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In all th' affairs of church and state,
'Tis both the balance and the weight:

Then much less can it be without

Divine aftrology made out,

That puts the other down in worth,

As far as heaven's above earth.

These reasons, quoth the knight, I grant

Are fomething more fignificant
Than any that the learned use
Upon this fubject to produce ;
And yet they're far from fatisfactory,
T'establish and keep up your factory.
Th' Egyptians fay, the fun has twice
Shifted his setting and his rife;
Twice has he rifen in the west,
As many times set in the east;

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But whether that be true or no,

The devil any of you know.

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Some hold, the heavens, like a top,

Are kept by circulation up,

And were't not for their wheeling round,
They'd instantly fall to the ground :

As fage Empedocles of old,

And from him modern authors hold.
Plato believ'd the fun and moon

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That in twelve hundred years, and odd,
The fun had left his ancient road,

And nearer to the earth is come,

'Bove fifty thousand miles from home : Swore 'twas a most notorious flam,

And he that had fo little fhame

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To vent fuch fopperies abroad,

Deferv'd to have his rump well claw'd;
Which Monfieur Bodin hearing, fwore
That he deferv'd the rod much more,
That durft upon a truth give doom,
He knew less than the pope of Rome.
Cardan believ❜d great states depend
Upon the tip o' th' bear's tail's end;
That as fhe whisk'd it t'wards the fun,
Strow'd mighty empires up and down ;
Which others fay must need be false,
Because your true bears have no tails.
Some fay, the Zodiac conftellations

Have long fince chang'd their antic stations
Above a fign, and prove the fame

In Taurus now, once in the Ram ;

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Affirm'd the Trigons chop'd and chang'd, 905 The wat❜ry with the fiery rang'd;

Then how can their effects still hold
To be the fame they were of old?

This, tho' the art were true, would make
Our modern foothfayers mistake,

And is one cause they tell more lies,
In figures and nativities,

Than th' old Chaldean conjurers,
în fo many hundred thousand years;
Befide their nonsense in tranflating,
For want of accidence and Latin ;
Like Idus and Calendæ englisht
The quarter days, by skilful linguist ;
And yet with canting, fleight, and cheat,
"Twill ferve their turn to do the feat;
Make fools believe in their foreseeing

Of things before they are in being;

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To fwallow gudgeons ere they 're catch'd,

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And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd;

Make them the constellations prompt,
And give 'em back their own accompt ;
But still the best to him that gives
The best price for 't, or believes.

Some towns, fome cities, fome for brevity,
Have cast the 'verfal world's nativity,
And made the infant ftars confefs,

Like fools or children, what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates.
Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats;
Some running nags, and fighting cocks ;
Some love, trade, lawfuits, and the pox:
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives,
Make oppofition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile ;
As if the planet's first aspect
The tender infant did infect

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