He appends an extract from an astrologer's letter to a Newport merchant referring to a more rigorous computation of the moon's place than was to be found in the current almanacs, for which the cunning man professes a dignified contempt. A marginal note, doubtless from the hand of the shipmaster, on one of these horoscopes, remarks that "6 D. & h [i. e. the sixth day and hour] always wins the profits," which seems to point to some personal superstition on the captain's part, derived perhaps from his experience in lucky and unlucky seafaring. Sailors are proverbially superstitious (and no wonder), but without much evidence one would scarcely have believed that our hard-headed New England forefathers on the coast were at all addicted to the elaborate trifling which the practice of so abstruse a science as astrology involves.

There is a casual reference to the same subject in the Diary of President Stiles, of Yale College, where, under date of June 13, 1773, he mentions, as lately dead, "Mr. Stafford of Tiverton," who "was wont to tell where lost things might be found, and what day, hour and minute was fortunate for vessels to sail." 1

Poor Robin's Almanack for 1690 contained a burlesque horoscope, which the author called "the ass-trological scheme." A comparison with that drawn up for the Newport shipmaster will show that it was not a bad parody. "By this Scheme," adds the jocose author, "a man may foretel things that never will be, as well as those that never were; and is as proper for an Almanack as a Nose for a mans Face: for as a Face looks ill favouredly without a Nose, so doth an Almanack without a Scheme."

Astrology turns up now and then in the theses discussed by candidates for the degree of Master of Arts at Harvard College, and that too at a comparatively late date. Thus in 1762 it was decided that "the heavenly bodies produce

1 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Dexter, I, 386.

changes in the bodies of animals." Perhaps this may not be regarded as genuine astrology, but no one can doubt the nature of the following question, which was negatived in 1728:"Do medicinal herbs operate by planetary power?" In 1694 it was decided that "divinations by the

planets are not justifiable." Two questions must not be mistaken as astrological: "Will a comet be the cause of the world's final conflagration?" (settled affirmatively in 1759) and "Is a comet which only appears after many years more a foreshadowing of divine wrath than a planet which rises daily?" (negatived in 1770).1

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., XVIII, 123 ff.

An irrefutable proof that the whimsicalities of astrology, palmistry, and physiognomy were not unknown among the country people in New England at the beginning of the nineteenth century is found in the circulation of the so-called Book of Knowledge. This curious manual purported to be written by "Erra Pater, a Jew Doctor in Astronomy and Physic, born in Bethany, near Mount Olivet in Judea," and to have been "made English" by W. Lilly, the famous astrologer. I have examined an undated edition with the imprint "Worcester, Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Jun.," and another printed at Suffield by Edward Gray, in 1799. The title-page, after the old fashion, furnishes one with a pretty complete table of contents. The little book, which was meant to be hawked about the country by book-peddlers, is said to treat of "the Wisdom of the Ancients" in four parts. The first part shows "the various and wonderful Opperations of the Signs and Planets, and other celestial Constellations, on the Bodies of Men, &c." The second gives "Prognostications for ever necessary to keep the Body in Health; with several choice Receipts in Physic and Surgery." The third is an "Abstract of the Art of Physiognomy and Palmistry, together with the Signification of Moles, and the Interpretation of Dreams, &c." The fourth is "The Farmer's Calendar, containing, 1st. Perpetual Prognostications for Weather. 2d. The whole Mystery of Husbandry. The complete and experienced Farrier and Cowleech, &c." Among the miscellaneous matter are a number of forms for bills, bonds, indentures, deeds, bills of exchange, and the like as in the "Every Man his own Lawyer" of our own day. All this in a little book of less than a hundred and twenty pages. Truly the buyer got a good deal for his shilling!

3d.

The astrology is of the simplest and most popular kind. The main definitions are given, and the familiar elementary