Indeed, the drawers of horoscopes in bygone years had a busy and lucrative time; and one Thurneysser, a famous astrologer, who lived at the electoral Court of Berlin, was at the same time “physician, chemist, drawer of horoscopes, almanack-maker, printer, and librarian.” His reputation was so widespread that scarcely a birth took place in families of any rank in Germany, Poland, Hungary, or England, without his being announced of the precise moment of birth. And it may be remembered how astrologers were consulted on behalf of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII., who had predicted that great good fortune would befall her in 1503; a circumstance to which Sir Thomas More, in an elegy he wrote for the Queen, alludes, at the same time noticing the folly and vanity of such divinations:-- “Yet was I lately promised otherwise This year to live in weal and in delight; Lo! to what cometh all thy blandishing promise, O false astrology and divinitrice, Of God’s secrets vaunting thyself so wise! How true for this year is thy prophecy? The year yet lasteth, and lo! here I lie”-- the Queen dying on her birthday, February 11, 1502-3, the very day when she completed her thirty-seventh year. Another delusion which excited an extensive and long-continued interest was alchemy, and in the splendid Courts of Almansor and Haroun-al-Raschid the professors of the mystic art found “patronage, disciples, and emolument.” Frederick II., in a letter to his friend Baron von de Horst, thus writes concerning the rage of making gold which has deceived so many: “Fredersdorf firmly believed in it, and was soon connected with all the adepts in Potsdam. Speedily the report spread through the whole garrison, so that there was not an ensign who did not hope to pay his debts by means of the philosopher’s stone. Swindling adepts crowded from all quarters, and under all sorts of characters, to Potsdam. From Saxony came a certain Madame von Pfuel with two very handsome daughters, who did the thing in quite a professional style, so that they were considered great prophetesses. I wished to put it down by authority, but I did not succeed. An offer was made to give in my presence every imaginable proof, so that I might convince myself with my own eyes. Considering this the best means to expose the folly, I made this lady alchemist perform her operations under my strict surveillance. To throw gold in the crucibles, or the like clumsy tricks, would not have done; yet Madame von Pfuel gave the affair such a specious appearance that I could not prove any of the experiments to have failed.” Indeed, the most eminent of the alchemic philosophers were not only the companions of princes, but many of them were even kings themselves, who “chose this royal road to wealth and magnificence.”