Supposed Origin of Astrology—Butler on the Transmission of Astrological Knowledge—Remarks on Astrology by Hervey—Petrarch’s Opinion of Astrology—Catherine of Medicis—Casting of Nativities in England—Moore’s Almanack—Writers for and against Astrology—Horoscope of Prince Frederick of Denmark—Astrologers contributed sometimes to realize their own Predictions—Caracalla.

Astrology has been divided into natural and judiciary, or judicial; but it is only the latter division which will come under present consideration, and its definition has been said to be the art of foretelling future events, from the aspects, positions, and influences of the heavenly bodies.

The idea that they should have any influence, direct or indirect, on our actions in this nether world, or that they obliged us to the performance of any act, however extraordinary, may have been originally supposed, by those who were familiar with the figurative language of the Prophets, to receive confirmation from the facts, and the style of the predictions, recorded in sacred history. They would find, for instance, that the Star in the East was foretold, which at its coming was to announce peace and goodwill towards men; and the later and more solemn revelations, concerning the final consummation of all things, typified that awful event by signal appearances in the heavens.

Traditionary knowledge of these events and predictions, coupled with ignorance of the causes of meteorological phenomena, now better understood, might easily lead the timid and superstitious to forebode evil, from the disastrous twilight of the eclipse, or to impute a favouring influence to the rising of certain stars at particular seasons. The universal custom of traversing the deserts, or navigating ships across the pathless ocean, by the observation of the stars, previously to the discovery of the compass, led the imaginative to conceive, that the moral path of life was equally to be regulated by astral indications. It must be owned, too, that it was not unnatural for simple unreasoning minds thus to connect the glorious sun, the moon, when walking in brightness, queen of heaven, and the host of stars, with the destinies of man.

Fear, it is said, first deified the ancient heroes. It was a storm and an eclipse that first consecrated Romulus; nor had Jupiter himself been master of heaven, or worshipped on earth, if the terrors of his thunders had not advanced the conceit of his divinity. It is quite certain that, by degrees, a system was formed, which took hold of the imaginations of all classes of persons; and the truth of such a doctrine, and its decisions, it was heretical to doubt. J. Butler, one of the devout believers in astrology, far from thinking it a remnant of Pagan superstition, calls it a divine science. He pretended, with many others, “that Adam, after his fall, communicated it out of his memories of the state of innocency, to Seth. He in his turn made impressions of the same in certain permanent pillars, able to withstand fire and water, by which means the science passed to Enoch and Noah. Shem was instructed by his father, and communicated his knowledge to Abraham, who carried it into Chaldea and Egypt. Moses, ‘skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians,’ was also thought to have been an able astrologer.”

Thus was the vanity of the more modern professors of the art encouraged, and they maintained that the heavens were one great volume, wherein God had written the history; and, of course, it was to be understood, that the astrologers were the high-priests, who alone could expound its mysterious pages.

The author of the “Contemplations on the Starry Heavens” has, with great propriety, made the following remarks on this science:—“The pretenders to judicial astrology talk of I know not what mysterious efficacy, in the different aspects of the stars, or the various conjunction and opposition of the planets. Let those who are unacquainted with the sure word of revelation give ear to these sons of delusion and dealers in deceit. For my own part, it is a question of indifference to me, whether the constellations shone with smiles, or lowered in frowns, on the hour of my nativity. Can these bodies advertise me of future events, which are unconscious of their own existence?”

In the time of Petrarch, though astrologers had great credit, that learned man only laughed at their pretensions. Of one of them, in particular, he says, “The astrologer was older and wiser than I was; I loved him, and should have been still more attached to him if he had not been an astrologer. I sometimes joked, and sometimes reproached him, about his profession. One day, when I had been sharper than usual with him, he replied, with a sigh, ‘Friend, you are in the right; I think as you do, but I have a wife and children.’ This answer touched me so much, that I never spoke to him again on that subject.”

Queen Catherine of Medicis, though a woman of strong mind, was deluded with the more ignorant, by the vanity of astrological judgments; the professors of the science were so much consulted in her court, that the most inconsiderable act was not to be done without an appeal to the stars.

In England, William Lilly, John Gadbury, and others, set up for prophets; and nativities were cast for all who could afford to pay for the privilege of searching into futurity. It was but natural that the inquirers should have to reward such intelligence in proportion to the distance it was brought, or its flattering nature; events, however, soon proved it to be far-fetched and nothing worth.

The volumes of tiresome absurdity, written on this subject, about the beginning and middle of the seventeenth century, would exceed present belief; and nothing but a thorough though unaccountable conviction, in their readers, that they spoke the language of truth, could have ever made the perusal of them tolerable.

Moore’s “Prophetic Almanack,” with its astrological predictions and “hieroglyphic for the year,” is the only legacy left to us of this species of composition and imposition. It would be beneath the dignity of such a philosopher to be guilty of a pun; though the more irreverent of his readers might naturally have suspected him of such an intention, when, a few years since, he prophesied that, “Towards the close of the year Turkey will be much embroiled.”

Some writers, in the more fortunate era of astrology, ventured to impugn the truth of the doctrine, and to ridicule its professors, particularly in the persons of Lilly and Gadbury, who retorted with acrimonious and arrogant vulgarity. Further curiosity on this subject may be gratified, by turning to such works as “Supernatural Sights and Apparitions, seen in London by William Lilly;” or the reply to it, “Black Monday turned White, or a Whip at Star-gazers.”

One of the opposers of this science argued, naturally enough, that God had assigned the stars their site and course, which no power of man or angel was able to alter; but man’s fancy had built us imaginary houses in the heavens, to which were attached such qualifications, affections, &c., as the framers pleased.

These houses were twelve in number; in one or other of which, according to the hour and season of the person’s birth, did he take his position, as pointed out in the horoscope. An outline of a general horoscope is annexed, and, in explanation of it, Mr. William Lilly is pleased to say, “When I speak of the tenth house, I intend somewhat of kings or persons represented by that house, which is also called medium coeli, the mid-heaven; when mention is made of the first house, ascendant or horoscope, I intend the commonalty in general. Dic et eris mihi magnus Apollo.”

Mr. Gadbury, also, in the nativity cast for the illustrious Prince Frederick of Denmark, informs us, that “It is an aphorism nearly as old as astrology itself, that if the lord of the ascendant of a revolution be essentially well placed, it declares the native to be pleasant, healthful, and of a sound constitution of body, and rich in quiet of mind all that year; and that he shall be free from cares, perturbations, and troubles. The nativity of Frederick Prince of Denmark, astrologically performed by John Gadbury, 1660.”

It often happened, with regard to the responses given by the oracles, that they in some measure corresponded with the subsequent events; in like manner did the astrological casters of nativities seem to have their presumptuous pretensions verified by after circumstances. Caracalla lost his life by seeking to preserve it from supposed treachery; for, while in Mesopotamia, being jealous of a plot against him, he sent to the Roman astrologers for the particulars of it. They accused Macrinus, his faithful prefect, of a conspiracy, which nothing but his death could frustrate. This answer coming while the emperor was intent on some sport, he gave it to Macrinus to read; who, finding his innocent life in danger by this trick of the astrologers, secured it by the murder of Caracalla, of which, even in thought, he had before been innocent; though the result proved the apparent truth of the prediction of the astrologers.

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