firm Teeth to his dying day that in his old age he should go almost crooked and double but he went to the last upright and straight as any young man whoever that in the 19 th year of his life he should become exceeding rich by inheriting a strangers estate but besides what his Father left him he never had any wealth or estate that he should suffer by the treachery of his Brethren and again in the 37 th year be wounded by his own Mothers Son but he never had any Brother nor had his Father more than one Wife that he should marry a Forreigner but he married a French Woman of Salona that in the 27 th year he should be charged with a Eastard Son but no Man ever heard of that that in the 25 th he should be overwhelmed with the Theological Doctrine of some of his Tutors and that he should be so addicted to Natural Philosophy and the secrets of Magick as no man more as also to Geometry and Arithmetick in an extraordinary manner when yet it is well known he never had any particular affection to or care of any of those Studies but entirely devoted himself to the knowledge of the Laws of which Nostradamus never dreamt nor of the Dignity of a Senator which in that respect was worthily conferred upon him at Aix in the 25 th of his age that in his old age he should apply himself to Navigation and Musick but he never delighted much in Musick nor was ever at Sea in his whole Life that he should not pass the 75 th year but he passed not the 54 th of which Nostradamus said not a word And these things I am the more particular in to the end that Men may judge what credit is to be given to such predictions We must allow that some one thing of those many that Astrologers presage may perchance come to pass now and then and yet for all that it is free for us to continue our opinion that those Events have other Causes to depend upon than such as justify Astrology One is Fortune or meer Chance For when they tumble out so many judgements concerning Future Events no wonder if one or two of them hit right No Man as the old Proverb is who shoots all day but he may somtimes come neer the mark Gamesters playing at Dice usually in a few throwes cast In and In. Why therefore may not our Gamesters playing with the Stars among a thousand predictions light upon one true one Old Women Children and Fools somtimes foretell truth and why should not Astrologers have the same luck But you 'l say that others make their predictions hap at a venture but Astrologers from the Rules of Art We grant it but yet those Rules were made by meer Chance at random without convincing reasons and change them how you please still they shall pretend to premonstrate the same Events Will you have an illustrious Example hereof Cardan in his Geniture had Saturn in the 21. degree of Gemini which yet according to the Rudolphine Tables was in the 18 th degree Mercury in 23. of Libra which was in the 26 th and so of the Moon and the other Planets Now if Events ought to be predicted from the true places of the Planets and yet those predicted from the false places come to pass as certainly you may plainly perceive that it matters not in what places soever the Planets be whatsoever be predicted Again Cardan somtimes mistakes the places of the Planets not only by a few degrees but even by whole Signes For Example in the Geniture of his dear Freind John Cheek He mistook the true place of Mars by more than one whole Signe Will you have somthing yet more worthy the wonder Tycho Brahe lib. de nov Stella p. 777. tell'us that both Cardan and Gauricus enquired into the Fortune and Manners of Martin Luther by calculating his Nativity which both of them fixed upon the 22. of October but differed about the year Cardan taking the year M C C C C L X X X I I I. and Gauricus the next year following Cardan took also the hour of Ten at Night and Gauricus the hour of one after-noon when the true hour was Eleven And that you may not think they were in the right as to the day of the Moneth I assure you they both missed it by 19. dayes for He was born upon the tenth of November being the Eve to St Martins day from whom he took his name as Tycho sets it down out of Eberus Now I beseech you how great variety was there of the Heavens in so different Scheams and neither of them neer the truth and yet the Accommodation of the Events forsooth must be convenient Can you choose but think this whole Artifice to be a meer Delusion a Toy more vain than the Canting of common Rogues and Gypsies as they call them Doubtless if meer Chance did not bear all the sway in these matters Astrologers could not either so frequently or so duely be deceived in their Divinations Of Forty things saith Cardan lib. de judic cap. 6. Scarce ten happen right as they are predicted so that you have the Confession of a most Learned Astrologer which the force of truth extorted from him in spight of his confidence And indeed had not too much doting upon the Art bewitched the Man he might more truely have said that of four hundred Predictions scarce one is verified But supposing his supposition to be true that of Forty scarce Ten succeed and it will follow of necessity that Chance hath a main hand in Astrological predictions when the Truth of them is four times less then their falshood I must not omit to advertise you that Cardan himself lib. de Genit much commends that saying of Marlianus Si vis divinare contrarium ad unguem dicito ejus quod Astrologi aut pollicentur aut minitantur if you have an itch to be divining be sure you fore-tell the quite contrary to what Astrologers either promise or threaten For however Cardan would have this to be understood only of unskilfull and ignorant Astrologers yet you may perceive what truth is to be expected from the most learned and diligent of them all among whom he challengeth the Chair to himself nor do the multitude deny him that honour And yet you may find him glorying that he spent a hundred hours about the Geniture of King Edward the Sixth of England which he made the first of twelve eminent Nativities and notwithstanding all that pains and care he predicted nothing less than the Events that befell that worthy Prince For to omitt other things the Records of England assure us that King Edward died in the sixteenth year of his life when he had predicted that he should be very sickly in the 23 24 and 25 th years After which time saith He he shall be afflicted with sundry diseases and Mars being then his Anereta or Regicide he shall dye of a
were by Chaldeans predicted to Pompy to Crassus to Cesar himself and that each of them should not dy but in full old Age but in their own Houses but in peace and undiminished honour And yet how their Fates were violent immature and Tragical So that I cannot but very much wonder how any man living can give credit to their divinations when he cannot but observe that their predictions are falsisied by contrary Events For Modern Sextus ab Heminga hath sufficiently cleared the matter to our hands for having proposed thirty eminent Nativities and reduced them to strict examination according to the best rules of Art he declared that the Experiments did in no wise agree with the rules sad Events befalling such as were born under the most happy and promising positions of the Heavens and good befalling such as the Heavens frowned upon and threatned all the mischief and ruine unto that can be imagined And thereupon concluded that Astrologers when they give judgement of a Nativity are generally the whole Heavens wide of the truth portending things that never come to pass and pretermitting such as do come to pass Let us be contented with one eminent Example All Histories assure us that Henry the third of France died in the fortieth year of his age compleat of an unfortunate wound in his Ey received in Tilting and yet see the prophesy of Gauricus concerning Him in his Prognostication of the Year MDLVI Because in the Scheam of his almost Divine Nativity He had the Sun almost partilely conjoyned to Venus under the degrees of his altitude and also the Moon and Venus advancing through his Horoscope under the Constellation of Aries therefore He shall live most happy and glorious till the seventieth year of his age deducting only two moneths and if by the favour of God He escape the dangerous Tears Sixty three and Sixty four then Semper vivet in terris pientissimus it will be very long before there be an end of his renowned Life Now you 'l say this came very near the truth and yet I could fit you with other Examples of the same Gauricus's predictions that came as neer as Sextus ab Heminga hath exactly noted See likewise the Prediction of Cardan when speaking of the same King Henry He shall be faith he in his old age so much the more happy by how many more difficulties he hath passed through before And how acutely I pray do these famous Prophets foresee those things which are proved by the Event Most admirable indeed they are when they demonstrate that those Events ought to have befallen men in respect of their Genitures which have already befallen them but when they predict that those Events are to come Can any thing be more foolish or indeed more grosly Knavish Observe I beseech you how rightly Cardan predicted the lamentable misfortunes of men that were his dear Friends Cheek of England and Raconet of France and sundry others all whose Nativity Scheams he erected will all possible exactness and afterward printed them I cannot hold from noting that John Rudolphus Camerarius when writing against the foresaid Sextus ab Heminga he had to declare the certainty of Astrologers collected an hundred several Genitures and among them put those of our late King of France Henry the III. and Henry the IV conjoyning also the judgement of Fredericus Rutelius as to Henry the III. the buisiness succeeded accordingly sed Fatum post Fata canebat He foretold his disaster after it had befaln him But as to Henry the IV. who was then living when his Century was published in the year MDCVII nothing was less foretold by him than the time of his Death For though that best of Kings was murdered by a Sacrilegious hand in the year MDCX. and that in the moneth of May our famous Prophet never suspected the least danger to him in that Year or Moneth but cast his Death upon the year MDCXIII and the moneth of October as threatning some eminent danger to his Life in the nine and fiftieth year of his Age nine moneth s and one and twenty dayes he being born on the 24 th of December at two a clock after Midnight in the year MDLIII and that because the Sun would then come by direction to the body of Saturn the Horoscope to a Quartile of the same and the Middle Heaven to a Quartile of the Sun But truely as the Fate of that Prince was deplorable so was the Hariolation ridiculous It will not be amiss for us here to reflect upon somwhat of Michael Nostradamus my own Comprovincial that relates to our present argument for of those so famous Centuries of Tetrastichs composed by him I have another opportunity to speak I shall give you only a tast of the Astrology he made use of and if according to that he failed most shamfully in his predictions I hope we may well beleeve that he was not inspired by any divine spirit or Genius such as might suggest falshoods to him or put lies in his mouth Being some years since at Salona in company with the worthy person Franciscus Bochartius Campinius President of the high Court of Justice in Province and that truly noble Man John Baptista Suffredus Judge of that City I remember Suffredus shewed us the Nativity Scheam of Antonius Suffredus his Father with the judgements thereupon given under Nostradamus his own hand-writing We were much pleased to enquire of him concerning his Father whom he knew well as not dying till his son was almost arrived at Mans estate The Father according to that Scheam was born in the Year MDXLIII on the 13 th of January 22. minutes after high Noon the Altitude of the Pole being supposed to be 44. degrees which is more by the third part of a degree than ought but that is no matter There were no degrees of the Signes inscribed on the Scheam but the bare Signes divided into Houses after the old Chaldean way beginning at Aries pertaining to his Horoscope nor was there any mention of the Five wandering Stars but only of the Sun referred to the second degree of Aquarius and 36. minutes and of the Moon related to the sixth degree of Taurus without any minutes at all Now the Son John Suffredus being not able to give us any account of those Accidents which Nostradamus had fore-told should befall the Father in his Youth as that in the 16 th year of his age he should fall into a dangerous Dysentery or Bloody Flux that he should be invaded with an acute and violent Feaver in the 17 th year of his Life and in the 20 th fall in Love and relinguish his studies c. I shall relate only such as he could more certainly inform us of Among other of the Prophets judgements there are most remarkable That he should wear his Beard long and crisped but he alwayes shaved his Chin bare that in the middle of his age his Teeth should be rotten but he had very white and
Bloody Flux and a violent Feaver Now doth Industry gain the better of Chance or not O if Cardan had the luck to have fore-told that this King should fall into some dangerous Disease in that year wherein he died what Joy what Tryumph what Quacking would there have been among Astrologers and how would the Diviner have magnified himself and his Art Another Cause is the Cunning and underhand Fraud of Astrologers in making their Praedictions For when a Geniture is given them to Divine upon in the first place they take special care to learn out of what Sex what Family what Quality what Country what Course of Life c. the Person is for as Cardan instructeth them without the knowledge of all these particulars no judgement is to be given And what great wonder is it if from the consideration of all these things they chance now and then to fore-tell some Events which may well be suspected not from the precepts of Astrology but from a natural Sagacity or Conjecture according to probabilities Hither-to you may referr the prediction of Ollerius Barcinonensis concerning that Heroical Prince Henry the 4 th of France not long before his inhuman assassination by that Monster a â—oviliack For it is likely enough that Ollerius might have some secret intimation of that bloody designe which both the Kings Orators suspected and some certain Grande'es of Spain insinuated and which a common rumor diffused through Spain for above two moneths together seemed to premonish as I have more largely declared in the Life of Peireskius Again they give their predictions alwayes in the General-indefinitely and like the Devil of Delphos in Amphiboligies and this peece of subtlety they have learned of Ptolomie out of these words in Centiloq Sent. 1. It cannot be that an understanding Artist should predict the particular formes or manners of Accidents as the sence doth not receive the particular but a certain General form of a sensible object and he that deals in matters of Divination ought to use the skill of Conjecturing by probabilities and only those who are inspired by the Divine Spirit can predict Particulars And why should not they be beleeved to come near the mark when they presage some Danger or Death or Favour or Calamity or the like common Accidents from which no man is exempted For who is there to whom some such Accidents do not at some time or other happen Providence having so generally mixed evil and good together in this Life And as for their Amphibologies or ambiguous Answers they contrive them so cunningly as that be the Event what it will still the words shall be capable of intimating it or if they deliver any judgement in plain terms which they seldom do they annex some certain Condition that so if the Event fore-told do not succeed accordingly then they may lay the blame upon the failing of the Condition but if it doth succeed then without regarding the correspondence or disagreement of the Condition they magnify themselves for infallible Prophets Hereupon though when their Divination doth fail they presently alleadge that either the Providence of God or the study of Philosophy or the very premonition it self put an hinderance to the Event designed yet when it succeedeth they mention nothing but their own admirable skill They are wont also to excuse themselves with being afraid of the Anger of Princes if they should plainly and in simple terms predict the Events attending them and yet if there chance to be but the least shadow of the Events predicted then whole Troy is conquered and they boast themselves acquainted with the secrets of Fate And this again is the Cause why they so complicate their Aphorisms as that unless the thing presaged fall out exactly so they lay the fault upon their own incircumspection in omitting the consideration of somthing or other that ought to have been considered in their Calculation of the Nativity proposed that so the Art may still be thought sufficient to make predictions to an hairs breadth Lastly in case any thing succeed which was fore-told that must be done by the exact observation of the rules of Art but if nothing succeed then forsooth they exclame that the buisiness was not done with due exactness that the Scheam ought to be corrected and the Horoscope so removed forward or backward so as that the Effect may be brought at length to quadrate or correspond with their direction And because for the most part one direction being accommodate to the Effect the rest are incongruous therefore their Cunning is such as that they say that the Effect is somtimes either Anticipated or Prorogated by one Year at least wide of the direction But why should I run over all their Frauds and starting holes One remedy will serve against them all and that is to propose a Nativity to one or two of the best of them and when they have studied it as much as they please require them to predict any one particular Event to come in plain terms together with the certain day manner of the accident and other Circumstances and when they have done that see if they will lay a considerable wager that that Event shall succeed accordingly If they accept the condition pray let me go your half if they refuse it you may understand how little confidence they have in their own Art which yet they would impose upon others as divine and infallible The Last Cause is the Ignorance and Stupidity of such as come to consult them about their Fortunes For First there are very few who sufficiently understand what we have more than once inculcated that the iflux of the Heavens is only General and that all particular Effects belong to particular Causes Men generally do not consider that Brute Animals which have their Births Synchronical to those of Infants have yet different fates from those of Men when yet the Stars lookt upon both indifferently And so well conceipted are we of our selves that we suffer our selves to be perswaded that what ever befalleth us certainly the Heavens took care for it and being deluded by this proud credulity we instantly beleeve what ever is told us from the Heavens as somthing ordained and inevitable contributing to our own delusions as if it were not sufficient for us to be subject to the delusions of others Men therefore being commonly possessed with Hope Fear Love Hatred or some other passion interpret all things in favour of that passion and expect that even the Stars should be as much concerned therein as themselves and thus they swell themselves with the Air of Phansy that they may be much greater than indeed they are and of Gnats be taken for Elephants And whether it be good or evil that the Astrologers have predicted to them they scorn to think themselves lyable to so low a thing as Fortune but derive the least grace or injury done them from those sublime and glorious bodies the Stars There is a Tale and it is a
angry Tyrant would set the Dogs upon him Again supposing he did really predict that accident yet can he not be said to have predicted the true manner of his Death because he was not torn by Dogs till after his Death and Astrologers never extend their predictions beyond Death but he intended that he should be torn alive The same may be said of that Astrologer who in the presence of Gâ—leatius Duke of Millain predicted his own Death by the fall of a Beam upon him for to omitt other objections it is manifest there is no Aphorisme or Rule in Astrology so precise as to determine the instrument of Death or define it to be rather a Beam than a Tile or Stone c. But the Common people are wont to note all circumstances with overmuch curiosity and to let no passage escape without referring it to portentous Causes Historians likewise are wont to take less care in relating only what is true than in Setting down Vulgar reports of extraordinary occurrences Will you have a pregnant Example of this A certain Astrologer having predicted that Henry the Seaventh of England a wise Valiant and Fortunate King should dy in such a year the King sent for him and asked him if he could tell in what place himself should be at the next Christmas then neer at hand The Prophet being surprised with this unexpected question stood mute a good while and at length confessed he could not tell Thereupon the King smiling said then my freind I am more skilfull in Divination than you are for I can fore-tell that you shall keep your Christmas in the Tower of London and accordingly commanded him to be sent prisoner thither Nor did the King either dy in the Year predicted or set the Astrologer at liberty again untill a good while after when the heat of his Divining humour had been abated by the Waters of affliction and that was an act of more Clemency in the King than Princes usually shew to such impudent fellows For to pass by other Examples of Astrologers who have drawn suddain Death upon themselves by adventuring to vent Prophesies concerning the Deaths of others we have a memorable one out of the Anthologia of Diophantus the great Astrologer Hermogenem Medicum monet Astrologus Diophantus Vix illum menseis uivere posse novem Qui videns vide ait quid nobis astra minentur Imminet at moneo mors inopina tibi Dixit extendens dextram admovet Diophantus Desperare alium dum jubet ipse perit Hermogenes by Diophantus told He should not live nine Moneths more said my Friend In telling me my Destiny you are bold But trust me your life instantly will end And then he strook him so the Prophet fell While he from Stars anothers Fate did tell If this seem too Ancient we can furnish you with another of fresher date concerning Lucas Gauricus whom we have so often mentioned Could He think you who had sung the fatal Dirge of Johannes Bentivolio Prince of Bononia many years before hand could he I say fore-see and avoid his own untimely and miserable end Historians tell us No but Cardans testimony will do best in this case Gauricus saith he lib. de Genit Was put upon the Rack by the Bentivoglios which was more then he ever fore-saw by the Stars though he might portend the ruine of the Family more from a wise Conjecture of affairs than from Astrology for he was an egregious Sycophant What say you to Cardan himself who though he died at the time when he had predicted he should die starving himself on purpose to verify his prediction as was noted by Scaliger and Thuanus yet as to the time and manner of his eldest Son John Baptista's death he was grosly mistaken Every Learned man who hath perused his preface to Manilius well knows that he delivered sundry prophesies of his Sons Fate but he never premonished that that beloved Son of his should in the 24 th year of his Age loose his head by the stroke of the Hangman for Poisoning his Wife Concerning this sad and infamous Accident Sextus ab Heminga saith most excellently What will the World think when this tragical event shall be told to posterity and all Nations The most prudent most sage and most Learned Hieronymus Cardanus a Physician and Philosopher and Astrologer the most incomparable of the Age he lived in and without doubt the most to be honoured who took care for the education of his Children in Learning and piety and omitted nothing that might conduce to their erudition in knowledge and virtue studying their good as much as was possible For he most exactly described their Fates in those his voluminous Commentaries upon the Quadripartite Work of Ptolomie and expressed all particulars thereof that he might appear to have bin wanting in nothing for them whereunto his utmost providence could extend But unhappy man that he was he all this while never suspected from the Rules of his great Art that his dearest Son should be condemned and have his head strook off upon a Scaffold by an Executioner of Justice for destroying his own Wife by Poyson in the Flower of his Youth nor did he ever predict or mention any the least particular of all that Tragedy And thus Sextus ab Heminga Finally as to what Firmicus exaggerateth concerning the death of Plotinus all I shall say of it is that it is a meer vain Rhetorical aggravation For Porphyrius the disciple of Plotinus doth particularly describe both the nature of his sickness and his constant deportment at his death ensuing thereupon and He was more a Philosopher than to charge his disease and death upon any fiery decrees of the Stars and their fatal influences as Firmicus did afterward Again what did befall Plotinus which is not common and ordinary to all us Mortals and which may not aswell be objected against the memory of many thousand other good and pious men who never wrote against Astrology nor ever thought of it He died of a Consumption and that is caused not by any vindictive judgement of the Stars but by weakness of Constitution derived from ones Parents by ill Air unwholsome nourishment contagion and divers other Causes well known to Physicians That good Man therefore suffered not any punishment for his judicious Book against Astrologers but as he was subject to the common Condition of Mans Nature so did he patiently undergo it Unless you please to allow that the Stars were more to blame for exciting so learned a Person to write against their supposed power or that they altered their former decrees concerning him and contrived a new Fate for him as soon as they sure he durst inveigh against the fooleries and impostures of Astromancers But to add more were a shame Concerning Picus Mirandulanus we may say the very same For it was the tenderness and delicacy of his Constitution his uncessant Studies and exhaustion of his vital vigour by continual writing which took away that illustrious Person out of the World so immaturely and not any malignant influence of incensed Mars Gauricus indeed much insults over him because of his derision of Astrology but may not wise men much more justly inveigh against Gauricus who by reason of his foolish confidence in Astrology brought himself to the torture of the Rack and so was the Cause of his own most miserable Death when Picus Mirandula did nothing but what was honourable and pious nor ever ran into such extravagancie as might occasion his untimely Death But Astrologers foretold his Death precisely as to the time That I deny for observe Picus fulfilled not more than 31. Years of Life and yet Gauricus reporteth that Three eminent Genethliacks had punctually predicted his death before the 36th There is only Bellantius who wrote against him and glorieth that he foretold he should die in the 33 d year from his Birth But if Bellantius came so neer the matter and yet he missed it a whole year and more he might conjecture Picus could not be a long lived man from his weakly constitution continual labours of the mind and other Signes there being nothing more familiar than for men who are no Astrologers to guess that a young Man of a fiery active Genius a pregnant and capacious Soul an over-lively wit and a soon-ripe judgement will not live long and to say of such a one Ostendent terris hunc tantum Fata nec ultrá Esse sinent Though all this while I see no reason why I should more beleeve Bellantius in this point than the rest of that arrogant tribe since they all cry up themselves and boast that they have predicted such and such Events long before they happened when in truth no Man ever heard of those predictions till after the Events But what I have said against Astrologers is enough especially since that Divine witt Picus hath said much more to whose incomparable writings I remit my Reader while I go Study some other Argument of more use to the Commonweal of Learning than Astrology hath ever been And so adieu to both Astrologers and their Art FINIS 1. Caâ—min Ode 11