[ i8s ] 
to the people as ligiials of the weather to he expe6led. 
The form of the year being now the fame in all parts of 
Europe, and pretty accurately adjufted to the motions of 
the heavenly bodies, and the heliacal rifings and fettings 
of the liars, from the different manner of life of our 
country people, not falling fo much under popular ob- 
fervation with us, as they did among the Greeks, they are 
not marked as prognollics in our modern almanacks : and 
this I take to be the reafon, that though the Moon hath 
maintained her reputation amongll us, the influence of 
the fixed liars is funk, as it well deferves, in utter obli- 
vion. Upon the whole I do not deny, that the obfer- 
vant hulbandman will find a variety of ufeful prog- 
nollics in the appearances of the Moon, and the heavenly 
bodies in general; but they will be prognollics of no 
other kind, and for no other reafon (though perhaps lefs 
fallible) than the fputtering erf the oil in the indullrious 
maiden’s lamp, or the excrefcences which gather round 
the wickr^;. They will be fymptoms dellitute of all ef- 
ficient powers. They will Ihew the prefent fate of the 
air, as that on which they depend, not as that which they 
(h) Ne no£lurna quidem carpentes penfa pucllae 
Nefclvere hiemem.; tefta cum ardente viderent 
Scintillare oleum, et putris concrefeere fungos. 
Georglc. lib. I. lln. 390. 
'H jumtHig uyiipuiujat TTEp* 
Nvxjx XOild CTKoJlTtV, uVo 
(xXXole pLVj re icxlx xoa-ftev opapy,., ^ 
’'AXXole uicfatTiv aVo <pKoyei^ wafai 
8cc. Apocr, Aiocrriy^ 
D d 2 
govern, 
