by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates--a thought so natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a counter-trick as Galeotti's in _Quentin Durward_ would have been unsafe. [2] The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on the fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made Glendower boast: At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shook like a coward. And Shakespeare showed himself dangerously tainted with freethought in assigning (even to the fiery Hotspur) the reply: So it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born. In a similar vein Butler, in _Hudibras_ ridiculed the folly of those who believe in horoscopes and nativities: As if the planet's first aspect The tender infant did infect In soul and body, and instil All future good and future ill; Which in their dark fatalities lurking, At destined periods fall a-working, And break out, like the hidden seeds Of long diseases, into deeds, In friendships, enmities, and strife. And all th' emergencies of life. [3] Preface to the _Rudolphine Tables_. [4] It is commonly stated that Bacon opposed the Copernican theory because he disliked Gilbert, who had advocated it. 'Bacon,' says one of his editors, 'was too jealous of Gilbert to entertain one moment any doctrine that he advanced.' But, apart from the incredible littleness of mind which this explanation imputes to Bacon, it would also have been an incredible piece of folly on Bacon's part to advocate an inferior theory while a rival was left to support a better theory. Bacon saw clearly enough that men were on their way to the discovery of the true theory, and, so far as in him lay, he indicated how they should proceed in order most readily to reach the truth. It must, then, have been from conviction, not out of mere contradiction, that Bacon declared himself in favour of the Ptolemaic system. In fact, he speaks of the diurnal motion of the earth as 'an opinion which we can demonstrate to be most false;' doubtless having in his thoughts some such arguments as misled Tycho Brahe.