hours he visited his patients, amongst whom might generally be numbered
three-fourths of the population of Padua; at certain hours, his own
mansion was crowded like the audience-hall of some mighty potentate, with
supplicants for food and physic; three evenings in the week were devoted
by him to intense study in his own secret, solitary chamber; and upon the
alternate three, he received the visits of those who desired to consult
him upon abstruse points, only properly to be solved by an acquaintance
with the occult sciences. In brief, my honoured master, I soon discovered,
was reckoned a very fair conjuror; he consulted the stars, drew horoscopes,
cast nativities, was learned in the expositions of dreams and omens,
undertook to give information respecting lost property, and matrimonial
prospects; composed, and dispensed charms and philtres, and proved himself,
as I have hinted, a capital astrologer, and something more. How Sanazio,
who certainly was a very extraordinary man, acquired his multifarious
information, unless really by supernatural agency, I am at a loss to
discover. Ignatius Druso, my fellow student, was of opinion that he only
dexterously availed himself in the evening of the news which he had
gathered from his patients in the morning; and that his familiars were no
more than a few active emissaries, for whose espionage and additional
gleanings of town news, it answered to him well, to pay. Ever partial to
romance, I did not readily fall in with Druso's sober view of this subject,
and the longer I lived with Doctor Sanazio, the more occasion had I to
doubt the correctness of his opinion, because some things occurred of
which my master obtained immediate and accurate knowledge, whilst I am
perfectly certain that no human tongue had divulged them to him; take the
following incident as an example:--Druso and myself were accustomed, on
those evenings which Sanazio spent in his sanctum, to visit patients in
his stead, to range over the town, to go to places of public amusement, or
to conclude our meritorious labours at a tavern. Being one night at this
latter place, an old woman entered, and inquiring whether I were Master