And therefore, as they came from hence,
With us may hold intelligence.

850

Plato deny'd the world can be
Govern'd without geometry,

(For money being the common scale

Of things, by meafure, weight, and tale,
In all th' affairs of church and ftate,
'Tis both the balance and the weight)
Then much lefs can it be without
Divine aftrology made out ;

T

855

And yet they 're far from fatisfactory,
T'establish and keep up your factory.
Th' Egyptians fay, the fun has twice
Shifted his fetting and his rife ;
Twice has he rifen in the west,
As many times fet in the caft;

865

But

And, were 't not for their wheeling round,

They'd inftantly fall to the ground;

As fage Empedocles of old,

And from him modern authors, hold.

875

Plato believ'd the fun and moon

Below all other planets run.

Some Mercury, fome Venus, feat

Above the Sun himself in height.

880

The learned Scaliger complain'd
'Gainst what Copernicus maintain’d,

That, in twelve hundred years and odd,
The fun had left its 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 shame
To vent such fopperies abroad,

Deferv'd to have his rump well claw'd;
Which Monfieur Bodin hearing, swore
That he deferv'd the rod much more,
That durft upon a truth give doom,
He knew lefs than the Pope of Rome.

Ver. 873. And were 't not.] And 'twere not, the four first editions. Altered in edit. 1689.

in

Ver. 894. He knew lefs, &c.] He knew no more,

&c. two firft editions 1664..

Cardan believ'd great ftates depend

895

Upon the tip o' th' Bear's-tail's end,
That, as the whifk'd it towards the fun,
Strow'd mighty empires up and down;

Which others fay muft needs be false,

Because your true bears have no tails.

900

Some fay the Zodiac conftellations

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

In Taurus now, once in the Ram ;'

Affirm the Trigons chopp`d and chang'd,
The watery with the fiery rang'd;

905

Then how can their effects ftill hold

To be the same they were of old? »

This, though the art were true, would make

Our modern foothsayers mistake ;'

910

And is one caufe they tell more lyes,

In figures and nativities,

Than th' old Chaldean conjurers,

In fo many hundred thousand years;
Befide their nonfenfe in tranflating,
For want of Accidence and Latin,

915

Like

Ver. 901.] This and the three following lines inferted 1674. In the first editions of 1664, they ftand thus :

Some fay the stars i' th' Zodiack,

Are more than a whole fign gone back
Since Ptolemy; and prove the fame
In Taurus now, then in the Ram.
S

VOL. I.

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,

920

And count their chickens ere they 're hatch'd;
Make them the conftellations prompt,

925

And give them back their own accompt;

But ftill the beft to him that gives

The best price for 't, or best believes.

Some towns, fome cities, fome, for brevity,
Have caft 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, law-fuits, 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 planets' first aspect
The tender infant did infect
In foul and body, and instil
All future good and future ill;

Which in their dark fatal'ties lurking,
At deftin'd periods fall a-working,

3

That cures or kills a man that is fick :
Marry'd his punctual dose of wives,
Is cuckolded, and breaks, or thrives.
There's but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war;

955

A thief and juftice, fool and knave,

A huffing officer and a flave;

960

A crafty lawyer and pick-pocket,

--A great philofopher and a blockhead;
A formal preacher and a player,
A learn'd phyfician and manflayer:
As if men from the ftars did fuck
Old-age, difeafes, and ill-luck,

965

Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice,

Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice,

And draw, with the firft air they breathe,

Ver. 956. Is cuckolded.] Cookolded, in the two firft. editions of 1664.