by perusing, at an advanced period of life, some of the astrological tracts devised by men of less cunning, though perhaps more pretence to science, than he himself might boast. Yet the public still continue to swallow these gross impositions, though coming from such unworthy authority. The astrologers embraced different sides of the Civil War, and the king on one side, with the Parliamentary leaders on the other, were both equally curious to know, and eager to believe, what Lilly, Wharton, or Gadbury had discovered from the heavens touching the fortune of the strife. Lilly was a prudent person, contriving with some address to shift the sails of his prophetic bark so as to suit the current of the time, and the gale of fortune. No person could better discover from various omens the course of Charles's misfortunes, so soon as they had come to pass. In the time of the Commonwealth he foresaw the perpetual destruction of the monarchy, and in 1660 this did not prevent his foreseeing the restoration of Charles II. He maintained some credit even among the better classes, for Aubrey and Ashmole both called themselves his friends, being persons extremely credulous, doubtless, respecting the mystic arts. Once a year, too, the astrologers had a public dinner or feast, where the knaves were patronised by the company of such fools as claimed the title of Philomaths--that is, lovers of the mathematics, by which name were still distinguished those who encouraged the pursuit of mystical prescience, the most opposite possible to exact science. Elias Ashmole, the "most honourable Esquire," to whom Lilly's life is dedicated, seldom failed to attend; nay, several men of sense and knowledge honoured this rendezvous. Congreve's picture of a man like Foresight, the dupe of astrology and its sister arts, was then common in society. But the astrologers of the 17th century did not confine themselves to the stars. There was no province of fraud which they did not practise; they were scandalous as panders, and as quacks sold potions for the most unworthy purposes. For such reasons the common people detested the astrologers of the great as cordially as they did the more vulgar witches of their own sphere.