in his mind the way whereby he shall come by it; and that surely I had no mind to follow any such fashion; and that, also, the late Duke of Buckingham and others had cast themselves away by too much trust in prophecies, and other jeoparding of themselves, and therefore I would in no wise follow any such way.  He answered, if I would not, it would be long ere I obtained it.  Then I said I believed that well, and if it never came, I trusted to God to live well enough."[664]

Sir George Neville confirmed generally his brother’s story, protesting that they had never intended treason, and that “at no time had he been of counsel” when any treason was thought of.[665]

The wizard himself was next sent for.  The prophecies about the king he denied wholly.  He admitted that he had seen an angel in a dream giving Sir William Neville the shield of the earldom in Warwick Castle, and that he had accompanied the two brothers to Warwick, to examine the tower.  Beyond that, he said that he knew nothing either of them or of their intentions.  He declared himself a good subject, and he would “jeopard his life” to make the philosopher’s stone for the king in twelve months if the king pleased to command him.  He desired “no longer space than twelve months upon silver and twelve and a half upon gold;” to be kept in prison till he had done it; and it would be “better to the King’s Grace than a thousand men."[666]

The result of these examinations does not appear, except it be that the Nevilles were dismissed without punishment; and the story itself may be thought too trifling to have deserved a grave notice.  I see in it, however, an illustration very noticeworthy of the temper which was working in the country.  The suspicion of treason in the Neville family may not have been confirmed, although we see them casting longing looks on the lost inheritance of Warwick; but their confessions betray the visions of impending change, anarchy, and confusion, which were haunting the popular imagination.  A craving after prophecies, a restless eagerness to search into the future by abnormal means, had infected all ranks from the highest to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they appear, are a sure evidence of approaching disorder, for they are an evidence of a present madness which has brought down wisdom to a common level with folly.  At such times, the idlest fancy is more potent with the mind than the soundest arguments of reason.  The understanding abdicates its functions; and men are given over, as if by magic, to the enchantments of insanity.

Phenomena of this eccentric kind always accompany periods of intellectual change.  Most men live and think by habit; and when habit fails them, they are like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course, and have no compass and no celestial charts by which to steer.  In the years which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was the companion of princes—­at the dissolution