EVER since I took a trip into this lower world, and left you (by the help of Moon-groaping and Star-fumbling) to project almanacks, predict prodigies, and conjure up lost spoons, stoln good, and stray’d cattle, I have had no opportunity of paying my respects to you, till now, for ’tis so abominably up hill from our world to yours, that none but the devil himself is able to climb it, he being forced to creep upon all-four, like a squirrel up a nut-tree, all the way of his journey; and had I sent a letter by his cloven-footed worship, I was fearful you would not have thought him, at your years, a proper messenger. I hear, since I left you, you are grown as grey as a badger, and that you are approv’d by all cook-maids, porters-wives and basket-women, to be the most eminent bodkin and thimble-hunter of all the Ptolemeans in the town, and by the help of the twelve heavenly houses and their seven twinkling inhabitants, not only undertake, but make wonderful discoveries. Flat-caps and blue-aprons, I hear haunt your door every morning, as hawkers do a publisher’s, or journeymen-taylors a Smithfield cook’s at noon, some for a sixpenny, and some a twelvepenny slice of your Astrological judgment, of which, to show your honesty to the world, you give them such lumping pennyworths, that you have made the noble science of Heaven-peeping as cheap to the publick, as boil’d tripe in Fee-lane, or bak’d sheeps-head in your own element Baldwin’s-gardens. I am joyful to hear you are grown so great a proficient in the celestial gimcracks; but indeed, when I first knew you a joyner at Oxford, that us’d to make cedar cases for close-stool pans, I thought you as ingenious a mechanick in your way, as he that invented a mouse-trap or a nut-cracker, but little thought then, you would have laid down the plane and the hand-saw, of which you were an absolute master, to take up Albumazar’s weapons, the celestial globe and compasses, to which you were a mere stranger: but however, Astrology being a kind of liberal science all men I know are free to dive into the mystery, from the whimsey headed scholar, to the strolling tinker; therefore your leather-apron and glue-pot are no disparagement to your pursuit of the seven wandring informers, any more than it is a scandal to a mountebank to be first a fool, and then a travelling physician. Gadbury we know was no more than a country botcher, before he was admitted as a tenant into the twelve houses; and Partridge was no more than a London cobler, before he was made running footman to the seven planets; yet both these students in Astrology have arriv’d, I hear, to as great an eminency in their heavenly profession, as ever was acquired by the famed Dr. Saffold, or his successor Case, by long study and experience, in the noble arts of Poetry and Physick. Therefore why may not that spurious issue of a Carpenter call’d a Joiner, make as legitimate an Astrologer, as profound a Conjurer, as infallible a Fortune-teller, as the best of them; nay better, if he knows but to use his tongue like a smoothing-plane, and can take down the roughness of some peoples incredulity, then may he work them as he does his deal-boards, till he has glu’d or nail’d them fast to his own interest. These are the talents for which I hear you are famous above other Astrologers, and that by downright dint of craft, pout and banter, you have wheedled more money in your time out of chamber-maids, cook-wenches, old bawds, midwives, nurses, and young strumpets, than ever was got by the rug and leather, luck in a bag, or that in most excellent juggle on the cards, call’d preaching the parson: nay if all the gains that you have made of these three profitable inventions were to be join’d together; besides a whole mustard-pot full of broad-pieces, a drudging-box full of guineas, a meal-tub full of crowns and half crowns, and an old powdering-tub full of shillings and sixpences, which lie parcel’d up in your own house, I hear that you have several hundreds of pounds in the Stationers company, which, besides the interest of the money, entitles you every year to four good dinners in the hall, as many noddles full of rare claret, and four pockets full of venison-pasty for your female deputy, who is said to be a notable understrapper to you in the business of Astrology, and is of as much service to you as a second to a merry-andrew, for without the one, the other could do nothing.
I cannot but highly approve of the method I observe in your almanacks, for since you write every year four, i. e. three in other persons names, and one in your own, you have wisely projected a way to be infallibly right in your predictions of the weather, which are commonly varied under no more than four several denominations in any one of the four seasons; so that by making your prognostications in every almanack different, one must certainly tell right, and by keeping all four in your pocket, which I am inform’d you have cunning enough to take care of, by plucking out that which you know is agreeable and falls right, declaring yourself to be the author, you gain reputation, and by this juggle make some fools in your company believe that you have the stars at more command, than a Haberdasher of dead bodies has his linkmen at a funeral. This piece of cunning none of the celestial fraternity can justly blame you for, every artist well knowing a juggler and an astrologer are as inseperable companions as a bawd and a midwife, or a lawyer and a knave, for either without the other, like an adjective without a substantive, would be unable to stand by himself.
Of all the almanacks that are extant, none are so valuable in these subterranean regions as your own; few hawkers travel into these parts but they bring whole baskets full along with them, and the cry of Cooley’s almanack for two months in the year, is as universally bawl’d about hell’s metropolis, as mackrel among you when they come to be six a groat, or Chichester lobsters when they stink at midsummer. Of all the almanacks brought among us, prince Lucifer gives yours the preference and never goes without one in his pocket, to put him in mind of an Holy Rood day, that his devilship may not lose his nutting time. Your last English merlin but one, wanted of the four cardinal points, for which piece of forgetfulness, the devil in a great rage cry’d he ow’d you a shame, and I was since inform’d, that one of our infernal plenipotentiaries upon earth discharg’d his master’s promise in a short time after, at the Darby alehouse in Fulwood’s rents; by the same token, the liquor had so eclips’d your distinguishing faculties, that instead of a tankard of warm ale, that stood by you, you took hold of the candlestick, and in a drinking posture convey’d the lighted candle to your mouth, the taste of which was so intolerable to your lips, that you flung it away in a great passion, believing ’twas the tankard of drink, and swore the bitch of a wench had made it so scalding hot there was no drinking it. This unhappy accident occasion’d some ill-natur’d people to reflect on you, and say, how should you know a star from a kite-lanthorn, that could not distinguish between a tankard of warm ale and a lighted candle?
I have no news from these parts that can be welcome to a man of your gravity and profession. As for astrologers, they are no more regarded in this kingdom, than an honest man in your world, or a modest woman in a theatre, for the best employment that most of them aspire to here, is to carry a closestool-pan upon their back after a quack-doctor, which savory receptacle being put in a square case, makes our fraternity look like so many raree-show men loaded with their boxes of dancing baubles.
I must confess, doctor Saffold, that famous student in physick, poetry and astrology, whose verse was as good an emetick, as his pills were a purge, being Lucifer’s peculiar favourite, was advanc’d to the dignity of being flea catcher to his royal consort; but the other day had like to have lost his place, by chasing one of his lady’s little enemies into her mount of Venus, and beating the bush to start the game, was so wonderfully pleas’d at the pastime, that the old fool could not forbear laughing, which ill manners so inflam’d the infernal duchess, that she vow’d, except he would down on his knees and kiss what he laugh’d at, she would never forgive him; upon which the poor doctor was forc’d to join beards, or else would have been turned out, to his eternal shame as well as misery.
Albumazar and Ptolomy are set up like the two loggerheads at St. Dunstan’s church, and once in an hundred years they strike upon an huge bell the number of the centuries from the fall of Lucifer, that the devils and the damn’d may know how eternity passes; for you must imagine, as a quarter of an hour is to the time of your world, so is an hundred years to the eternity of ours, every watch goes here at least ten thousand years with but one winding up, for their movements, like our form and substance, are all spiritual, and the worst artist we have among us, your Fleetstreet Tompion is but a mere blacksmith to; as for my own part, I trudg’d for the first six months after Dr. Ponteus, with a steeple-crown’d conveniency, as I mentioned before, but having always such a stink of devil’s-dung in my nostrils, I petitioned for a remove, and was admitted to be a yeoman of the bason to Lucifer’s cloven-hoofs, to pick, wash, and refresh them after his return from earth, which he visits very often for the preservation of his interest in the upper world; and the worst inconveniency I find is, that his worship’s feet smell worse after much walking than a sweating negro’s.
But, however, my old friend, let not this discourse discourage you from venturing to come among us, or frighten you into a repentance of your frauds and subtilties, that may carry you another way; for a man of your merits, learn’d in Astrology from the very nose of the great bear, to the extreme point of the dragon’s tail, and skilful in the Mathematicks, from the mensuration of a surface to the most profound nicety in solid Geometry, need not question, but that your old acquaintance and assistant Satan, who has faithfully stood by you upon all occasions, will bestow some reputable post upon you, answerable to the gravity and skill of so understanding a wiseacre, to whom I subscribe my self a loving friend and brother Philomat.
Lilly.
Cooley’s Answer to Lilly.
SIR,