THE EPITAPH. "Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back, A cobbler, starmonger, and quack, Who to the stars, in pure good-will, Does to his best look upward still. Weep, all ye customers, that use His pills, or almanacs, or shoes; And you that did your fortunes seek, Step to his grave but once a week. This earth, which bears his body's print, You'll find has so much virtue in't, That I durst pawn my ear 'twill tell Whate'er concerns you full as well, In physic, stolen goods, or love, As he himself could when above." THE BROTHERS SIBLY.--EBENEZER SIBLY, M.D., F.R.C.P., ASTROLOGER, ETC. Here also may be mentioned the once famous _Dr. Ebenezer Sibly_, the physician and astrologer, and his brother Manoah, who by turns was shoemaker, shorthand reporter, and preacher of the "heavenly doctrines" of the New Jerusalem Church. However great a figure these men may have made in their day, they have managed to drop so completely out of notice that no encyclopædia, biographical dictionary, or magazine[123] the writer has met with contains any account of them. They are said to have been born in Bristol, and to have been brought up to the gentle craft.[124] The first edition of Ebenezer Sibly's "Astrological Astronomy" was published in 1789, in three vols. 8vo, and was entitled "Astronomy and Elementary Philosophy," being a translation of Placidus de Titus. The various editions of this work contain a collection of remarkable nativities, and among them Sibly includes that of Thomas Chatterton, "the marvellous boy" of Bristol.[125] Of course the astrologer sees in the horoscope of Chatterton sure signs of remarkable genius. Sibly was frequently consulted both for astrological and medical purposes, the two professions, astrology and medicine, being regarded as having a certain necessary relation. At all events, it answered the purposes of men like Sibly and Partridge to associate them in their practice. Human credulity dies hard, the race of fools seems to be endowed with wondrous vitality; even as late as 1826 Sibly's "Celestial Science of Astrology," in two bulky 4to vols., was published in a twelfth edition, and at that time there must have been many readers of his costly works[126] on the "Occult Sciences, comprehending the Art of Foretelling Future Events and Contingencies by the Aspect and Influences of the Heavenly Bodies." This work was accompanied by a key to physic and the occult sciences. "Many of my readers," says the author of "Crispin Anecdotes," "otherwise indebted to Dr. Sibly, may remember his solar and lunar tinctures, and may probably have experienced their efficacy in transmuting gold coin into AURUM POTABILE!" In his astrological works and his edition of "Culpepper's Herbal," Sibly signs himself "M.D.," "Fellow of the Royal Harmonic Philosophical Society at Paris," "Member of the Royal College of Physicians in Aberdeen," etc., etc.