thought, that if virtue would appear to the world in her own native drefs, all men would be enamoured with her. But now, fince intereft governs the world, and men neglect the golden mean, Jupi ter himself, if he came on the earth, would be defpifed, unless it were, as he did to Danae, in a golden fhower: for men nowa-days worship the rifing fun, and not the fetting.

Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos.

Thus have I, in obedience to your commands, ventured to expofe myself to cenfure in this critical age. Whether I have done right to my fubject, muft be left to the judgment of the learned reader however, I cannot but hope, that my attempting of it may be an encouragement for fome able pen to perform it with more fuccefs.

PRE

FOR

The YEAR 1708..

Wherein the month, and day of the month are fet down, the perfons named, and the great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they will come to pafs.

Written to prevent the people of England from being farther impofed on by vulgar almanack-makers. By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Efq.

I

HAVE long confidered the grofs abufe of aftrology in this kingdom, and upon debating the matter with myfelf, I could not poffibly lay the fault upon the art, but upon thofe grofs impoftors, who fet up to be the artifts. I know feveral learned men haye contended, that the whole is a cheat; that it is abfurd and ridiculous to imagine, the ftars can have any influence at all upon human actions, thoughts, or inclinations; and whoever hath not bent his ftudies that way, may be excused for thinking fo, when he fees in how wretched a manner that noble art is treated by a few mean illiterate traders

between

between us and the ftars; who import a yearly stock of nonfenfe, lyes, folly, and impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine from the planets, though they defcend from no greater a heighth than their own brains.

I intend in a fhort time to publish a large and rational defence of this art, and therefore fhall fay no more in its juftification at prefent, than that it hath been in all ages defended by many learned men, and among the reft by Socrates himself, whom I look upon as undoubtedly the wifeft of uninspired mortals: to which if we add, that those who have condemned this art, though otherwife learned, having been fuch as either did not apply their ftudies this way, or at least did not fucceed in their applications; their teftimony will not be of much weight to its difadvantage, fince they are liable to the common objection of condemning what they did not understand.

Nor am I at all offended, or do I think it an injury to the art, when I fee the common dealers in it, the ftudents in aftrology, the philomaths, and the reft of that tribe,

treat

treated by wife men with the utmost scorn and contempt; but I rather wonder, when I obferve gentlemen in the country, rich enough to ferve the nation in parliament, poring in Patridge's almanack to find out the events of the year at home and abroad; not daring to propose a huntingmatch, till Gadbury or he have fixed the weather.

་

I will allow either of the two I have mentioned, or any other of the fraternity, to be not only aftrologers, but conjurers too, if I do not produce a hundred inftances in all their almanacks to convince any reasonable man, that they do not so much as underftand common grammar and fyntax; that they are not able to fpell any word out of the usual road, nor even in their prefaces to write common sense or intelligible english. Then for their obfervations and predictions, they are fuch as will equally fuit any age or country in the world. This month a certain great perfon will be threatened with death or fickness. This the news-papers will tell them; for there we find at the end of the year, that no month paffes

without the death of fome person of note; and it would be hard, if it fhould be otherwise, when there are at least two thousand perfons of note in this kingdom, many of them old, and the almanackmaker has the liberty of chufing the ficklieft feafon of the year, where he may fix his prediction. Again, this month an eminent clergyman will be preferred; of which there may be fome hundreds, half of them with one foot in the grave. Then, fuch a planet in fuch a houfe fhews great machinations, plots and confpiracies, that may in time be brought to light after which, if we hear of any discovery, the aftrologer gets the honour; if not, his prediction ftill ftands good. And at laft, God preferve king William from all his open and fecret enemies, amen. When if the king fhould happen to have died, the aftrologer plainly foretold it; otherwife it paffeth but for the pious ejaculation of a loyal fubject: though it unluckily happened in fome of their almanacks, that poor king William was prayed for many months after he was dead, because it fell

:

out,