of any impreffion, till time has hardened it. And at length death, that grim tyrant, ftops us in the midst of our career. The greatest conquerors have at laft been conquered by death, which spares none, from the fceptre to the spade:

Mors omnibus communis.

All rivers go to the fea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his army, to confider that in less than an hundred years they would be all dead. Anacreon was choaked with a grape-ftone; and violent joy kills as well as violent grief. There is nothing in this world conftant, but inconftancy: yet Plato thought, that, if virtue would appear to the world in her own native dress, all men would be inamoured with her. But now, fince intereft governs the world, and men neglect the golden mean, Jupiter himfelf, if he came on the earth, would be defpifed, unless it were, as he did to Danae, in a golden fhower: for men now-a-days worfhip 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, must be left to the judgment of the learned: 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 pass.

Written to prevent the people of England from being farther imposed on by vulgar almanack

makers.

By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq;

HAVE long confidered the grofs abuse of aftrology in this kingdom, and, upon debating the matter with myself, 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 have contended, that the whole is a cheat; that it is abfurd and ridiculous to imagine the stars can have any influence at all upon human actions, thoughts, or inclinations; and whoever hath not bent his ftudies that way, may be excufed for thinking fo, when he fees in how wretched a manner that noble art is treated by a few mean illiterate traders between us and the ftars; who import a yearly ftock of nonfenfe, lyes, folly, and impertinence,

which they offer to the world as genuine from the planets, though they descend from no greater a height 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 in all ages been defended by many learned men, and among the reft by Socrates himself, whom I look upon as undoubtedly the wifeft of uninfpired mortals: to which if we add, that those who have condemned this art, tho' otherwife learned, hav ing been fuch as either did not apply their ftudies this way, or at leaft 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 rest of that tribe, treated by wife men with the utmost fcorn and contempt; but I rather wonder when I obferve the gentlemen in the country, rich enough to ferve. the nation in parliament, poring in Partridge's almanack to find out the events of the year at home and abroad; not daring to propofe a hunting-match, 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

alma

almanacks to convince any reasonable man, that they do not fo much as understand com-` mon grammar and fyntax that they are not able to spell any word out of the ufual road, nor even in their prefaces to write common fenfe or intelligible english. Then, for their obfervations and predictions, they are such 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 perfon of note: and it would be hard, if it should be otherwife, when there are at least two thousand perfons of note in this kingdom, many of them old, and the almanack-maker has the liberty of chufing the fickliest season 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 house fhews great machinations, plots and confpiracies, that may in time be brought to light: after which, if we hear of any difcovery, the aftrologer gets the honour; if not, his prediction till stands good. And at last, 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 for the pious ejaculation of a loyal fubject; tho it unluckily happened in fome of their alma

nacks,

nacks, that poor king William was prayed for many months after he was dead, because it fell out, that he died about the beginning of the year.

To mention no more of their impertinent predictions, what have we to do with their advertisements about pills and drink for the venereal disease? or their mutual quarrels in verfe and profe of whig and tory, wherewith the ftars have little to do?

Having long obferved and lamented these, and a hundred other abufes of this art too tedious to repeat, I refolved to proceed in a new way, which I doubt not will be to the general fatisfaction of the kingdom: I can this year produce but a fpecimen of what I defign for the future; having employed most part of my time in adjusting and correcting the calculations I made fome years past, because I would offer nothing to the world, of which I am not as fully fatisfied, as that I am now alive. For thefe two laft years I have not failed in above one or two particulars, and thofe of no very great moment. I exactly foretold the mifcarriage at Toulon, with all its particulars, and the lofs of admiral Shovel, though I was mistaken as to the day, placing that accident about thirty-fix hours fooner than it happened; but, upon reviewing my fchemes, I quickly found the cause of that error. I likewife foretold the battle of Almanza to the very day and hour, with the lofs on both fides, and the confequences thereot. All which I fhewed to fome friends many months