nlucky hour of birth, to promote to places of honour and profit, and to
be of potent efficacy in matters of commerce and matrimony. The German
soldiers, in the dark and superstitious ages, believed that if the
figure of Mars, cast and engraved under the sign of the Scorpion, were
worn about the neck, it would render them invulnerable, and insure
success to their military enterprises--hence the reason why amulets were
then found upon every soldier, either killed in battle or taken
prisoner.

We shall so far conclude these observations on the chimera of astrology
and medicine with the following remarks in the words of Chamber against
Knight's work,[79] which defends this fanciful science, if science it may
be called. "It demonstrates nothing while it defends every thing. It
confutes, according to Knight's own ideas: it alleges a few scattered
facts in favour of astrological productions, which may be picked up in
that immensity of fabling which disgraces history. He strenuously
denies, or ridicules, what the greatest writers have said of this
fanciful art, while he lays great stress on some passages from obscure
authors, or what is worse, from authors of no authority."--The most
pleasant part, however, is at the close where he defends the art from
the objections of Mr. Chamber by recrimination. Chamber had enriched
himself by medical practice, and when he charges the astrologers by
merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches
fire, and shews by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art by
its professors attempting to subsist, or for the objections which may be
raised against its vital principles, we ought by this argument most
heartily to despise the medical science, and medical men; he gives all
here he can collect against physic and physicians, and from the
confessions of Galen and Hippocrates, Avicenna and Agrippa, medicine is
made to appear a vainer science than even astrology itself.

Lilly's opinions, and his pretended science, were such favourites of
the age, that the learned Gataker[80] wrote professedly against this
popular delusion. At the head of his star-expounding friends, Lilly not
only formally replied to, but persecuted Gataker annually in his
predictions, and even struck at his ghost, when beyond the grave.
Gataker died in July 1654, and Lilly, having written in his almanack for
that year, for the month of August, the following barbarous latin line--

Hoc in tumbo, jacet