SIDROPHEL VAPVLANS OR THE Quack-Astrologer Toss'd in a BLANKET By the AUTHOR of Medicaster Medicatus In an Epistle to W m S n. With a Postscript Reflecting briefly on his late Scurrilous Libel against the Royal College of Physicians Entituled A Rebuke to the Authors of a Blue Book By the same Hand Astrologi Genus hominum potentibus infidum sperantibus fallax Tacit. Hist lib. 1. By these Fables Astrologers Live Cheat and Get Money Indeed no Generation of Men are more Pernicious to a Commonwealth C. Agrippa There are more Empirical Impostors more Idiots Illiterate Cheats pretending to Astrology in this your Royal City than of any other sort not only Seducing but Ruining many of your Majesty's poor Subjects Dr. Ramsey 's Ded. of his Tract de Ven. 1661. LONDON Printed and Sold by John Nutt near Stationers-Hall 1699. To the Honourable and Learned COLLEGE of PHYSICIANS and Worshipful SOCIETY of SURGEONS London Learned and Wortly Gentlemen HEalth is not only the Felicity and Interest of every individual Man in a Body Politick but of the whole Community because Diseases and Hurts by disabling Private Persons from Publick Service do weaken and infeeble the Common-wealth It 's therefore a great wonder that in this Age of Regulation and Amendment nothing is done to rectifie the notorious Abuses and secure us from the Mischief done by those Men who without Skill or Authority under pretence of restoring and conserving do destroy Mens Lives and Estates and more especially at such a time when the Nation is in need of both for its Defence and Preservation Reformation is a Name we are very fond of and a Work we seem to be alway doing But when will it be done We have lately gained a new Law to secure Apothecaries from being Scavengers Is there not more need of one to keep Shooemakers from turning Doctors and Moon-Prophets What else means the bleating of those Sheep in our Ears If the Body Politick consist of many Natural ones the Conservation of the one is the Maintenance of the other and that 's beyond a Cobler's Last Why then should Impudent Ignorant Quacks and Empiricks Smiths Weavers 3 Hen. 8. c. 11. Coblers Draymen Women c. boldly and accustomably take upon them great Cures and Things of great Difficulty In the which thy partly use Sorcery and Witchcraft partly apply such Medicines unto the Disease as be very noyous and nothing meet therefore to the high Displeasure of God great Infamy to the Faculty and the grievous Hurt Damage and Destruction of many of the King's Liege People most especially of them that cannot discern the uncunning from the cunning And yet notwithstanding this Publick Declaration by a Statute Law of this Nation these Impostors as if they were Paramount to all Law Superior to the Supreme or Tyrants cum Privilegio do with Impunity Defraud Men not only of Health and Wealth but Limb and Life too And this not only in the Country but in our Metropolis in the Face of the Government and of You whose Province it is if any Bodies to Suppress such Pernicious and Destructive Vermin Gentlemen It plainly appears by Several Statute Laws of the Kingdom and the Royal Grants of Kings and Queens of England that you do not want sufficient Authority for this Good Work and I am sure you cannot want Skill and Learning enough to Alarm the Nation against them to Baffle and Expose them to the World in their true Colours that People may see in what Hands they trust their Lives It 's your Duty and your Interest so to do It 's a Noble Work to remove those Nuisances though the Subject of your Censure be vile as the Person is whom I have now in hand yet the Undertaking is Generous and worthy of You. Hercules thought it a besitting Labour to cleanse Augeas's Stables Justice is not disparaged by Sentencing the vilest Malefactor to the Gallows The Good atchieved to the Publick by any Act hallows it And thus may present Undertaking becomes worthy of your Patronage and Imitation and I presume to crave both For beside the Common Injury Empiricks do to Mankind in general they have a particular spight against you which they spare not to discover on all occasions Culpeper in one Breath Sentenced a whole College of your most Learned Predecessors and King James their Patron to the Devil And this his Zany not only commends but imitates him affronting you to the Queen in a Dedication of that Book wherein he abuseth me to the Reader and in many other Rude Libels I am therefore obliged to him for giving me such good Company and shall be quit with him anon He hath indeed a peculiar Merit in him which ought to be regarded he is an Astrologer as well as an Empirick and that 's a Composition which Poysons both Body and Soul cheats Men not only of their Money and Health but of their Loyalty too whereby he becomes obnoxious to the Government more ways than one and ought to be Chastised by them with a Whip in the House of Correction as well as by us in the Press These Astrological Quacks do not only Reproach Libel and Rail at you but Usurp your Office contrary to Law taking upon them to Reform the Settled Rules Methods and Medicaments and give Encouragement to all sorts of Empiricks and Quack-salvers So that the Faculty is in danger of being overthrown and the Nation subjected to all those inconveniences which the want of Able Physicians and the multiplying Cheating Mountebanks can introduce I know what I am to expect from these Men for giving them this Disturbance it 's like stirring a Nest of Wasps and accordingly I expect all the Mountebanks and Astrologers in the Nation will fall on me for they like Swine if you take one by the Ears the whole Herd will squeal and gruntle at him who doth it He that tosseth a Whelp in a Blanket must expect much noise and a filthy stink And of this I am the more assured because the fear of it only hath made this Hocus extract the Quintescence or Powers of Billingsgate and Bedlam and throw it in my Face But these Foresights do not discourage nor damp me at all If I serve Truth and the Publick I gain my Point let the Quacks and Astrological Impostors Rail on and fling Dirt as fast as they can If I but continue in the Favour and Reputation I am Honour'd with by you none of it will stick upon Your most Humble Servant James Younge TO THE READER YOU cannot but think me induced by some very extraordinary Motive to so mean an Employment as that of Censuring an Author so Futile and a Book so Contemptible as an Astrologer and his Almanack But no meanness of Person or Book ought to exempt him or them from Chastisement when faulty And that he whom I have taken to task is highly such will appear in the following Examen where beside the Mischief this sort of Men do the Nation
while yet he obtrudes ill Company on that Glorious Army and thrusts among them such odious and despicable Celebrations as that of a Quack's Nativity But their greatest similitude lyeth in a Hieroglyphical Prophecy against the Throne and Church of England published many Years since by the one and now inculcated to the World by the other It 's true that since he heard how his contempt of the Royal Martyr in his former Almanacks and those Prophetick Emblems were two faulty things I took notice of He hath laboured to put a sham Interpretation upon the one and amend the other by noting on the 30th of January K. Ch. I. Dec. that is beheaded or Executed as Lilly and the rest of that Tribe used to word it which is next to saying nothing or worse His Democratical Hieroglyphick pretends to contain the future State of England for an Hundred Years beginning 1650. half of which being past and gone his future Tense is become Preterimperfect and he fatum post fata canebat foretels things already come to pass which every Fool can do But Folly apart Let us examine the Knavery of this Emblematical Withcraft and I think the expired part will make a Key to that which is yet unfulfilled Mark then It begins with an Executioner and his Sword bloody others cutting down Royal Oak Trees and a Crown over not on a Man's Head another lying dead as in State and upon him a Scepter Sword and three Crowns then comes a Crowned Draggon with a Scepter in his right Claw It 's easie to unriddle the meaning of all this being in plain Hieroglyphical English the Murther of King Charles and Cromwell the Dragon assuming the Government What follows resembles the Transactions and Accidents of those Times But the Sting is in the Tail and doth not yet appear although a Man with half an Eye may see the meaning of it Mauger the Varnish he would gloss it and delude us withal The Catastrophe or part to come of this Tragical Business is a Magnificent Palace before whose Gates lie several dead Dogs Wolves and other Beasts of Prey with their Heads separated from their Bodies These I take to be Courtiers turn'd out of White-Hall and Murthered at its Gate as King Charles was Then appears an Assembly of Men sitting in an House like a State-House three of them in long Robes over the Head of one written PAX of another LEX and of the third GREX not a word of REX Then appear Men undermining the Foundations of many Famous Churches some of which fall others are falling Then appears a Man pulling a Surplice over a Bishop's Ears There 's Episcopacy and the Church gone at a dash Then you see a great Imperial Crown broken into pieces and with it many other little Crowns and Coronets there 's Monarchy and Nobility mumbled Then the Swords are beaten into Plow-Shears and the Spears into Pruning-Hooks and all ends with Victory and Triumph over Monarchy Episcopacy and Nobility And then Hey Boys up go we For to what purpose else can it be that this is so Yearly published and repeated but to Influence Peoples Minds in this Nation so long famous for being deluded by Prophecies with an Opinion that the Crown Mitre and Coronet are by Heaven destin'd to Destruction and consequently must be submitted to if not promoted That the People of this Nation have been often drawn into Rebellion by such bantering Devices and Dreams of Astrologers is abundantly reported by our Historians out of whom anon you shall have numerous Instances It was to these Deluders that Wales owed that Lamentable Ruin it suffered in the days of Hen. IV. and to them we are not a little indebted for the Miserie 's this Kingdom hath suffered within few Years before the Date or Commencement of this Prophetick Emblem by which Sidrophel seems to be carrying on the Tragedy his Predecessors began The fall of Churches the divesting of Bishops and breaking in pieces the Imperial Crown of England for there 's the Scene too plainly tell us what he would be at And to make the unfulfilled part the more credible he cunningly orders it so that the first is already verified and come to pass This Device or Banter he borrowed from or wrote in imitation of that Arch-Impostor and false Fortune-teller W. Lilly who at the end of a Pestilent Pamphlet which he calls Monarchy or no Monarchy in England written 1651. gives such Prognosticating Pictures as those published by Sidrophel There 's the Mob Assassinating Gown-Men some Bishops and Episcopal Clergy tumbling down Pulpits and all Others of them lying prostrate on the ground there are three Crowus and a Coronet turn'd upside down there are his Twins and Dragons flaming Towns Fleets Graves dead Corps lean Cattle Streams of Blood a red Sea of green Blood and all the Scare-crow Bugbear Emblems of future Vengeance on the Church Throne and Nobility which he had Predicted in that lying Book after the thing had come to pass I call it a lying Book on many accounts One of which is very notorious and remarkable for though it were written to Predict the final Extirpation of Monarchy from the Murther of King Charles the Martyr P. 62. there is a Prophecy in it that within Fifty Years of that time a King Henry of this Nation should Conquer France and that he should be twice Crowned This Merlinus Liberatus takes notice of in his Almanack 1692. as a Prophecy to be perform'd by K. William Be that true I am sure the Prophet was false For how could there be no more Kings in England and yet a King of this Nation within Fifty Years after the fatal Period of Monarchy among us atchieve so mighty a thing But his Pen was like his Name nothing but Lyes and so is Sidrophel's too Their Hieroglyphicks are alike their Designs seem to have the like Tendency Date Commencement and Catastrophe And the Authors alike a couple of Canting Deluders and false Prophets who I hope and pray may be alike mistaken and confounded and our Government in Church and State abide for ever Amen Although an Astrologer or an Almanack-maker be a thing odious enough to the wise part of the Nation by the Falsities and Delusions they yearly put upon them yet forasmuch as all Men are not enough sensible thereof and many that are so do yet encourage the Cheat to wicked purposes I will undertake to undeceive the one and expose the other by a brief Censure of Astrology and setting it in such a Light as any Man with half an Eye may see through it and discern the Vanity and Falseness thereof and the Wickedness of those who Practise and Profess it particularly Sidrophel whom I will here expose as an Astrologer and hereafter as a Quack in a second part of Medicaster Medicatus In doing which I shall not meddle with all the trifling and sottish Fancies which the Brains of Astrologers fertil in Fiction have conceived of the Stars and those
49. lib. 18. c. 23. lib 30. c. 1 2. Picus Lord of Mirandula a Man of high Birth and great Learning whom Scaliger call'd the Monster of his Age and Naudaeus the Phoenix of all great Wits wrote 200 Years since 12 such Invincible Books against Astrology as not only purchased him the Name of Flagellum Astrologorum but so muzled them all that not one hath appeared able to Answer him He proves Astrology to be an Art invented by the Devil abolisheth all Religion Philosophy Physick Law c. of great mischief to Mankind destroys the use of Faith lessens the Reverence of Miracles destroyes Divine Providence Patronizeth Sin excuseth Vice as coming from Heaven defiles and subverts all good Arts translating the causes of things from Reason to Fables abrogating all Rules of Human Providence c. Page 183. Sir Tho. More makes his Eutopians despise and laugh at them R. Ã Castro tells us he was the Author of that Lampoon against them Astratibi AEthereo pandunt c. C. Agrippa treats them with great Scorn and Derision and exposeth their Art as a Delusion and great Cheat. My Lord Bacon Chancellour of England not inferior to the best of these for Learning saith That Astrology hath no grounds Inslaur Mag. lib. 3. c. 4. page 3. and Essay 35. Essay l. 1. c. 4. nor soundness and such as Practise it no Honesty or Sense Their Persons are despicable saith he but their Practices dangerous They are Impostors who have done great Mischief and therefore so many Laws have been made to suppress them M. Montaigne that Noble French Author tells us The Art ought to be abhorred by all good Christians having done much Mischief though in it self as insignificant as a Dream The Learned K. James saith Daemonolog l. 1. c. 5. Verit. Relig l. 4. Judicial Astrology is learnt in the Devil's School An Art not lawful to Practise or be trusted in by Christians having no ground of Natural Reason Both the Scaligers Prodigies of Learning writ against it The Father against Cardan and the Son calls it a Practice without Foundation contrary to Religion and Philosophy c. Praef. Molin Argenis l. 2. So saith the Famous J. Barclay H. Grotius whose greatest Enemies Mr. Baxter and Dr. Owen allowed to be Wise above the pitch of Human Nature and incomparable in all Human Learning derides Astrology as an Art without agreeing Rules having nothing in it certain but uncertainty Ludovicus Vives on St. August Civit. Dei our Learned Savil in his Notes on Tacitus and others call it an Art that teacheth Knaves to cheat Honest Men. And J. Milton in his Figure-Caster Ridicules it with much Wit and Confutes it with no less Reason Astrology saith he is an Art that teacheth Astrologers to Lye as often as they speak Our Ingenious Learned Feliham wonders Astrologers can for bear laughing when they meet Resoâ—ve 96. to think how they gull the People with such a Fallacy and Delusion as is impossible to be true And Mr. Freke the Astrologer calls it Madness Folly Delusion an Irrational groundless Imposture impossible to be true Essay p. â—3 c. And by Experience found to be the Devil's Lure to draw Men into Neoromancy What shall I say more The Noble Picus in his two first Books against them hath shown at large how much the Learned Writers to his time decryed and wrote against this Wicked Senseless Art And I have proved that the most Eminent Authors since of all sorts have done the same and hiss'd it off the Stage to whom may be added Des Cartes Rohault and all the new French Philosophers beside our Learned Athenians I might teaze them with Lucian Juvenal Quevedo Hudebrass Poor Robin Mr. Wilson's Witty Play called the Cheats and others who with sharp Wit and keen Satyr expose them in their true Shapes and Colours â—ee Sir Roger L'Strange's Fables and the Turkish Spye But I must hasten the Matter off my Hands and will shut up my Evidence against them with one of their own Advocates Ramsey who was like Sidrophel a busy Scribler an Empty Physician and an Ignorant Star-Cazer This Man tells the King That the Common Practicers of Astrology deceived his People of their Money Lives and Loyalty and that London abounded with such Ideots Cheats and Illiterate Impostors as himself was and Sidrophel continueth to be There is much more to be said against this vain Art to prove it false and built on nothing As the want of knowing the exact Longitude of the Place which is both necessary and imposis ible So is the moment of the Genesis Question or Action to be judged of and consequently leave their Erections to meer Chance and then it 's 10000 to one as Dr. More saith but that it prove false Gassendus affirms That if there be any thing to be judged by Astrology the Artist must know the precise moment of the Sun 's being in a Cardinal Sign Tom. 1. p. 728. Yet sure I am saith he that there are no Tables or Ephemerides extant that can teach the Time by six hours Those of Tycho come nearest Truth and yet are wide from it My last Argument against Astrologers and their pretended Art is That in all Ages and most Governments they have been pernicious to the Commonwealth and Enemies to the Publick Peace And for that Reason so many Laws have been made against them not only abroad as Historians tell us but in our own Nation Hen. 8.14 33.5 Eliz. 15.23 Eliz. 2.3.4 Edw. 6.15 as may be seen in the Statute Book Beside their Frauds and Cozening Practices saith Aggrippa Montaigne and Bacon on the Common People they are Authors of much mischief to the State drawing Credulous People to their ruin and causing among Nations most cruel Wars and Sedition No sort of Men being more pernicious to a Commonwealth than those who undertake to Prognosticate by the Stars or any other way of Divination and scatter their Prophecies about I urge this last of all because it 's so pat to the great Objection I have against Sidrophel For he seems to verify this Censure and to be designing by his false Art to subvert the present Frame of our English Government in Church and State by making the People believe Heaven hath decreed it shall be changed into that of a Neighbouring Country That such effects have been the consequents of such Fanatick Enthusiastick Dreams I will prove by a few out of many Instances Socrat. lib. 7. Sozom. lib. 8. Niceph. lib. 13. Isdegerdes the Persian King was so disturbed by the Contrivances of Astrologers that he decimated them Valerius Maximinus being overthrown by Licinius contrary to the Predictions of the Star-Diviners who had betrayed him with false assurances of Success He put them all to death Thus they deluded Pompey Caesar and Crassus Thucydides Plutarcâ— Nicias the Athenian was persuaded by them to keep his Fleet in the Haven the same Night the Syracusians surprized