adore this Star, and taketh notice thereof by voice and sternutation; until we be better assured of its verity, we shall not salve the sympathy. Secondly, What slender opinion the Ancients held of the efficacy of this Star, is declarable from their compute. For as _Geminus_ affirmeth, and _Petavius_ his learned Commentator proveth, they began their account from its Heliacal emersion, and not its cosmical ascent. [SN: _What the Cosmical._] The cosmical ascention of a Star we term that, when it ariseth together with the Sun, or the same degree of the Ecliptick wherein the Sun abideth: [SN: _What the Heliacal ascent of Star is._] and that the Heliacal, when a Star which before for the vicinity of the Sun was not visible, being further removed, beginning to appear. For the annual motion of the Sun from West to East being far swifter then that of the fixed Stars, he must of necessity leave them on the East while he hasteneth forward, and obscureth others to the West: and so the Moon who performs its motion swifter then the Sun (as may be observed in their Conjunctions and Eclipses) gets Eastward out of his raies; and appears when the Sun is set. If therefore the Dog-star had this effectual heat which is ascribed unto it, it would afford best evidence thereof, and the season would be most fervent, when it ariseth in the probablest place of its activity, that is, the cosmical ascent; for therein it ariseth with the Sun, and is included in the same irradiation. But the time observed by the Ancients was long after this ascent, and in the Heliacal emersion; when it becomes at greatest distance from the Sun, neither rising with it nor near it. And therefore had they conceived any more then a bare signality in this Star, or ascribed the heat of the season therunto, they would not have computed from its Heliacal ascent, which was of inferiour efficacy; nor imputed the vehemency of heat unto those points wherein it was more remiss, and where with less probability they might make out its action.