Jupiter, if he should be lord alone, will thoroughly improve and benefit all things. Among mankind, in particular, this planet promotes honour, happiness, content, and peace, by augmenting all the necessaries and comforts of life, and all mental and bodily advantages. It induces also favours, benefits, and gifts emanating from royalty, and adds greater lustre to kings themselves, increasing their dignity and magnanimity: all men, in short, will share in the prosperity created by its influence. With regard to the operation of the event on brutes, those which are domestic and adapted to man’s service will be multiplied and will thrive; while others, which are useless and hostile to man, will be destroyed. The constitution of the atmosphere will be healthy and temperate, filled with gentle breezes and moisture, and favourable to fruits. Navigation will be safe and successful; rivers will rise to their just proportion; fruit and grain, and all other productions of the earth conducive to the welfare and happiness of mankind, will be presented in abundance.
Mars, when governing alone, generally causes such mischief and destruction as are concomitant with dryness. And, among mankind, foreign wars will be excited, accompanied with intestine divisions, captivity, slaughter, insurrections of the people, and wrath of princes against their subjects; together with sudden and untimely death, the consequence of these disturbances. Feverish disorders, tertian agues, and hæmorrhages will take place, and will be rapidly followed by painful death, carrying off chiefly youthful persons: and conflagration, murder, impiety, every infraction of the law, adultery, rape, robbery, and all kinds of violence will be practised. The atmosphere will be parched by hot, pestilential, and blasting winds, accompanied by drought, lightnings, and fires emitted from the sky. At sea, ships will be suddenly wrecked by the turbulence of the wind and strokes of lightning. Rivers will fail, springs will be dried up, and there will be a scarcity of water proper for food and sustenance. All the creatures and productions of the earth adapted to the use of man, whether beasts, grain, or fruits, will be damaged or destroyed by excessive heat, by storms of thunder and lightning, or by violent winds; and whatever has been deposited in store will be destroyed or injured by fire, or by heat.
Venus, alone in domination, generally produces the same effects as Jupiter, yet with greater suavity and more agreeably. Glory, honour, and joy will attend mankind; happy marriages will be contracted, and the fortunate pairs will be blest with numerous children. Every undertaking will proceed prosperously, wealth will increase, and the conduct of human life will be altogether pure, simple and pious; due reverence being paid to all holy and sacred institutions, and harmony subsisting between princes and their subjects. The weather also will be of a favourable temperature, cooled by moistening breezes; the air altogether pure and salubrious, frequently refreshed by fertilising showers. Voyages will be performed in safety, and be attended by success and profit. Rivers will be improved, and receive their adequate supply of waters; and all things valuable and useful to mankind, whether animal or vegetable, will abundantly thrive and multiply.
Mercury, if possessing dominion, is usually conjoined with one or other of the planets before-mentioned, and is conformed and assimilated to their natures; yet as, in itself, it presents a certain addition to their power, this planet increases the respective impulses of them all. And, in regard to the operation of the event on mankind, it will promote industry and skill in business; but, at the same time, thievish propensities, robberies, and plots of treachery: if configurated with the malefics, it will produce calamities in navigation, and will also cause dry and parching diseases, quotidian fever, cough, consumption, and hæmorrhage. All parts of the ceremonies and services of religion, the affairs of the executive government, as well as manners, customs, and laws, are disposed and regulated by this planet, conformably to its admixture and familiarity with each of the others. And in consequence of the dryness of its nature, arising from its proximity to the Sun, and the rapidity of its motion, it will generate in the atmosphere turbulent, sharp and varied winds, together with thunders, meteors, and lightnings, accompanied by sudden chasms in the earth, and earthquakes: by these means it not unfrequently occasions the destruction of animals and plants assigned to the service of mankind. Besides the foregoing effects, it produces, when in vespertine position, a diminution of waters, and, when matutine, an augmentation.
Each of the planets, when fully exercising its own separate and distinct influence, will properly produce the peculiar effects above ascribed to it; but should it be combined with others, whether by configuration, by familiarity arising from the sign in which it may be posited,[95] or by its position towards the Sun, the coming event will then happen agreeably to the admixture and compound temperament which arise from the whole communion actually subsisting among the influencing powers. It would, however, be a business of infinite labour and innumerable combinations, quite beyond the limits of this treatise, to set forth fully every contemperament and all configurations, in every mode in which they can possibly exist; and the knowledge of them must therefore be acquired by particular discrimination in every instance, under the guidance of the precepts of science. Yet the following additional remark must not be here omitted.
The nature of the familiarities, subsisting between the stars, lords of the coming event, and the countries or cities over which the event will extend, requires to be observed; for, should the stars be benefic, and their familiarity with the countries liable to sustain the effect be unimpeded by any opposing influence, they will then exercise the favourable energies of their own nature in a greater degree. And, on the other hand, when any obstacle may intervene to obstruct their familiarity, or when they themselves may be overpowered by some opposing influence, the advantages of their operation will be diminished. Again, should the stars, lords of the coming event, not be benefic, but injurious, their effect will be less severe, provided they may either have familiarity with the countries on which the event will fall, or be restrained by some opposing influence. If, however, they should have no such familiarity, and not be subjected to restraint by any others, endowed with a nature contrary to their own and possessing a familiarity with the countries in question, the evils which they produce will then be more violent and intense. And all these general affections, of whatever kind, whether good or evil, will be principally felt by those persons in whose individual nativities there may be found the same disposition of the luminaries (which are the most essential significators), or the same angles, as those existing during the eclipse which operates the general affection. The same remark equally applies to other persons, in whose nativities the disposition of the luminaries and of the angles may be in opposition to that existing during the eclipse. With respect to these coincidences, the partile agreement, or opposition, of the ecliptical place of the luminaries to the place of either luminary in a nativity, produces an effect at least capable of being guarded against.[96]
CHAPTER X
COLOURS IN ECLIPSES; COMETS,
AND SIMILAR PHENOMENA
In investigating general events, it is necessary further to observe the colours or hues displayed during an eclipse, either in the luminaries, or around them; in the shape of rods or rays, or in other similar forms. For, if these colours or hues should be black, or greenish, they portend effects similar to those produced by Saturn’s nature; if white, to those operated by Jupiter; if reddish, to those by Mars; if yellow, to those by Venus; and if of various colours, to those by Mercury.
And, if the entire bodies of the luminaries be thus coloured, or should the hues extend over all the parts immediately circumjacent to the luminaries, it is an indication that the effects will attach to most parts of the region, or countries, with which the eclipse and its ruling places may be in familiarity. If, however, the colouring should not spread over the whole surface of the luminaries, nor over all the parts around them, but be limited to some particular quarter, then only such a portion of the said countries, as may be indicated by the situation of the visible hues, will be comprehended in the event.
It is also requisite to notice, with respect to general events, the risings or first appearances of those celestial phenomena called comets, whether presenting themselves at ecliptical times or at any other periods. They are displayed in the shape of beams, trumpets, pipes, and in other similar figures, and operate effects like those of Mars and Mercury; exciting wars, heated and turbulent dispositions in the atmosphere, and in the constitutions of men, with all their evil consequences. The parts of the zodiac[97] in which they may be posited when they first appear, and the direction and inclination of their trains, point out the regions or places liable to be affected by the events which they threaten; and the form of the signs indicates the quality and nature of those events, as well as the genus, class, or kind, on which the effect will fall. The time of their continuance shows the duration of their effect; and their position, with regard to the Sun, the period when it will commence; as, if they first appear matutine, they denote an early commencement; but, if vespertine, that it will be late and tardy.