In Mason’s “Anatomie of Sorcerie” (1612), the prevailing notions on this subject were characterized as vain speculations of the astrologers, having neither foundation in God’s word nor yet natural reason to support them, but being grounded only upon the superstitious imagination of men. A work of 1620, entitled “Melton’s Astrologaster,” says that the Christian faith is violated when, like a pagan and apostate, any man “doth observe those days which are called _Egyptiaci_, or the calends of January, or any month, day, time, or year, either to travel, marry or do anything in.” And the learned Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” published in 1658, declaimed in quaint but forcible language against the frivolity of such doctrines. II. ROMAN SUPERSTITION CONCERNING DAYS The Romans had their _dies fasti_, corresponding to the modern court days in England. On such days, of which there were thirty-eight in the year, it was lawful for the prætor to administer justice and to pronounce the three words, _Do, dico, addico_, “I give laws, declare right, and adjudge losses.” The days on which the courts were not held were called _nefasti_ (from _ne_ and _fari_), because the three words could not then be legally spoken by the prætor. But these days came to be regarded as unlucky, a fact rendered evident by an expression of Horace. The Romans also classed as unfortunate the days immediately following the calends, nones, and ides of each month. Unlucky days were termed _dies atri_, because they were marked in the calendar with black charcoal, the lucky ones being indicated by means of white chalk. There were also days which were thought especially favorable for martial operations, but the anniversary of a national misfortune was considered very inauspicious. Thus after the defeat of the Romans by the Gauls under Brennus on the banks of the river Allia, July 16, 390 B. C., that date was given a prominent place among the black days of the calendar. But not every general was influenced by such superstitions. Lucullus, when an attempt was made to dissuade him from attacking Tigranes, king of Armenia (whom he defeated B. C. 69), because upon that date the Cimbri had vanquished a Roman army, replied, “_I_ will make it a day of _good_ omen for the Romans.”[412] The Roman ladies, we are told, gave less heed to the unlucky days of their own calendar than to the works of Egyptian astrologers, among whom Petosiris was their favorite authority, when they wished to ascertain the proper day, and even the hour, for the performance of household and other duties.[413] Horace (book ii. ode xiii.) thus apostrophizes a tree, by whose fall he narrowly escaped being crushed at Sabinum: “Thou cursed tree! whoever he was that first planted thee did it surely on an unlucky day, and with a sacrilegious hand.”