ASTROLOGY. 
c>73 
?vlRrcus Antoninus, the art received great accessions from Piolenjy, 
Under Gordian, Censorinus wrote his tract De Die Natali, which, though 
treating manily on astrology, is valuable for much collateral informa- 
tion aft'orded by it. Vossius is perhaps a partial witness, for he him- 
self was a philomath. “It is a little book of goki,’^ he says in one 
-place, {De Scient. Math. 34.): and in another, “ It is a most learned 
work, and of the highest use and importance to chronologers, since 
it corrects, and determines with great exactness, some principal aeras 
in pagan history.” 
In the eighth century, the venerable Bede and his distinguished 
scholar Alenin, are said to have pursued this mystic study; in that 
immediately following, the Arabians revived and encouraged it; and 
under the patronage of Alcuaimam, the Miramolin, in the year 827, 
Ptolemy’s work was translated, under the title of Almagest, by Al 
Hazen ben Yusseph. Albumasar added to this work, and the astral 
science continued to receive new force ftom the labours of Alpagarius, 
Ebemozophin, Alfaragius, and Geber. 
The wise Alonzo of Castile has immortalized himself by his scien- 
tific researches ; and the Jewish and Christian doctors, who arranged 
the tables which pass under his name, were convened from all the 
accessible parts of civilized Europe. Five years were employed in 
their discussion : and it has been said, that the enormous sum of 
400,000 ducats was disbursed in the taverns of the alcazar of Galiana, 
in the adjustment and correction of Ptolemy’s calculations, Nor was 
it only the physical motions of the stars which occuj)ied this grave 
assembly. The two cabalistic volumes, yet existing in cipher in the 
royal library of the king of Spain, and which tradition assigns to the 
hand of Alonzo himself, betoken a more visionary study ; and in spite 
of the denunciations against his orthodoxy, which were thundered in 
his ears on the authority of Tertullian, Basil, and Bonaventure, the 
fearless monarch gave his sanction to such masters as practised 
truly the art of divination by the stars ; and in one part of his code, 
enrolled astrology among the seven liberaKsciences. 
Of the early progress of astrology in England, little is known. 
Bede and Alcuin we have already mentioned as addicted to this study. 
Roger Bacon could scarcely escape either the contagion of the art, or 
the imputation of it, if in truth he was incredulous; and his impri- 
sonment was owing to one or the other of these causes. It was 
the period of the Stuarts, which must be considered as the acme of 
astrology among us: then Lilly drank the doctrine of the magical 
circle, and the invocation of spirits, from the Ars Notoria of Cornelius 
Agrippa, and used the form of prayer prescribed therein to the 
angel Salmonaeus, and entertained among his familiar acquaintance 
the guardian spirits of England, Salinael and Malchidael : Merlin 
Anglicus, 16,4'^. His ill success with the divining rod induced him 
to surrender the pursuit of rhabdomancy, in which he first engaged ; 
though he still persevered in asserting’, and the assertion is not among 
the lowest proofs of his shrewdness, that the operation demanded 
secrecy, and intelligence of the agents, and, above all, a strong faith, 
and a competent knowledge of their work. — The Dean ofWestminster 
had given him permission to search for treasure in the cloister.ofthe 
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