116 ARTHUR E. SHIPLEY 



the black art. The bench of bishops and the 

 bench of judges alike took part in what seems 

 to us a hideous and wanton brutality. Even 

 so great a writer as Sir Thomas Browne, who 

 tells us, "for the sorrows of others he has quick 

 sympathy," gave evidence against two un- 

 happy women charged before Sir Matthew 

 Hale at Bury St. Edmunds, and his evidence 

 helped to secure their iniquitous conviction. 



Browne, like many of his day, was a firm 

 believer in horoscopes — "I was born in the 

 planetary hour of Saturn and I think I have 

 a piece of that leaden planet in me." He was, 

 however, perhaps a little in advance of some of 

 his contemporaries; at any rate, he recognised 

 that foretellings based on star-gazing do not 

 always "make good." "We deny not the influ- 

 ence of the stars but often suspect the due 

 application thereof." During the civil war, 

 both sides used astrologers and acted on their 

 prognostications; but, on the whole, the firm 

 belief that future events could be foretold by 

 a study of the planetary system was waning. 

 "They" (i.e. the stars) "incline but do not com- 

 pel . . . and so gently incline that a wise man 



