cast and keep accounts; Angerona cured the anguish or sorrow of the mind;* Hæres Martia secured heirs the estates they expected; and Stata or Statua Mater, secured the forum or market place from fire; even the thieves had a protectress in Laverna ;† Averruncus prevented sudden misfortunes; and Conius was always disposed to give good advice to such as wanted it; Volumnus inspired men with a disposition to do well; and Honorus raised them to preferment and honours.

Nor was the marriage state without its peculiar defenders. Five deities were esteemed so necessary, that no marriages were solemnized without asking their favours; these were Jupiter-Perfectus, or the Adult, Juno, Venus, Suadela,‡ and Diana. Jugatinus tied the nuptial knot; Domiducus ushered the bride home; Domitius took care to keep her there, and prevent her gadding abroad; Maturna preserved the conjugal union entire; Virginensis§ loosed the bridle zone or girdle; Viriplaca was a propitious goddess, ready to reconcile the married couple in case of any accidental difference. Matuta was the patroness of

* In a great murrain which destroyed their cattle, the Romans invoked this goddess, and she removed the plague.

The image was a head without a body. Horace mentions her (Lib. 1. Epist. XVI. 60). She had a temple without the walls, which gave the name to the Porta Lavernalis.

The goddess of eloquence, or persuasion, who had always a great hand in the success of courtship.

§ She was also called Cinxia Juno.

matrons, no maid being suffered to enter her temple. The married was always held to be the only honourable state for woman, during the times of pagan antiquity. The goddess Vacuna,* is mentioned by Horace (Lib. 1. Epist. X. 49.) as having her temple at Rome; the rustics celebrated her festival in December, after the harvest was got in (Ovid. Fast. Lib. XI).

The ancients assigned the particular parts of the body to particular deities; the head was sacred to Jupiter; the breast to Neptune; the waist to Mars; the forehead to Genius; the eye-brows to Juno, the eyes to Cupid; the ears to Memory; the right hand to Fides or Veritas; the back to Pluto; the knees to Misericordia or mercy; the legs to Mercury; the feet to Thetis; and the fingers to Minerva.†

The goddess who presided over funerals was Libitina, whose temple at Rome, the undertakers

* She was an old Sabine deity. Some make her the same with Ceres; but Varro imagines her to be the goddess of victory.

From this distribution arose, perhaps, the scheme of our modern astrologers, who assign the different parts of the body to the different constellations, or signs of Zodiac: as the head to Aries, the neck to Taurus, the shoulders to Gemini, the heart to Cancer, the breast to Leo, and so on. The pretended issues of astrology have been always inseparable from stellar influence, and the zodiac has ever been the fruitful source of its solemn delusions.

Some confound this goddess with Proserpine, others with Venus.

furnished with all the necessaries for the interment of the poor or rich; all dead bodies were carried through the Porto Libitina; and the Rationes Libitina mentioned by Suetonius, very nearly answer to our bills of mortality.

CHAPTER VIII.

JUDICIAL

ASTROLOGY-ITS

CHEMICAL APPLICATION

TO THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE AND HEALTHALCHYMICAL DELUSIONS.

THE study of astrology, so flattering to human curiosity got into favour with mankind at a very early period,—especially with the weak and ignorant. The first account of it we meet with is in Chaldea ; and at Rome it was known by the name. of the "Babylonish calculation," against which Horace very wisely cautioned his readers.* It was doubtless the first method of divination, and probably prepared the mind of man for all the various methods since employed of searching into futurity; a brief view therefore of the rise of this pretended science cannot be improper in this place, especially as the history of these absurdities is the best method of confuting them.

nec Babylonios

Tentaris numeros.-Lib. 1. ad XI.

That is, consult not the tables of planetary calculations used by astrologers of Babylonish origin.

Others have ascribed the invention of this deception to the Arabs;-be this as it may, Judicial Astrology* has been too much used by the priests and physicians of all nations to encrease their own power and emolument. They maintain that the heavens are one great book, in which God has written the history of the world; and in which every man may read his own fortune and the transactions of his time. In this department of astrology (judicial) we meet with all the idle conceits about the horary reign of planets, the doctrine of horoscopes, the distribution of the houses, the calculation of nativities, fortunes, lucky and unlucky hours, and other ominous fatalities. They assert that it had its rise from the same hands as astronomy itself;-that while the ancient Assyrians, whose serene unclouded sky favoured their celestial ob

This conjectural science is divided into natural and judicial. The first is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as change of weather, winds and stormshurricanes, thunder, floods, earthquakes, and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Good, Mr. Boyle, and Dr. Mead pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the diversity of seasons from the situations, habitudes, and motions of the planets; and to explain an infinity of phenomena by the contemplation of the stars. The honourable Mr. Boyle admitted, that all physical bodies are influenced by the heavenly bodies; and the doctor's opinion, in his treatise concerning the power of the sun and moon, etc. is in favour of the doctrine. But these predictions and influence are ridiculed, and entirely exploded by the most esteemed modern philosophers, of which the reader may have a learned specimen in Rohault's Tract. Physic. pt. 11. c. 27.