, our ancestors. They had many excuses for their
superstitions; and for their fears, false as their hopes, and equally
groundless. The circulation of knowledge was limited: the public
journals, that part of the press to which we now owe inexpressible
gratitude for its general accuracy, its enlarged views, its purity, its
information, was then a meagre statement of dry facts: an announcement,
not a commentary.
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