It was astronomy that gave rise to judicial astrology, which, offering an ample field to enthusiasm and imposture, was eagerly pursued by many who had no scientific purpose in view. It was connected with various juggling tricks and deceptions, affected an obscure jargon of language, and insinuated itself into every thing in which the hopes and fears of mankind were concerned. The professors of this pretended science were at first generally persons of mean education, in whom low cunning supplied the place of knowledge. Most of them engaged in the empirical practice of physic, and some through the credulity of the times, even arrived at a degree of eminence in it; yet although the whole foundation of their art was folly and deceit, they nevertheless gained many proselytes and dupes, both among the well-informed and the ignorant. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars prevailed in France among people of the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the star-expounder, who read the first lineaments on its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. It has been reported of several persons famous for their astrological skill, that they have suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions. It is curious to observe the shifts to which these wise men were frequently put when their predictions were not verified. Great winds at one time were predicted by a famous adept in the art, but no unusual storms having happened, to save the reputation of the art, the prediction was applied figuratively to some revolutions in the state, of which there were instances enough at that time. The life of the famous Lilly the astrologer, and the Sidrophel of Butler, written by himself, is a curious work, containing much artless narrative, but at the same time, so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the truth. In a sketch of the state of astrology in his day, the adepts whose characters he has drawn were the lowest miscreants of the town. They all, indeed, speak of each other as rogues and impostors; among whom were Booker, George Wharton, and Gadbury, who gained a livelihood by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as 1650 to the 18th century. In Ashmole's life an account of these artful impostors may be read. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows.