Lactantius utterly condemn it. Gregory, Ambrose, and Severianus inveigh against it. The Council of Toledo utterly abandon and prohibit it. In the Synod of Martinus, and by Gregory the younger, and Alexander the third, it was anathematized and punished by the civil Laws of the Emperors. Among the ancient Romans it was prohibited by Tiberius, Vitellius, Dioclesian, Constantin, Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, ejected also, and punish'd. By Justinian made a capital crime, as may appear in his Codex."

He pleasantly observes of astrologers that, while undertaking to reveal to others the most obscure and hidden secrets abroad, they at the same know not what happens in their own houses and in their own chambers; and he quotes the epigram in which even such an astrologer as More laughed at them

"The Stars, ethereal Bard, to thee shine clear,
And all our future Fates thou mak'st appear.
But that thy Wife is common all Men know,
Yet what all see, there's not a Star doth show.
Saturn is blinde, or some long Journey gone,
Not able to discern an Infant from a Stone.
The Moon is fair, and as she's fair she's chast,
And wont behold thy wife so leudly embrac't,
Europa Jove, Mars Venus, she Mars courts,
With Daphne Sol, with Hirce Hermes sports.
Thus while the Stars their wanton Love pursue,
No wonder, Cuckold, they'll not tell thee true."

Under the year 1570 Strype records: "And because the welfare of the Nation did so much depend upon the Queen's Marriage, it seems some were employed secretly by calculating her Nativity, to enquire into her Marriage. For which Art even Secretary Cecil himself had some opinion by I have met among his Papers with such a Judgement made, written all with his own hand."

The superstitious follower of the planetary houses is animadverted upon by Thomas Lodge, in his Incarnate Devils (1596), thus: “And he is so busie in finding out the Houses of the Planets that at last he is either faine to house himselfe in an Hospitall, or take up his Inne in a Prison." Again—

"His name is Curiositie, who, not content with the Studies of Profite and the practice of commendable Sciences, setteth his mind wholie on Astrologie, Negromancie, and Magicke. This Divel prefers an Ephimerides before Bible; and his Ptolemey and Hali before Ambrose, golden Chrisostome, or S. Augustine promise him a Familier, and he will take a Flie in a Box for good paiment." "He will shew you the Devill in a Christal, calculate the Nativite of his gelding, talke of nothing but Gold and Silver, Elixir, Calcination. Augmentation, Citrination, Commentation; and, swearing to enrich the Worki in a Month, he is not able to buy himself a new Cloake in a whole year. Such a Divell I knewe in my daies, that, having sold all his Land in England to the benefite of the Coosener, went to Andwerpe with protestation to enrich Monsieur the King's Brother of France, le feu Roy Harie I meane; and, missing his purpose, died miserably in spight at Hermes in Flushing."

Of Desperation we learn

"He persuades the Merchant not to traffique, because it is given him in his Nativity to have losse by Sea; and not to lend, least he never receive again."

Hall, in his Virgidemiarum, writes

"Thou damned Mock-Art, and thou brain-sick Tale
Of old Astrologie

"Some doting Gossip 'mongst the Chaldee wives
Did to the credulous world thee first derive :
And Superstition nurs'd thee ever sence,

And publisht in profounder Arts pretence:
That now, who pares his Nailes, or libs his Swine,
But he must first take counsell of the Signe."

In Browne's Map of the Microcosme (1642) we read-

"Surely all Astrologers are Erra Pater's Disciples, and the Divel's Professors, telling their opinions in spurious ænigmatical doubtful Tearmes, like the Oracle at Delphos. What a blind Dotage and shamelesse Impudence is in these men, who pretend to know more than Saints and Angels! Can they read other Men's fates by those glorious Characters the Starres, being ignorant of their owne? Qui sibi nescius, cui præscius? Thracias the sooth-sayer, in the nine years drought of Egypt, came to Busiris the Tyrant and told him that Jupiter's wrath might bee expiated by sacrificing the blood of a stranger: the Tyrant asked him whether he was a stranger: he told him he was.

"Thou, quoth Busiris, shalt that Stranger bee,
Whose blood shall wet our soyle by Destinie.'

"If all were served so, we should have none that would relye so confidently on the falshood of their Ephemerides, and in some manner shake off all divine providence, making themselves equal to God, between whom and Man the greatest difference is taken away, if Man should foreknow future events."

A passage in Fuller's Good Thoughts in bad Times (1669) runs in this wise

"Lord, hereafter I will admire thee more and fear Astrologers lesse: not affrighted with their doleful predictions of Dearth and Drought, collected from the Collections of the Planets. Must the Earth of necessity be sad, because some ill-natured Star is sullen? As if the Grass could not grow without asking it leave. Whereas thy power, which made Herbs before the Stars, can preserve them without their propitious, yea, against their malignant aspects.

In The Character of a Quack Astrologer (1673) an elaborate portrait of the professor of the art is presented

"First, he gravely inquires the business, and by subtle Questions pumps out certain particulars which he treasures up in his memory; next, he consults is old rusty Clock, which has got a trick of lying as fast as its master, and muses you for a Quarter of an Hour with scrawling out the all-revealing Figure, and placing the Planets in their respective Pues; all which being disbatch'd you must lay down your Money on his Book, as you do the Wedding Tees to the Parson at the Delivery of the Ring; for 'tis a fundamental Axiome n his Art that without crossing his hand with Silver no Scheme can be adical: then he begins to tell you back your own Tale, in other Language, nd you take that for Divination which is but Repetition."

Again

"His groundlesse Guesses he calls Resolves, and compels the Stars (like Knights o' th' Post) to depose things they know no more than the Man i' th' Moon: as if Hell were accessary to all the cheating Tricks Hell inspires him with."

And

"He impairs God's Universal Monarchy by making the Stars sole keepers of the Liberties of the sublunary World, and, not content they should domineer over Naturals, will needs promote their Tyranny in things artificial too, asserting that all Manufactures receive good or ill Fortunes and Qualities from some particular radix, and therefore elects a Time for stuing of Pruins, and chuses a Pisspot by its horoscope. Nothing pusles him more than fatal Necessity: he is loth to deny it, yet dares not justify it, and therefore prudently banishes it his Theory, but hugs it in his Practice, yet knows not how to avoid the Horns of that excellent Dilemma, propounded by a most ingenious modern Poet

"If Fate be not, how shall we ought fore-see,

Or how shall we avoid it, if it be?

If by Free-will in our own Paths we move,
How are we bounded by Decrees above?'”

Werenfels, in his Dissertation upon Superstition, observes of the superstitious man—

"He will be more afraid of the Constellation-Fires than the flame of his next Neighbour's House. He will not open a Vein till he has asked leave of the Planets. He will avoid the Sea whenever Mars is in the middle of Heaven, lest that warrior God, should stir up Pirates against him. In Taurus he will plant his Trees, that this Sign, which the Astrologers are pleased to call fix'd, may fasten them deeper in the Earth. He will make use of no Herbs but such as are gathered in the planetary Hour. Against any sort of misfortune he will arm himself with a Ring, to which he has fixed the benevolent aspect of the Stars, and the lucky hour that was just at the instant of flying away, but which, by a wonderful nimbleness, he has seized and detained."

"Where," inquires Gaule, "is the Source and Root of the superstition of vain Observation, and the more superstitious Ominations thereupon to be found, save in those Arts and Speculations that teach to observe Creatures, Images, Figures, Signes, and Accidents, for constellational and (as they call them) second Stars; and so to ominate and presage upon them, either as touching themselves, or others, as namely, to observe dayes for lucky or unlucky, either to travail, sail, fight, build, marry, plant, sow, buy, sell or begin any businesse in ?" Sir Aston Cokain's Poems (1658) contain the following quip for the astrologers

70. To Astrologers.

"Your Industry to you the Art hath given

To have great knowledge in th' outside of Heaven:
Beware lest you abuse that Art, and sin,
And therefore never visit it within."

"Astrology," says the Courtier's Calling (1675), "imagines to read in the Constellations, as in a large Book, every thing that shall come to pass here

below; and figuring to itself admirable Rencounters from the Aspects and Conjunctions of the Planets, it draws from thence consequences as remote from Truth as the Stars themselves are from the Earth. I confess I have ever esteemed this Science vain and ridiculous: for, indeed, it must either be true or false; if true, that which it predicts is infallible and inevitable, and consequently unuseful to be foreknown. But, if it is false, as it may easily be evinced to be, would not a Man of sense be blamed to apply his minde to, and lose his time in, the study thereof? It ought to be the occupation of a shallow Braine that feeds itself with chimerical Fancies, or of an Impostor who makes a mystery of every thing which he understands not, for to deceive Women and credulous people."

Sheridan's Persius gives some particulars respecting horoscopes as understood by the ancients. The ascendant, he explains, they took to be that part of the heavens which arises in the east at the moment of the child's birth; and this, containing thirty degrees, was called the First House. In this point the astrologers observed the position of the celestial constellations, the planets, and the fixed stars; placing the planets and the signs of the zodiac in a figure which they divided into twelve houses, representing the whole circumference of the heavens. Of these the first, by some called the horoscope, was Angulus Orientis, which showed the form and complexion of the newly-born infant; and all the others similarly had their several significations. In casting nativities they held that every man's Genius was the companion of his horoscope, and tempered it; whence was derived that mental union and friendship to be observed among some. In Plutarch's Life of Antony this bond of sympathy between the genii of Antony and Octavius is indicated.

Dallaway represents that with the Turks astrology is a favourite folly. According to Ulugh-bey, the most esteemed of the very numerous treatises thereon, the 13th, 14th, and 15th days of each month are the most propitious; and the Ruz-nameh has its three unlucky days, to which little attention is paid by the better sort. A chief astrologer is attached to the Court of the Sultan, and is consulted by the council on State emergencies. Dallaway relates that, when the treaty of peace was about to be signed at Kainargi in 1774, this functionary was required to name the hour most auspicious for that ceremony. The Vizier's Court swarms with such impostors; to whom, however, was popularly ascribed the credit of having predicted the great Fire of Constantinople in 1782. Their reputation was somewhat imperilled by their failure to foretell an insurrection of the Janissaries, but it was saved by the circumstance of the same word signifying both insurrection and fire. It may now be considered rather as a State expedient to consult the astrologer, observes our author, that the enthusiasm of the army may be fed, and subordination maintained by the prognostication of victory.

Astrologers, it need hardly be added, form an important part of the households of all Oriental potentates.

CHIROMANCY, OR DIVINATION BY PALMISTRY OR LINES
OF THE HAND.

In Indagine's Book of Palmistry and Physiognomy translated by Fabian Withers in 1656 there is a great waste of words on this ridiculous subject. The lines in the palm of the hand are distinguished by formal names, such as the table line or line of fortune; the line of life or of the heart; the middle natural line; the line of the liver; the line of the stomach, and the like; the triangle, and the quadrangle. The thumb and fingers too have "hills" assigned to them, from the summits of which these manual diviners pretended they had a prospect of futurity. The reader will smile at the name and etymon given in this treatise to the little finger. It is called the ear-finger, we are instructed, because it is commonly used to clean the ears; which surely is a testimony to the indelicacy of our ancestors.

Chiromancy, writes Agrippa in his Vanity of Sciences, "fancies seven Mountains in the palm of a Man's Hand, according to the number of the seven Planets; and, by the Lines which are there to be seen, judges of the Complexion, Condition, and Fortune of the person; imagining the harmonious disposition of the Lines to be, as it were, certain cælestial Characters stampt upon us by God and Nature, and which, as Job saith, God imprinted or put in the Hands of Men that so every one might know his works; though it be plain that the divine author doth not there treat of vain Chiromancy, but of the liberty of the Will." He gives a Catalogue of authors of distinction who have written on this Science falsely so called; but, explaining that none of them have been able to go beyond conjecture and the observation derived from experience, he decides: "Now that there is no certainty in these Conjectures and Observations is manifest from thence, because they are Figments grounded upon the Will, and about which the Masters thereof of equal learning and authority do very much differ."

Mason (1612) speaks of "vaine and frivolous Devices, of which sort we have an infinite number also used amongst us, as namely in Palmistry, where Men's Fortunes are tolde by looking on the palmes of the hande;" and in Newton's Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe (1602), under breaches of the eighth commandment, it is inquired whether the Governors of the Commonwealth "have suffered Palmesters, FortuneTellers, Stage-Players, Sawce-boxes, Enterluders, Puppit-players, Loyterers, Vagabonds, Landleapers, and such like cozening MakeShifts to practise their cogging Tricks and rogish Trades within the circuite of their authoritie, and to deceive the simple people with their vile forgerie and palterie." The phrase "Governors of the Commonwealth" probably means justices of the peace.

Ferrand in his Love Melancholy (1640) pronounces that "this Art of Chiromancy hath been so strangely infected with Superstition, Deceit, Cheating, and (if I durst say so) with Magic also; that the Canonists, and of late years Pope Sixtus Quintus, have been constrained utterly to condemn it. So that now no Man professeth publickely this cheating Art, but Theeves, Rogues, and beggarly