ards struck in
commemoration of the event; upon one side of which was figured the
nativity of the prince, representing him as driving the chariot of Apollo,
with the inscription "Ortus solis Gallici,"--the rising of the Gallic sun.

The best excuse ever made for astrology was that offered by the great
astronomer, Kepler, himself an unwilling practiser of the art.

He had many applications from his friends to cast nativities for them, and
generally gave a positive refusal to such as he was not afraid of
offending by his frankness. In other cases he accommodated himself to the
prevailing delusion. In sending a copy of his _Ephemerides_ to Professor
Gerlach, he wrote, that _they were nothing but worthless conjectures_; but
he was obliged to devote himself to them, or he would have starved. "Ye
overwise philosophers," he exclaimed, in his _Tertius Interveniens_; "ye
censure this daughter of astronomy beyond her deserts! _Know ye not that
she must support her mother by her charms?_ The scanty reward of an
astronomer would not provide him with bread, if men did not entertain
hopes of reading the future in the heavens."

NECROMANCY was, next to astrology, the pretended science most resorted to,
by those who wished to pry into the future. The earliest instance upon
record is that of the witch of Endor and the spirit of Samuel. Nearly all
the nations of antiquity believed in the possibility of summoning departed
ghosts to disclose the awful secrets that God made clear to the
disembodied. Many passages in allusion to this subject will at once
suggest themselves to the classical reader; but this art was never carried
on openly in any country. All governments looked upon it as a crime of the
deepest dye. While astrology was encouraged, and its professors courted
and rewarded, necromancers were universally condemned to the stake or the
gallows. Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Arnold of Villeneuve, and many
others, were accused by the public opinion of many centuries, of meddling
in these unhallowed matters. So deep-rooted has always been the popular
delusion with respect to accusations of this kind, that no crime was ever
disproved with such toil and difficulty. That it met great encouragement,
nevertheless, is evident from the vast numbers of pretenders to it; who,
in spite of the danger, have existed in all ages and countries.

GEOMANCY, or the art of foretelling the future by means of lines and
circles, and other mathematical