Each of these stars also presides over particular days of the week, particular colours, and particular metals.
The sun governed the Sunday; the moon, Monday; Mars, Tuesday; Mercury, Wednesday; Jupiter, Thursday; Venus, Friday; and Saturn, Saturday; which is partially indicated by our own names of the week, but more particularly in the French names, which are each and all derived from these stars.
The sun represented yellow; the moon, white; Venus, green; Mars, red; Jupiter, blue; Saturn, black; Mercury, shaded colours.
We have already indicated the metals that corresponded to each.
The sun was reckoned to be beneficent and favourable; Saturn to be sad, morose, and cold; Jupiter, temperate and benign; Mars, vehement; Venus, benevolent and fertile; Mercury, inconstant; and the moon, melancholy.
Among the constellations, the Ram, the Lion, and the Archer were hot, dry and vehement. The Bull, the Virgin, and the He-goat were heavy, cold, and dry; the Twins, the Balance, and the Waterer were light, hot, and moist; the Crab, Scorpion, and the Fishes were moist, soft, and cold.
Plate XV.—An Astrologer at Work.
In this way the heavens were made to be intimately connected with the affairs of earth; and astrology was in equally intimate connection with astronomy, of which it may in some sense be considered the mother. The drawers of horoscopes were at one time as much in request as lawyers or doctors. One Thurneisen, a famous astrologer and an extraordinary man, who lived last century at the electoral court of Berlin, was at the same time physician, chemist, drawer of horoscopes, almanack maker, printer, and librarian. His astrological reputation was so widespread that scarcely a birth took place in families of any rank in Germany, Poland, Hungary, or even England without there being sent an immediate envoy to him to announce the precise moment of birth. He received often three and sometimes as many as ten messages a day, and he was at last so pressed with business that he was obliged to take associates and agents.