What use the Grand Signior maketh of Gypsies.
But of what nation soever they were at first, they are now almost of all; associating unto them some of every country where they wander: when they will be lost, or whether at all again, is not without some doubt: for unsetled nations have out-lasted others of fixed habitations: and though Gypsies have been banished by most Christian Princes, yet have they found some countenance from the great Turk, who suffereth them to live and maintain publick Stews near the Imperial City in Pera, Bellon. observat. l. 2. of whom he often maketh a politick advantage, imploying them as spies into other nations, under which title they were banished by Charles the fift.
[CHAPTER XIV]
Of some others.
We commonly accuse the phancies of elder times in the improper figures of heaven assigned unto Constellations, which do not seem to answer them, either in Greek or Barbarick Spheres: yet equall incongruities have been commonly committed by Geographers and Historians, in the figurall resemblances of several regions on earth; While by Livy and Julius, Rusticus the Island of Britain is made to resemble a long dish or two-edged ax; Italy by Numatianus to be like an Oak-leaf: and Spain an Ox-hide; while the phancy of Strabo makes the habitated earth like a cloak, and Dionysius Afer will have it like a sling: with many others observable in good writers Tacit. de vita Jul. Agric., yet not made out from the letter or signification; acquitting Astronomy in their figures of the Zodiack: wherein they are not justified unto strict resemblances, but rather made out from the effects of Sun or Moon in these several portions of heaven, or from peculiar influences of those constellations, which some way make good their names. Junctin. in Sph. l. de Sacro bosco cap. 2.
Which notwithstanding being now authentick by prescription, may be retained in their naked acceptions, and names translated from substances known on earth. And therefore the learned Hevelius in his accurate Selenography, or description of the Moon, hath well translated the known appellations of Regions, Seas and Mountains, unto the parts of that Luminary: and rather then use invented names or humane denominations, with witty congruity hath placed Mount Sinai, Taurus, Mæotis Palus, the Mediterranean Sea, Mauritania, Sicily and Asia Minor in the Moon.
More hardly can we find the Hebrew letters in the heavens, made out of the greater and lesser Stars which put together do make up words, wherein Cabalisticall Speculators conceive they read the events of future things;The Cabala of the Stars. and how from the Stars in the head of Medusa, to make out the word Charab; and thereby desolation presignified unto Greece or Javan, numerally characterized in that word, requireth no rigid reader. Greffarel out of R. Chomer.
It is not easie to reconcile the different accounts of longitude, while in modern tables the hundred and eighty degree is more then thirty degrees beyond that part, where Ptolomy placeth an 180. Nor will the wider and more Western term of Longitude, from whence the Moderns begin their commensuration, sufficiently salve the difference. Athan. Kircher. in proœmio. The ancients began the measure of Longitude from the fortunate Islands or Canaries, the Moderns from the Azores or Islands of S. Michael; but since the Azores are but fifteen degrees more West, why the Moderns should reckon 180, where Ptolomy accounteth above 220, or though they take in 15 degrees at the West, why they should reckon 30 at the East, beyond the same measure, is yet to be determined; nor would it be much advantaged, if we should conceive that the compute of Ptolomy were not so agreeable unto the Canaries, as the Hesperides or Islands of Cabo Verde. Robertus Hues de globis.
Whether the compute of moneths from the first appearance of the Moon, which divers nations have followed, be not a more perturbed way, then that which accounts from the conjunction, may seem of reasonable doubt Hevel. Selenog. cap. 9.; not only from the uncertainty of its appearance in foul and cloudy weather, but unequal time in any; When the Moon will be seen on the first day of the change. that is sooner or later, according as the Moon shall be in the signs of long descention, as Pisces, Aries, Taurus, in the Perigeum or swiftest motion, and in the Northern Latitude: whereby sometimes it may be seen the very day of the change, as will observably happen 1654, in the moneths of April and May? or whether also the compute of the day be exactly made, from the visible arising or setting of the Sun, because the Sun is sometimes naturally set, and under the Horizon, when visibly it is above it; Why the Sun is seen after it is set, or naturally under the Horizon. from the causes of refraction, and such as make us behold a piece of silver in a basin, when water is put upon it, which we could not discover before, as under the verge thereof.