FRAGMENTS FOR THE FANCIFUL. Jupiter, and Venus. Various accounts are given of the manwith Saturday, is Saturn the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, ASTROLOGY, the oldest of the sciences, is invested with a double authority, namely. the traditions on which man relied before the invention of hieroglyphical or written language, and the confirmations that have accrued from his own observations. But to set aside antiquity, and adopting the mode of investi gation sanctioned by MODERN PHILOSOPHY in the schools and lecture-rooms of the nineteenth century, a train of reasoning occurs founded upon the phenomena of the universe, and the circumstances under which we live and move, and have our being. which, by rational analogy, goes far to prove the dominion of the stars. THE EVIL EYE.--I was strolling before the house when I suddenly came upon the most lovely child I had ever beheld. He was about five years old, with large black eagle eyes. Having called him to me, I was proceeding to caress him, when his mother, who was by, ran up shrieking, and, seizing the child, carried him off, filling the air with lamentations. It appeared she was afraid of my having the evil eye, which superstition prevails to even a greater extent in Circassia than in Italy. The inhabitants, too, of the former country, like those of the latter, constantly wear amulets about their persons. --Colburn's Magazine. THE ADVANTAGES OF FORE-KNOWLEDGE. If the laws of nature, on the one hand, are invincible opponents, on the other they are irresistible auxiliaries; and it will not be amiss if we regard them in each of these characters, and consider the great importance of them to mankind. 1. In showing us how to avoid attempting impossibilities. 2. In securing us from important mistakes in attempting what is in itself possible, by means either inadequate, or actually opposed to the ends in view. 3. In enabling us to accomplish our ends in the easiest, shortest, most economical, and most effectual manner. 4. In inducing us to attempt, and enabling us to accomplish objects, which, but for such knowledge, we should never have thought of undertaking.-Herschel. IMAGINATION-They who call themselves practised philo. sophers, and talk with contempt of the pleasures of imagination, are strangely ignorant of our nature. The precious portion of our enjoyments, the past and the future, are but dreams. Even the present is rife with doubt, mystery, and delusion, and the few dull objects that remain uncoloured with the hues of imagination are scarcely worthy of a thought. All men complain of the shortness of life; but a cold and dry philosophy would make it shorter still. It would confine its limits to the passing moment, that dies even in its birth. For it is only in such a pitiful span that the little which is really literal in life can at all exist. That moment's predecessor is dad, its successor is unborn, and all that is actual or material in its own existence is as a drop in the ocean, or as a grain of sand on the sca shore. ner in which the above order was derived from a previous one; all the methods proceeded on arithmetical processes connectel with astrological views. Laplace considers the week as the most ancient monument of astronomical knowledge. This period has gone on without interruption from the earliest recorded times to our own days, surviving the extent of ages and the revolutions of empires. I watched the meteors to-night till near daybreak; they began METEORS OF THE 10TH OF AUGUST, 1844.-Night clear. intermission all night, though most plentiful between 10 and to be visible at half past 8 o'clock, and continued without 12 o'clock. Their number was most prodigious, amounting to an average of ninety-six per hour, of which I determined about seventy per hour to have a decided point of convergence somewhere about Antares and Scorpio, a circumstance which I think almost as puzzling as their periodic appearance. They were of various colours, and generally left long white trains behind them in their track, but not such large and lasting trains as those left by the meteors of the 10th of August, 1811.Phil. Mag., No. 116. by M. Bessel, of Konigsberg, which opens out new views of the THE STARS.-A very remarkable discovery has been made constitution of the Sidereal Universe. By a long and laborious examination of the places of Sirius and Procyon, as deduced from the observations of different astronomers since the year 1755 (the epoch of Bradley's observations), including his own, carried on at the Konigsberg Observatory, he has come to the conclusion that the proper motions of these two stars are not uniform, but deviate from that law the former in right ascension, and the latter in declination, in a very sensible degree. Astronomers will at once perceive the importance of this conclusion, which proves that the stars describe orbits in space, under the influence of dynamical laws and central forces. Reasoning on the observed character of the deviations which he has established, M. Bessel comes to the singular and surprising conclusion, that the apparent motions of these two stars are such as might be caused by their revolutions about attractive, but non-luminous central bodies, not very remote from them respectively; that, in short, they form systems analogous to those of the lunary double stars, but with this peculiarity-that they have dark, instead of bright partners, to which they, of course, perform the friendly office of revolving suns!-Athenæum. NOMENCLATURE OF THE WEEK-The planets, doubtless, attracted the notice of men while they were becoming acquainted with the fixed stars. Venus, owing to her brightness. and her accompanying the sun at no great distance, and so appearing as the morning and evening star, was conspicuous; Pythagoras is said to have been the first who maintained that the evening and morning star are the same body. Jupiter and Mars, sometimes brighter than Venus, were also very observable; Saturn and Mercury, less so, would, in a clear climate, still be detected, with their motions, by persons who studied the aspect of the heavens. To reduce to rules the movements of these luminaries, must have taken time and thought; a remarkable evidence of their antiquity is to be found in the structure of one of our most familiar objects of time, the weck. which comes down to us, according to Jewish scriptures, from the commencement of the existence of mankind on earth. The same usage is found all over the East; it existed among the TO OUR QUERISTS.-This department of our work involves the solution Assyrians, Egy; tians, and Arabians. The week is found in of "horary questions," so called from a figure of the heavens being India among the Brahmins; it has there also its day marked erected for the hour in which the question is asked, and from the indiby those of the heavenly bodies. The idea which led to the cations manifest in which the corresponding answers are derived. It usual designations of the days of the week is not easily dis-will, therefore, be absolutely necessary for all correspondents to specify covered; the order in which the names are assigned, beginning the exact hour and day on which they commit the question to paper for our judgment, and the replies will then be given accordingly. As this In which all Questions from Correspondents are answered gratuitously, in accordance with the true and unerring principles of Astrological Science. important feature of the starry science will necessarily occupy consider able time which he is willing to devote, without reward, to benefit the public, THE ASTROLOGER hopes that the liberality of his offer will pro tect him from the correspondence of those who desire adjudication upon frivolous subjects, or who are merely actuated thereto by motives of idle and foolish curiosity. All subjects on which they may be really anxious, can be solved with absolute cortainty; and the election of favourable periods for marriage, speculation, or commencing any new undertaking with advantage, will be cheerfully and readily pointed out from week to week. All communications addressed to "THE ASTROLOGER" will be considered as strictly confidential, and the initials only given in the oracle. TO CORRESPONDENTS. INQUISITO. The effect of the opposition of 24 will soon show itself in official losses, though the speedy reparation will obviate serious results. The planet Herschel was only discovered in 1781, and was consequently unknown to the ancients. His influences are of a strange and extraordinary kind, causing persons born under him to be romantic and unsettled in their dispositions, but being only a small orb, and at an immense distance from the earth, his evil effects are neither so powerful as those of Mars nor so protracted as those of Saturn. In horary astrology we have found him indicate surprises and sudden changes. The asteroids have but an inconsiderable influence. E. SPOONER.-There is a society of the kind existing; but no members are admitted under forty years of age, and then only under peculiar circumstances, which, bound by the oaths of secrecy, we are not permitted to divulge. The questions asked cannot be answered, from the want of the time time of birth. The Communists we respect and admire for the tendency of their doctrines. BACHHOFFNER.-It is now clearly understood that all bodies traversed by electricity are magnets, and that the natural loadstone or magnet-so-called from Magnesia, where it is found has such currents of electricity circulating in it. Here, then, is the first proof of the real existence of a Mesmeric or magnetic influence pervading all nature, for electricity is everywhere, and we thus see the philosophical basis of truth on which astrology rests. The planets generate electricity of various kinds; this influences man, and so the whole cycle of the universe has one unseen, but still connecting link. FAUSTUS.-We have carefully looked over the nativity enclosed. and find from the positions of the Moon in Capricorn, and Mercury in Sagittary, that the native is of an ingenious turn of mind and calculated to snecced in the mechanical and mathematical sciences. He will prosper well after the twentieth year. T. TRUMFER.-You will succced if you avoid the machinations of those evilly-disposed persons who are now interested in your downfall. X. Y. Z.-We perceive unequivocal indications of coming prosperity to our querist, which he will know likewise before the month of June is over. A mercantile situation is likely to be offered to his notice soon after. C. II. W.--The direction will fall about your 27th year, when a tall and rather dark woman, of little mental capacity, and of very indifferent temper, will become your future partner. G. II.-Success will depend upon the industry and perseverance which you show in its pursuit. There is nothing otherwise to interfere with your advancement. AROJUS. The interview you had on the 6th instant was what we before alluded to; and, had it not been for the evil effects of the transit of Meremy, would have resulted in the certainty of cinployment. There is another fortunate hour for you not likely to be so unpropitious in its influences, viz, 12 at noon on June the 15th, when an opportunity will occur to your advantage if you slight it not, and by the 24th of the same month you should, according to our calculations, be comfortably installed. EDITHA BLENHEIM.-It will be advisable for you to seek south of the Thames. JOHN WEAVER.-It is unlikely that the property alluded to will ever be yours, some indications leading us to conclude that it has been unfairly dealt with. The suspicion you entertain with reference to it is, however, totally unfounded. J. B. Some time will clapse before your lover's hopes are realised; but he should write himself. ANXIOUS. The elder female is the one indicated, as was mentioned in a former number; we can add nothing to that T. H. X.-We a To Find and ready to render assistance to the unfortunate, and most to those who require it most. If you avail yourself of an opportunity that will offer itself in a few days, you will not regret the application. Be diligent and vigilant. MARY JANE.-The necessary groundwork for a nativity could alone decide. H. S. A.-No, you will not, but you will reap a material benefit from the change. VENI, VIDI, VICI.-Our publication will be out before a final decision is made; but from the indications visible in the figure before us, we augur in the affirmative. AMPHIMEDON.-The marriage, if it takes place at all, will be long postponed. TAURUS.-We are glad to find that even the hitherto incredulous are becoming converts to the doctrines of truth, and the instance he refers to is but one amongst many. In our sixth number, for March 22, we gave a scheme of the heavens for the vernal quarter, erected for the time when Sol entered Aries. We there stated, according to a rule laid down by Claudius Ptolemy, that, from the position of the volatile planet, Mercury, a cold wet spring would ensue, What has been the result? Let the two months' experience of our readers show. The connexion of cause and effect is here fully established. S. WALL.-The native will be best adapted for a life of travel and enterprise, and in that will best succeed. His prospects are exceedingly good, and there is a direction in his 25th year which promises very favourable for his advancement. JOHN [Dublin].-You have a fair prospect of shortly increasing your resources, and, notwithstanding the troubles and gloom of the past, may look with a hopeful glance to the coming sunshine of the future. C. W.-We much regret that our able correspondent's excellent treatise on the mystical and allegorical nature of words and ideas should be too long for our columus, but we must see what can be achieved by condensation. EMMA BEATRICE.-You have had a great number of evil influences to contend with; but that strength of mind with which you are endowed, and which has enabled you to overcome the perils of the past, will still befriend you and irradiate the future. There is a speedy change indicated, which, though at first seeming injurious, will tend to hasten and establish your ultimate advancement in life. Suffer no opportunity fo escape of making friends-a task not difficult for you-and consider your 27th year as one in which a train of beneficial directions fall. For the rest consult our "ORACLE" from time to time. The back numbers are left at our office to be called for. T W.-Continue your present employment with zeal and discretion, and in the autumn you will have reason to rejoice at your determination. The second person will come to London in a year, and permanently settle, and it is not im probable that a similar train of circumstances will affect you. The third we will consider. LEO [Mancheste].-An arrangement will be entered into, but such will be only a matter of temporary convenience, for the business will be disposed of before next summer. You have nothing to fear from the conjunction, though it may affect your friends prejudicially. The other query has been destroyed. A SUBSCRIBER.-It will be better this year than the last. J. S. GRANT.-There is no evil direction now which should prevent your success, though you have suffered materially from bad advice. To retrieve your losses it will be necessary to seize the first opportunity you see of benefiting yourself, and vigorously determine to make it tend to your advantage. This you will have an opportunity of doing in the close of next month. HENRY GLYNN.-We do not consider you will wed the party that you now expect will be your bride, for there is an indi cation in the figure of another attachment--the revival of one apparently which has been felt before. You ought to know this without seeking our aid. T. WILSON.-You have seen so many vicissitudes yourself, and have beheld so many changes of fortune oceur to others, that it is with no feeling of surprise we behold you wavering in the course next to be adopted. However, you may enter this speculation safely, for by so doing you would not only add to your own comforts, but to those of others also. Discretion must govern your actions; but the society into which this mode of life will throw you will be the source whence your future emoluments will flow, GEMINI KN.-Your business will be improved, but your health will suffer slightly in the autumn. We cannot spare time for the other calculation. MEDICUS.-According to the horary figure the suit will not terminate in your favour. ASTRAL.-We hail the accession of such a correspondent to our columns with pleasure, and sha!! be happy to receive the proposed communication. "The existence of sympathies between individuals, whose faces are unknown to each other, and whose tones have never sounded in the hearing of either," is one of the most true and sublime creeds ever promulgated. It is a key to our dearest and holiest mysteries, and the instance he gives us is one which cannot-must not-be slighted. The queries, which will take some time to solve, shall be answered if the hour and day of birth is forwarded to assist us in arriving at a just conclusion. VIATOR.-Pure spring water is, unquestionably, sufficient for the sustenance of man in the prime of youth and vigour. It is the blood of the earth-the source of all our vital currents-. the element which enters and sustains the whole vegetable world. By it the ancient philosophers and astrologers waxed old and skilful, and it was the aqua tetrachymagogon of the Rosicrucians or purifier of the system. Hydropathy is but a revival, not a novelty. RECEIVED.-LAURA (You will marry early in life, and be prosperous).-F. M. B. (The absent party is still faithful, we can say no more).-S. G. H. J. (You have forgotten the year). -M. J. HEALE (You will remain).-JANE KATE (You will return to your native place, and there marry).-JOSEPH DANIEL (Your relations are still living).-HANNAH MATILDA (You must ask a specific question).--M. J. (You will not be connected with him again).-M. HALL (You will have a surprise soon).-H. S. H. (You will not).-SACHIEL (Such an undertaking would be prosperons if conducted with zeal).JOVE (In a few days).-H. Woopcock (The party desired will form another alliance).-THOMAS WOODS (With our present pressure of correspondence, yon entail too great a task upon us).--EMILY H. (The hour of birth is necessary).— | 24 WITH (There is no change promised. We will endeavour to comply with your request).-MATILDA C. (Let him advertise for one in his own business).-E. E. BAKER (Your friend is not married yet, but soon will be).-H. ELLIOTT (The one that is distant).-ANNIE HAYWOOD (You are not destined to travel, but a letter you will soon receive will make some change in your circumstances. For the rest await your twenty-fourth year).-G. B. Y. (In December next).-H. B. (The husband will not return until the spring of next year).T. T. T. (Your wife is likely to recover in a month, provided she visits a relation in another part of the country. There is a good prospect for yon in August).--LAURA (No, you will not)... E. S. G. (The property will not be found).-P. W. (You are quite right; it was intended for you, but a typographical error was the cause).-AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN (We are afraid you will fail in both cases).-E. DE B. (A male friend, who will speedily extricate you).-P. C. (You will find your wedding postponed from time to time, but November will bring a change, and in the following spring all will be settied).THOMAS (Yes, if you unite prudence with perseverance).— PASSAMGAM (The question was answered in an early number). FLORA HALL (The love is not unreturned, but a few weeks will reveal all).-SON OF LEO (The affair will not be permanently prosperous, and that union will not be solemuised).— E. H. (Fear not; the bird will return, and seek his mistress with more fondness than before. He has but plumed his feathers for a longer flight into the realms of connubia! bliss)—T. E. G. (It will be nearly two years before a matrimonial engagement takes place, and then it will be with a dark girl, with bright fiashing eyes, of a good and amiable disposition. Does the present party answer to this description?)-SARAN THE PERSECUTED (She will find the twenty-fourth year fix her position in life, and in the future ones more prosperity may he expected than befel her mother at that time).-H. S. B (If you will send the hour of birth we can decide better, but the horary indications are in your favour, and seem to point out such a connection as advantageous).-J. B. (Your success at Leeds will be moderate).-H. W. C. (It will be both happy and prosperous, but it will not take place in September, nevertheless).-E. K. E (He will be in service).-M. B. R. (The same).-C. H. (A gardener)-S. H. (You will meet with a friend in a few weeks, who will be of great service to you).-ALICE HAMILTON (In intensity of feeling you have the advantage, but he still loves you truly and sincerely. The consent is likely to be attained in the autumn, but it will be attended with great difficulty).— BERTHA (By advertisement; see Calendar).-O. N. E. She loves you, and you will marry her).—ALBERT (Who cast your nativity?)-ALEX. MALCOLM (You will never attain to any great eminence in the pursuit, but if followed it will lead to your advancement. The lady is likely to form another attachment).-E. H. (Hour of birth wanted).-L. L. L. (No, to both questions).-SUSANNAH B. (You have been answered before).-M. A. T. (Next year will decide in the affirmative). M. T. (No).-W. R. J. (You will have a change in your circumstances, but not by marriage).-Other anxious querists must consult our next Oracle, and they will receive their answers. All subscribers should now give their orders for the back numbers, which are all in print, and may be obtained of any newsvendor. Parts I., II., and III. of " The Astrologer" are now ready, in a handsomely embellished Wrapper, with numerous Illustrations, price Sixpence; and may be obtained through every Bookseller in town and country. London: Printed by S. TAYLOR, George yard, Drury-court, Strand. Pub lished by RICHARD RADCLIFFE POND, at 11, Wellington-street North, Strand; Booksellers, and sold by Vickers, Strange, Cleave, Berger, Purkess, Clements, Barth, and all SOLITUDE AND ITS SILENCE. LTHOUGH remarkable, it is no less true, that solitude engenders elevation of thought, and that some of the grandest conceptions of the human intellect have germinated amidst loneliness. Instances may, no doubt, be adduced in attempted contradiction to this theory, and we may be reminded that Mozart composed many of his most intricate fugues while leaning against a billiard-table, surrounded by his convivial associates; but such facts are the mere "exceptions" to what every one, on mature reflection, must It was with acknowledge to be one universal principle. an imagination exalted by the desolation of the wilderness that Mahomet first conceived the notion of subduing the whole race of mankind by the domination of his single genius; it was the lonesome abandonment which encompassed St. Simeon Stylites, when he abode upon the summit of the marble column, that cheated him into a belief that he partook of the inconceivable joys of Paradise, and had intercourse with [PRICE TWOPENCE. its celestial inhabitants, showing him forth-a dream of glory in rags-a beggar, wealthier in his imagined pleasures than the king on his curule chair; until, to repeat the fine description of Alfred Tennyson, this old man," whose bald brows in silent hours became unnaturally hoar with rime," caused his hearers to bow down and worship him as one inspired, so divine was the eloquence that played about his shrunk lips like music! In our earlier numbers we have already referred to certain mysterious emotions which influence us in a peculiar manner during the vigils of the still midnight; and it would not be impossible to trace an analogy between them and the sensations which owe their existence to seclusion. Whether we stray through the voluptuousness of the fallow lands, or the unfrequented haunts of a vast forest; whether we wander among the brown heather on the wold, or at night upon the dark waters, alone, the mind becomes abstracted from terrestrial objects; it spurns whatever breathes "of the earth, earthy;" it shakes off the trammels which bound it to the dust, and revels in visions of sublimity and greatness. In these moments of freedom, it can appreciate to the uttermost the spirits of the good and beautiful, and cope in earnest with those subtle but intense emotions which may be accurately styled the metaphysics of the heart. Doubtless that unseen sympathy ruins of ancient Rome, in the quietude and splendour of an autumnal evening, when the song of the vine-dressers rose fitfully among the brambles, and the vesper chaunts of the monks sounded at intervals from the temple of Jupiter, that Edward Gibbon first conceived the notion of writing a history of the Great City's downfall. At such periods as these all recollection of this, our earth, is swallowed up in the copious streamings of fancy, the rankness of mundane things is forgotten, the alloy is cleansed away for the time being, and, purified by its abstraction from worldly affairs, the soul becomes susceptible of the most lofty and glorious influences. Whence these influences arise, however, is a mystery which defies investigation, though the student of the stars can discern a certain affinity for the realms of the illimitable and omniscient in solitude and silence, more than in the busy roar and bustle of a dusty highway. which travels ever and ever among the innumerous stars, may agitate the human intellect with such feelings in a more potent manner, when, by the abstraction of solitude, the mind is, as it were, prepared for their reception. Yet there is another adjunct near at hand which raises its throne in the lone ways of nature-one who, with an inaudible mandate, calls up'a world of glorious thoughts-one in whose sceptre resides a weird and inexplicable power. The poet Shelley has casually hinted at this ruler of an invisible kingdom, when he speaks of "solemn midnight's tingling silentness.” Yes, it is among scenes of isolation, when the hum of the city is drowned in distance, when the atmosphere is noiseless, and the faint rustling of the grass alone invades the general tranquillity, that we are almost tempted to listen for the respiration of the young herbage, and that, filled with a sense of this tingling languor, our soul appears to expand, an unaccountable awe creeps upon us instinctively, and we seem as though we were verily communing with creatures of a more elevated character. The visions of fancy sprout up into the glow and fleshiness of tangibility; the very nerves of the brain appear to be tense with extraordinary vigour, and we feel that some incorporeal agency is acting upon us with its inexplicable but indomitable sway. To what can these enigmatical perceptions be ascribed? Is it profanity or to imagine that the human family are, at these sacred arrogance times of withdrawal from the world, encompassed by beings of loftier attributes?-that our spirits are imbued with a dim sentience of their vicinity?-that we are cognizant of the near existence of these immaterial creatures, and that thence we imbibe aspirations and ideas so indistinct, and yet so immense in scope, as to be attributable only to such impulsive causes? Or must we, shutting our eyes to the force and grandeur of the sentiments which spring from solitude and its concomitant ilence-must we attribute them merely to some ordinary source?-and, baffled by their filminess and obscurity, must we regard them as flowing from what is technically termed the association of ideas, tracing them down, like frigid materialists, to some visible or tangible object? Such deductions would, however, be at actual variance with the experience of every individual, viewing the question through the medium of the most dispassionate inquiry and the plainest common sense. Although Zimmerman has analysed solitude, and dissected its various characteristics with marvellous elaboration, he has, nevertheless, entirely overlooked this grand and incontrovertible fact that the human mind is more akin to the infinite, the sublime, and the beautiful, when in solitude and in silence. SUPPOSING that, from the time which has elapsed since the publication of our last Self-Instructor, our young student has made himself a proficient in the technicalities of his art, we here resume our tutorage, with a few remarks upon a subject which Mr. Hacket has treated very fully, and whose elucidations we purpose blending with our own. fancied how much they should like to become acquainted with Many persons are aware that they have at certain periods such or such an individual; perhaps after the desired introduction has taken place, and, on a short or long acquaintance, they have discovered that the individual whose manners and disposition they imagined so pleasing to their own fancy, proves, from examination and experience, that the said individual is possessed of very different principles and disposition to what the erroneous fancy painted on the imagination of the desirous person. But the man who is conversant with the rules of phrenology, physiognomy, and astrology (although the last mentioned is not the least decided criterion to guide the judgment in such matters)--a science which teaches us to know that, if the significators at the birth of each (the person and individual who are anxious to become friends or acquaintances) does not harmonise with position and aspect with each other's planet's places, in the natal figure of each, that acquaintance thus formed must prove injurious to either party, if of long Indeed, we may safely assert that the biographies of all great and original thinkers tend to corroborate this assertion, and to demonstrate the correctness of the hypothesis. Poets and painters, and metaphysicians and philosophers, have all derived enthusiasm from these singular consequences of retirement. It was an ascetic (St. Jerome), who, from the stillness of the desert, roused the whole Pagan nations with his writings, as with the blast of a Titan's war-trumpet, and, seated among the |