presbyter et nebulo!
Here in this tomb lies a presbyter and a knave,

had the impudence to assert, that he had predicted Gataker's death! But
the truth is, it was an empty epitaph to the "Lodgings to let:" it stood
empty, reader, for the first passenger that the immortal ferryman should
carry over the Styx.

But hear that arch imposter Old Patridge of more modern date whose
_gulleries_ appear to have no end. "The practice of astrology is divided
into speculative and theoretical." (Astronomy and judicial astrology).
The first teaches us how to know the stars and planets, and to find
their places and motions. The second directs us to the knowledge of the
influence and operations of the stars and planets upon sublunary bodies,
and without this last the former is of little use. Astronomy cannot
direct and inform us of the secret influences and operations of the
stars and planets, without the assistance of' the _most sublime_ art of
astrology. For astronomy is conversant about the subject of this art,
and doth furnish the astrologer with matter whereon to exercise his
judgment, but astrology disposes this matter into predictions, or
rational conjectures, as time and occasion require.

"The practice again is subdivided into two parts, or quadripartite, as
Ptolomy (lib. 2) declares: the first considers the general state of the
world, and from eclipses and comets, great conjunctions, annual
revolutions, quarterly ingressions and lunations, also the rising,
culminating, and setting of the fixed stars, together with the
configurations of the planets both to the sun and among themselves,
judgment is deduced, and the astrologer doth frame his annual
predictions of all sensitive and vegetative things lying in the air,
earth, or water; of plague, plenty, dearth, mutations of the air, wars,
peace, and other general accidents of countries, provinces, cities, etc.

"The second of these subdivided parts, in particular, respects only the
private state of every single man and woman, which must be performed
from the scheme of the nativity, the knowledge of which is of most
excellent use to all persons. Therefore let the nativities of children
be diligently observed for the future, that is to say, the day, hour,
and minute of birth as near as can be, which will be of use to the
astrological physician, for the most principal conjecture of the
malignity of the disease, whether it be curable, or shall end with
death, depends upon the kno