t conjuration would be required before going forth, to make sure that one should find for sale some rare book, or other object desired,at a very moderate price. Therefore the invocation has been so worded asto make it applicable to literary finds; but those who wish to buy anythingwhatever on equally favorable terms, have but to vary the request, retaining the introduction, in which the magic virtue consists. I cannot, however, resist the conviction that this is most applicable to, and willsucceed best with, researches for objects of antiquity, scholarship, and art, and it should accordingly be deeply impressed on the memory of everybric-a-brac hunter and bibliographer. It should be observed, and that earnestly, that the prayer, far from being answered, will turn to the contrary or misfortune, unless the one who repeats it does so in fullestfaith, and this cannot be acquired by merely saying to oneself, "I believe." For to acquire real faith in anything requires long andserious mental discipline, there being, in fact, no subject which is sogenerally spoken of and so little understood. Here indeed, I am speakingseriously, for the man who can train his faith to actually believe in and cultivate or develop his will can really work what the world by common consent regards as miracles. A time will come when this principlewill form not only the basis of all education, but also that of all moraland social culture. I have, I trust, fully set it forth in a workentitled "Have you a Strong Will? or how to Develop it or any other Faculty or Attribute of the Mind, and render it Habitual,"&c. London: George Redway. The reader, however, who has devout faith, can, as the witches declare,apply this spell daily before going forth to procuring or obtaining any kind of bargains at shops, to picking up or discovering lost objects, or,in fact, to finds of any kind. If he incline to beauty in female form, hewill meet with bonnes fortunes; if a man...
