abilities
upon me, to bury them under a bushel; for though my education was very
mean, yet, by my continual industry, and God's great mercy, I found
myself capable to go forward with the work, and to commit the issue
thereof unto Divine Providence.

I had a hard task in hand to begin the first part hereof, and much
labour I underwent to methodize it as it is.

I ingenuously confess unto you (Arts' great Mecaenas, noble Esquire
Ashmole,) no mortal man had any share in the composition or ordering of
the first part thereof, but my only self. You are a person of great
reading, yet I well know you never found the least trace thereof in any
author yet extant.

In composing, contriving, ordering, and framing thereof (viz. the first
part) a great part of that year was spent. I again perused all, or most,
authors I had, sometimes adding, at other times diminishing, until at
last I thought it worthy of the press. When I came to frame the second
part thereof, having formerly collected out of many manuscripts, and
exchanged rules with the most able professors I had acquaintance with,
in transcribing those papers for impression, I found, upon a strict
inquisition, those rules were, for the most part, defective; so that
once more I had now a difficult labour to correct their deficiency, to
new rectify them according to art; and lastly, considering the
multiplicity of daily questions propounded unto me, it was as hard a
labour as might be to transcribe the papers themselves with my own hand.
The desire I had to benefit posterity and my country, at last overcame
all difficulties; so that what I could not do in one year, I perfected
early the next year, 1647; and then in that year, viz. 1647, I finished
the third book of[14] nativities,[15] during the composing whereof, for
seven whole weeks, I was shut up of the plague, burying in that time two
maid-servants thereof; yet towards November that year, the Introduction,
called by the name of _Christian Astrology_, was made publick. There
being, in those times, some smart difference between the army and the
Parliament, the head-quarters of the army were at Windsor, whither I was
carried with a coach and four horses, and John Booker with me. We were
welcome thither, and feasted in a garden where General Fairfax lodged.
We were brought to the General, who bid us kindly welcome to Windsor;
and, in effect, said thus much:

[Footnote 14: The name of the person whose nativity is directed