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;
But whether that be true or no,
The devil any of you know.
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
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
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 ;
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;
To fwallow gudgeons ere they 're catch'd,
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
« PreviousContinue » |