evil demons rulers of the respective planets, or by the Spirits of the Firmanent and the Air. A mythology this may more properly be called than a theory; and it would belong rather to the history of Manicheism than of medicine, were it not that in all ages fanaticism and imposture have, in greater or less degree, connected themselves with the art of healing.

But however dignified, or super-celestial the theoretical causes of disease, its effect is always the same in bringing home, even to the proudest heart, a sense of mortal weakness: whereas the belief which places man in relation with the Stars, and links his petty concerns and fortunes of a day with the movements of the heavenly bodies, and the great chain of events, tends to exalt him in his own conceit. The thriftless man in middle or low life who says, in common phrase, that he was born under a threepenny planet, and therefore shall never be worth a groat, finds some satisfaction in imputing his unprosperity to the Stars, and casting upon them the blame which he ought to take upon himself. In vain did an old Almanack-maker say to such men of the Creator, in a better strain than was often attained by the professors of his craft.

He made the Stars to be an aid unto us,
Not (as is fondly dream'd) to help undo us;
Much less without our fault to ruinate

By doom of irrecoverable Fate.
And if our best endeavours use we will,
These glorious Creatures will be helpful still
In all our honest ways: for they do stand
To help, not hinder us, in God's command,
Who doth not only rule them by his powers
But makes their glory servant unto ours.
Be wise in Him, and if just cause there be
The Sun and Moon shall stand and wait on thee.

On the other hand the lucky adventurer proceeds with superstitious confidence in his Fortune; and the ambitious in many instances have devoted themselves, or been deceived to their own destruction. It is found accordingly that the professors of astrology generally in their private practice addressed themselves to the cupidity or the vanity of those by whom they were employed. Honest professors there were who framed their schemes

faithfully upon their own rules; but the greater number were those who consulted their own advantage only, and these men being well acquainted with human nature in its ordinary character, always took this course. Their character has changed as little as human nature itself in the course of two thousand years since Ennius expressed his contempt for them, in a passage preserved by Cicero.

Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem, Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos, Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somnium. Non enim sunt ii aut scientia aut arte, divini, Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque harioli, Aut inertes, aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat : Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam. Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam ipsi petunt. De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam, reddant cætera. Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar were each assured by the Chaldeans that he should die in his own house, in prosperity, and in a good old age. Cicero tells us this upon his own knowledge: Quam multa ego Pompeio, quam multa Crasso, quam multa huic ipsi Cæsari à Chaldeis dicta memini, neminem eorum nisi senectute, nisi

domi, nisi cum claritate esse moriturum ! ut mihi permirum videatur, quemquam extare, qui etiam nunc credat iis, quorum prædicta quotidie videat re et eventis refelli.

And before the age of Ennius, Euripides had in the person of Tiresias shewn how surely any such profession, if the professor believed in his own art, must lead to martyrdom, or falsehood. When the blind old Prophet turns away from Creon, he says, in words worthy of Milton's favourite poet,

Τὰ μὲν παρ ̓ ἡμῶν πάντ ̓ ἔχεις· ἡγοῦ, τέκνον,
Πρὸς οἶκον· ὅστις δ ̓ ἐμπύρῳ χρῆται τέχνῃ,
Μάταιος· ἦν μὲν ἐχθρὰ σημήνας τύχῃ,
Πικρὸς καθέστηχ ̓, οἷς ἂν οἰωνοσκοπῇ,
Ψευδῆ δ ̓ ὑπ ̓ οἴκτου τοῖσι χρωμένοις λέγων,
̓Αδικεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν. Φοῖβον ἀνθρώποις μόνον
Χρῆν θεσπιωδεῖν, ὃς δέδοικεν οὐδένα.

The sagacity of the poet will be seen by those who are versed in the history of the Old Testament; and for those who are not versed in it, the sooner they cease to be ignorant in what so nearly concerns them, the better it may be for themselves.

Jeremy Taylor says that he reproves those who practised judicial astrology, and pretended to deliver genethliacal predictions, "not because their reason is against religion, for certainly, said he, it cannot be; but because they have not reason enough in what they say; they go upon weak principles which they cannot prove; they reduce them to practice by impossible mediums; they argue about things with which they have little conversation. Although the art may be very lawful if the stars were upon the earth, or the men were in heaven, if they had skill in what they profess, and reason in all their pretences, and after all that their principles were certain, and that the stars did really signify future events, and that those events were not overruled by every thing in heaven and in earth, by God, and by our own will and wisdom, -yet because here is so little reason and less certainty, and nothing but confidence and illusion, therefore it is that religion permits them not; and it is not the reason in this art that is against