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engage him the more strongly to society, and force him to own that he is purposely, and not by accident, made rational and sociable; and can no otherwise increase or subsist, than in that social intercourse and community which is his natural state? Is not both conjugal affection, and natural affection to parents, duty to magistrates, love of a common city, community or country, with the other duties and social parts of life, deduced from hence, and founded in these very wants? What can be happier than such a deficiency, as is the occasion of so much love? What better than a want so abundantly made up and answered by so many enjoyments ?"

Fond parents, even whilst their babies slumber in their cradles, cannot refrain from building castles in the air for their future habitation. But whenever one class of persons evinces any inclination to be deluded, another class is sure to be found who will prey upon its credulity. Hence has arisen the Casting of Nativities. According to judicial astrology, the twelve signs of the Zodiac were divided into three of fiery influence, three of airy, and three of watery; and the planets were regarded with reference to five aspects, viz. conjunction, sextile, quartile, trine, and opposition. According to these and the like observations of the heavens, it was usual to compose a scheme of planetary influences corresponding with a particular moment of birth. Cardan, the eminent mathematician, who was physician to king Edward VI, egregiously failed in his prognostications of a long life for that short-lived king; when he made them, he was probably moved by some terrestrial influences more than by the stars. He endeavored to account for his failure by alleging, that the period of the king's birth had not been given to him with that extreme precision which was indispensable.

The general subject of supernatural agency will be more particularly considered when we come to treat of old women in their capacity of witches, but, with regard to the influence of the stars, it may be noticed, that Strype the Chronicler mentions having seen a nativity that had been cast for Queen Elizabeth, in Burleigh's hand-writing. Dryden had a turn for judicial astrology; he calculated the nativity of one of his sons, and it would seem that a part of his predictions was fulfilled. It is interesting to observe, that, so early as the reign of Edward III, Chaucer, who ridiculed the pretences of the alchemysts, and of the pardoners, has not spared the astrologers. His Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, quotes the authority of stars in favor of all her propensities martial and amatory.

I folwed ay min inclination,

By vertue of my constellation.

But the most pointed ridicule which has been levelled against judicial astrology is from the author of Hudibras. He particularly attacks, under the name of Sidrophel, the astrologer Lily, who has left us a very curious life of himself. This Lily was consulted by the Royalists about the King's escape from Hampton Court, and he afterwards received a pension from the Parliament.

And has not he point blank foretold
Whats'e'er the close committee would?
Made Mars and Saturn for the cause,
The Moon for fundamental laws.
The Ram, the Bull, the Goat declare
Against the book of Common Prayer.
But still the best for him who gives
The best price for't, or best believes.
Some towns, some cities, some, for brevity,
Have cast the 'versal world's nativity.

And made the infant stars confess
Like fools or children what they please.
Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppey dogs, and cats.
Some take a measure of the lives
Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives.
Make opposition, trine, and quartile,
Tell who is barren, and who fertile.
As if the planets' first aspect
The tender infant did infect
In soul and body, and instill
All future good and future ill,
Which in their dark fatalities lurking,
At destined periods fall a working,
And break out, like the hidden seeds
Of long diseases into deeds,

In friendships, enmities and strife,
And all th' emergencies of life.
No sooner does he peep into
The world, but he has done his do.
Catch'd all diseases, took all physic
That cures or kills a man that is sick.
Married his punctual dose of wives,
Is cuckolded, and breaks or thrives.
There's but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war,
A thief and justice, fool and knave,
A puffing off'cer and a slave,
A crafty lawyer and pick-pocket,
A great philosopher and a blockhead,
A formal preacher and a player,
A learn'd physician and manslayer.
As if men from the stars did suck
Old age, diseases, and ill luck,

Wit, folly, honor, virtue, vice,

Trade, travel, women, cards, and dice.

And draw, with the first air they breathe

Battle, and murder, sudden death.

Dryden observes that Butler's verse of eight syllables is like

ly to "make a poet giddy from turning in a space too nar

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row for his imagination," and that it was below so great a master to make use of such a little instrument."

It may be doubted, however, if Butler's blows do not fall with more effect on the heads of fanatics and hypocrites, in consequence of his being able to repeat them quicker with a short cudgel.

It falls to the lot of Royal Babies to have poems composed upon them, called Birth-day Odes. Our Poets Laureat appear, in general, to have been very careful, that their compositions should be so stupid as not to be remembered to the prejudice of the sagacity of the writers, who do not fail to prognosticate every excellence in every Heir Apparent or Presumptive. There is, however, one of these birth-day odes, in regard to which the circumstances have a particular interest; it is the ode by Dryden, written soon after his conversion to Catholicism, on the occasion of the birth of James the Second's son, the Pretender. The child was born at ten o'clock in the morning, and eighteen privy councillors, together with many ladies, were in attendance. Historians of the

highest repute in the present day do not doubt the Prince's legitimacy. Popular belief or disbelief, however, goes very much according to wishes, and it has been generally supposed that Bishop Burnet's story of a supposititious child introduced into the Queen's bed-room in a warming-pan swayed many more minds in favor of the Revolution than Locke's Treatise on Government. Dryden's Ode is curious, as expressly referring to the publicity of the royal birth, which he supposes will silence all possible cavil; it is also interesting as containing an Invocation of Saints, which is unique in our Court poetry.

Born in broad daylight, that th' ungrateful rout
May find no room for a remaining doubt;

D

Truth, which itself is light, doth darkness shun,
As the true eaglet safely dares the sun.

Great Michael! Prince of all th' etherial hosts,
And whate'er inborn Saints our Britain boasts!
And, thou, th' adopted Patron of our Isle,

With cheerful aspects on this infant smile!

Whilst the baby is sleeping in its cradle it ought never to be left alone, for, besides supposed real enemies, such as cats, and rats, several of a supernatural kind have been said to encompass it. Ben Jonson in his masque of Queens, (the MS. of which, in his own hand writing, is in the British Museum,) has collected all the classical and popular superstitions concerning witches; of their malevolence to babies he says, in a song sung by witches:

Under a cradle I did creep

By day, and when the child was asleep,
At night I sucked its breath, then rose,
And plucked the nodding nurse by the nose.

But a still more popular superstition was, that of Fairies exchanging babies. In the British Museum is preserved the advertisement of a changeling exhibited at Bartholemew Fair in the reign of William and Mary; its anatomy might be seen by holding a candle to its back. Martin Luther tells us that he saw a changeling that had sucked its mother and five wetnurses dry. He advised the Prince of Anhalt to throw it into the river Maldaw. Henry the Fourth says of his son and Harry Hotspur,

O, that it could be proved,

That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine-Percy, his-Plantagenet !
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

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