as claimed the title of Philomaths--that is, lovers of the mathematics,
by which name were still distinguished those who encouraged the pursuit
of mystical prescience, the most opposite possible to exact science.
Elias Ashmole, the "most honourable Esquire," to whom Lilly's life is
dedicated, seldom failed to attend; nay, several men of sense and
knowledge honoured this rendezvous. Congreve's picture of a man like
Foresight, the dupe of astrology and its sister arts, was then common in
society. But the astrologers of the 17th century did not confine
themselves to the stars. There was no province of fraud which they did
not practise; they were scandalous as panders, and as quacks sold
potions for the most unworthy purposes. For such reasons the common
people detested the astrologers of the great as cordially as they did
the more vulgar witches of their own sphere.

Dr. Lamb, patronised by the Duke of Buckingham, who, like other
overgrown favourites, was inclined to cherish astrology, was in 1640
pulled to pieces in the city of London by the enraged populace, and his
maid-servant, thirteen years afterwards, hanged as a witch at Salisbury.
In the villanous transaction of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in
King James's time, much mention was made of the art and skill of Dr.
Forman, another professor of the same sort with Lamb, who was consulted
by the Countess of Essex on the best mode of conducting her guilty
intrigue with the Earl of Somerset. He was dead before the affair broke
out, which might otherwise have cost him the gibbet, as it did all
others concerned, with the exception only of the principal parties, the
atrocious authors of the crime. When the cause was tried, some little
puppets were produced in court, which were viewed by one party with
horror, as representing the most horrid spells. It was even said that
the devil was about to pull down the court-house on their being
discovered. Others of the audience only saw in them the baby figures on
which the dressmakers then, as now, were accustomed to expose new
fashions.

The erection of the Royal Society, dedicated to far different purposes
than the pursuits of astrology, had a natural operation in bringing the
latter into discredit; and although the credulity of the ignorant and
uninformed continued to support some pretenders to that science, the
name of Philomath, assumed by these persons and their clients, began to
sink under ridicule and contempt. When S