CHAP. III.]

THE DIVISIONS OF THE SEASONS.

125

understanding hereby their cosmical descent, or their setting when the sun ariseth; and not their heliacal obscuration, or their inclusion in the lustre of the sun, as Servius upon this place would have it; for at that time these stars are many signs removed from that luminary. Now herein he strictly adviseth, not to begin to sow before the setting of these stars; which notwithstanding, without injury to agriculture cannot be observed in England; for they set unto us about the 12th of November, when our seed-time is almost ended.

And this diversity of clime and celestial observations, precisely observed unto certain stars and months, hath not only overthrown the deductions of one nation to another, but hath perturbed the observation of festivities and statary solemnities, even with the Jews themselves. For unto them it was commanded, that at their entrance into the land of Canaan, in the fourteenth of the first month (that is Abib or Nisan, which is spring with us), they should observe the celebration of the passover; and on the morrow after, which is the fifteenth day, the feast of unleavened bread; and in the sixteenth of the same month, that they should offer the first sheaf of the harvest. Now all this was feasible and of an easy possibility in the land of Canaan, or latitude of Jerusalem; for so it is observed by several authors in later times; and is also testified by Holy Scripture in times very far before.* For when the children of Israel passed the river Jordan, it is delivered by way of parenthesis, that the river overfloweth its banks in the time of harvest; which is conceived the time wherein they passed; and it is after delivered, that in the fourteenth day they celebrated the passover:† which according to the law of Moses, was to be observed in the first month, or month of Abib.

And therefore it is no wonder, what is related by Luke, that the disciples upon the deuteroproton, as they passed by, plucked the ears of corn. For the deuteroproton or second first sabbath, was the first sabbath after the deutera or second of the passover, which was the sixteenth of Nisan or Abib. And this is also evidenced from the received construction of the first and latter rain: "I will give you the rain of your + Josh. v.

* Josh. iii.

land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain :"* for the first rain fell upon the seed-time about October, and was to make the seed to root; the latter was to fill the ear, and fell in Abib or March, the first month: according as is expressed," And he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month,"+ that is, the month of Abib, wherein the passover was observed. This was the law of Moses, and this in the land of Canaan was well observed, according to the first institution: but since their dispersion, and habitation in countries, whose constitutions admit not such tempestivity of harvests (and many not before the latter end of summer), notwithstanding the advantage of their lunary account, and intercalary month Veader, affixed unto the beginning of the year, there will be found a great disparity in their observations, nor can they strictly, and at the same season with their forefathers, observe the commands of God.

To add yet further, those geoponical rules and precepts of agriculture, which are delivered by divers authors, are not to be generally received, but respectively understood unto climes whereto they are determined. For whereas one adviseth to sow this or that grain at one season, a second to set this or that at another, it must be conceived relatively, and every nation must have its country farm; for herein we may observe a manifest and visible difference, not only in the seasons of harvest, but in the grains themselves. For with us barley-harvest is made after wheat-harvest, but with the Israelites and Egyptians it was otherwise. So is it expressed by way of priority, Ruth ii.; "So Ruth kept fast by the maidens of Boaz, to glean unto the end of barley-harvest and of wheat-harvest;" which in the plague of hail in Egypt is more plainly delivered, Exod. ix.; "And the flax and the barley were smitten, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled; but the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown up.'

And thus we see, the account established upon the arise or descent of the stars can be no reasonable rule unto distant nations at all; and, by reason of their retrogression, but temporary unto any one. Nor must these respective expres

sions be entertained in absolute consideration; for so distinct is the relation, and so artificial the habitude of this inferior globe unto the superior, and even of one thing in each unto the other, that general rules are dangerous, and applications most safe that run with security of circumstance, which rightly to effect, is beyond the subtilty of sense, and requires the artifice of reason.8

CHAPTER IV.

Of some computation of days, and deductions of one part of the year unto another.

FOURTHLY, there are certain vulgar opinions concerning days of the year, and conclusions popularly deduced from certain days of the month; men commonly believing the days increase and decrease equally in the whole year; which notwithstanding is very repugnant unto truth. For they increase in the month of March, almost as much as in the two months of January and February: and decrease as much in September, as they do in July and August. For the days increase or decrease according to the declination of the sun, that is, its deviation northward or southward from the equator. Now this digression is not equal, but near the equinoxial intersections, it is right and greater, near the solstices more oblique and lesser. So from the eleventh of March the vernal equinox, unto the eleventh of April, the sun declineth to the north twelve degrees; from the eleventh of April, unto the eleventh of May, but eight; from thence unto the fifteenth of June, or the summer solstice, but three

8 reason.] Hence itt may appeare that those rules of prognostic and signification, which the Ægyptian, Arabian, Græcian, yea, and Italian astronomers, have given concerning the starrs, and those clymates wherein they lived, cannot bee applied to our remote and colder clymes, nor to these later times (wherein the constellations of all the twelve signes are moved eastward almost 30 degrees; Aries into Taurus and that into Gemini, &c.) without manifest errors and grosse deceptions, and are therefore of late rejected by the most famous astronomers, Tycho, Copernicus, Longomontanus, and Kepler (as diabolical impostures). De Cometa Anni 1618.- Wr.

and a half: all which make twenty-two deg the greatest declination of the sun.

And this inequality in the declination of zodiack or line of life, is correspondent unt declination of man. For setting out fr increase, not equally, or regularly attain to fection; nor when we descend from our sta nation equal, or carrieth us with even paces For as Hippocrates affirmeth, a man is hot day of his life, and coldest in the last; h setteth forth most vigorously at first, and sensibly at last. And so though the growth perhaps until twenty-one, yet is his stature in the first septenary than in the second, an more than in the third, and more indeed in years, than in the fourteen succeeding; for attain unto at seven years, we do sometin most times come short of at one and twen we decline again: For in the latter age up and first descension from our solstice, we are of declination: but declining further, our de rates, we set apace, and in our last days prec graves. And thus are also our progressions in is, our formation, motion, our birth, or exclu formation is quickly effected, our motion a and our exclusion very long after: if that Hippocrates and Avicenna have declared, th our motion is double unto that of formatio exclusion treble unto that of motion. As if formed at thirty-five days, it moveth at sevent the two hundred and tenth day, that is, the se or if it receives not formation before forty moveth the ninetieth day, and is excluded hundred and seventieth, that is, the ninth mo

There are also certain popular prognostick festivals in the calendar, and conceived opinio days in months; so is there a general tradition of Europe, that inferreth the coldness of succ from the shining of the sun upon Candlema purification of the Virgin Mary, according to distich,

CHAP. IV.]

OF THE COMPUTATION OF DAYS.

129

Si Sol splendescat Mariâ purificante,

Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.

So is it usual among us to qualify and conditionate the twelve months of the year, answerable unto the temper of the twelve days in Christmas; and to ascribe unto March certain borrowed days from April, all which men seem to believe upon annual experience of their own, and the received traditions of their forefathers.

Now it is manifest, and most men likewise know, that the calendars of these computers, and the accounts of these days are very different: the Greeks dissenting from the Latins, and the Latins from each other: the one observing the Julian or ancient account, as Great Britain and part of Germany; the other adhering to the Gregorian or new account, as Italy, France, Spain, and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Now this latter account, by ten days at least, anticipateth the other; so that before the one beginneth the account, the other is past it; yet in the several calculations, the same events seem true, and men with equal opinion of verity, expect and confess a confirmation from them all. Whereby is evident the oraculous authority of tradition, and the easy seduction of men,9 neither enquiring into the verity of the substance, nor reforming upon repugnance of circumstance.

And thus may divers easily be mistaken who superstitiously observe certain times, or set down unto themselves an observation of unfortunate months, or days, or hours. As did the Egyptians, two in every month, and the Romans the days after the nones, ides, and calends. And thus the rules of navigators must often fail, setting down, as Rhodiginus observeth, suspected and ominous days in every month, as the first and seventh of March, and fifth and sixth of April, the sixth, the twelfth, and fifteenth of February. For the accounts hereof in these months are very different in our days, and were different with several nations in ages past, and how strictly soever the account be made, and even by the selfsame calendar, yet it is possible that navigators may be out. For so were the Hollanders, who passing west9 men.] By the jugling Priests in the old mythologies of the heathen deytyes, trulye taxte by the poet under that "Quicquid Græcia mendax mandat in historiis.—Wr.