And indeed, the Ways of God are all easy, very easy; 'tis the Ways of Men that are crabbed and difficult.

 

Chapter VII.

How to set a figure of 12 houses for the crisis.

This seems to me to be the most rational of all the rest, and it is the most easily and readily done; and it may be that's the reason my author left it out, though he promised it. And indeed, the ways of God are all easy, very easy; 'tis the ways of men that are crabbed and difficult.

I shall first of all show you the way how to do it; secondly, give you an example of mine own upon it. 

First of all, if you would know how to make such a critical figure upon a decumbiture, make you a figure after the vulgar form, then note what sign, degree and minute the Moon is in at the decumbiture. Set that sign, degree and minute on the ascendant, and thirty degrees to that, and the same degree and minute of the next sign will be upon the cusp of the Second House. The work is as easy as walking up and down without a staff, as I shall by and by make appear by an example. 

Then be pleased to take notice that the First House is the decumbiture, the Second the judicial time, the Third the intercidental, which word Dr Phage of Medhurst in Sussex, in his book called Speculum agrotorum, so sillily translates mortal, mistaking the word caedo, to kill, for cado, to fall, wherein the man most egregiously showed his deficiency both in scholarship and physick. Yet this commendation I'll give him: his heart was more free to do good than his brain was able. 

The Fourth House brings the first crisis about, and when you are come to that, begin again as you did before; you may see the way without a pair of spectacles by the decumbiture that I have quoted. You may take it pro confesso, if you please, that I have time to insert them, or if I did not I would not blot paper with them.

Be pleased to accept this one in lieu of all the rest.

This unhappy creature being untowardly matched with an unnatural husband came up to London and lived in a service; and in her service was surprised with a furious disease at the time, and under the face of heaven before noted.

I shall first give a rational judgement of this figure, and afterward treat of the crisis.

The person of this young woman is signified by Venus in Sagittarius, and truly, I believe, she was an upright-dealing creature. That the cause of her disease lay hid, or at least very obscure, is plainly signified by so many planets being under the Earth.

That she procured her own disease, because the lord of the Sixth is in the Twelfth, as also because the lord of the ascendant is disposed by a planet in the Twelfth.

Pisces is the cusp of the Sixth. Her disease came by wet taken at her feet. Jupiter in Virgo gave corruption in blood, and infirmities in the bowels, with what they were, more anon. 

Venus with the Scorpion's Heart shows a violent fever, neither proved it to be any less.

The Sun and Mars in the Fourth House with the Dragon's Tail in quartile to the ascendant show violence in the disease, danger of poison, and an ill end of it. Her physician is signified by Mars, which was a French quack which lay in the house, and he was like Mars in Capricorn as a pomewater is to an apple.

He was always troubled with sore eyes, a man of forlorn fortunes. View the position of Mars, and you shall easily see the reason without a pair of spectacles.

The position of Mars in the Fourth combust with the Dragon's Tail and in quartile of the ascendant, first clouded his judgement, secondly corrupted his practice, thirdly set hard for her life.

'Tis a sad thing when the Lord of Death must be the physician in the disease.

Her disease was the smallpox, in which being exceedingly bound in body, not going to stool in a week together and above, he plied her all that time with strong purges (O acute physician!), never one of them working, nor so much as coming from her, though there was Scammony in everyone of them, that had not I so soon as I knew of it persuaded her nurse to give her a clyster everyday, she had absolutely perished, her purges increasing her fever, and poisoning her body. And this I am confident was the reason both of her being so much disfigured by her disease, and of her aches and swellings in the knees (for Mars was in Capricorn), which continued upon her until her dying day, which followed about a year and a half after. 

Neither was her doctor's judgement one jot inferior to his practice, for in the beginning of the disease, viz. the next day after she fell sick, I came accidentally to the house and found all the household weeping; everyone that could eat an egg shed a tear. A joiner was busy pulling down the bedsteads; the whole household preparing for a flight with bag and baggage.

And what was the reason, think you? The doctor had passed a wild piece of nonsense that she had got the pestilence, and was full of the tokens. Up ran I to see the creature; I found her in a strong fever, that's true, but I could see no tokens, unless 'twere tokens of the doctor's ignorance. I demanded the time of her falling sick, which she very exactly gave me, and having taken the pains to erect the figure, I did what I could to cherish up her spirits. I told her my judgement was that she would live. I certify the household that she had no such disease as the pestilence, much less any tokens, and thus whoever lost, the joiner he got money by the bargain on both hands, first pulling the bedsteads and tables to pieces, and then setting them together again. And thus you see, 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody profit. 

I have but two questions to answer, and then I come to the crisis.

1. Will she live or die?
2. Will her sickness be long or short?

To the first of these I answer that Mars is Lord of Death, and also an afflicting planet in trine to the lord of the Sixth, and in sextile to the Moon; he, with the Sun, are in quartile to the ascendant. This is all the signs of death, that is besides the great sign (viz.) her doctor swore she would die and could not possibly live having, as the coxcomb said, not so much of her lungs left as amounted to the quantity of three of her fingers; a likely tale, forsooth, was it not!

I was a diligent observer of every passage in this sickness, and I found it always true that during her sickness the Moon by transit to the body or beams of Mars afflicted her sorely.

But not so to the beams of Saturn, for that only possessed her body with coldness and chillness. 

That she should live is very clear, the Moon being with the sextile of Jupiter, and the lord of the ascendant no way afflicted save only by the Scorpion's Heart.

To the second question, namely, whether her disease should be long or short. 

The angles being all cardinal, and the Moon swift in motion and in sextile to Jupiter, show a short sickness. The lord of the ascendant and the lord of the Sixth being both both stationary prolong the disease.

And indeed, though the disease taken under the notion of acute were long, yet taken according to reason it is shorter than could be imagined.

The figure of the crisis.

The first judicial time is when the Moon comes to Sagittarius, 10.40; it's called a judicial time because at that time the disease appears in his colours, that a man may know what it tends to.

The second time, which you may find upon the Third House in the critical figure, is called intercidental because it falls between judicial and critical times, and upon the intercidental time there is usually some remission of the disease, that so nature may have time to rally up her forces against her encounter with the disease on her crisis. And according as it falls out upon the intercidental time either to good or bad, so good or bad crisis may be expected.

But to return. The Moon comes to Sagittarius, 10.40, upon the fourteenth of December, about half an hour after six in the morning. If you please but to set the figure, you shall find she is just upon the cusp in the ascendant, newly separated from the body of Venus and the quartile of Jupiter; now the smallpox came out, and not till now. 

The first intercidental time happens when the Moon comes to 10 degrees 40 minutes of Capricorn, the place where Mars was at the decumbiture, and now she applies to his body, having newly left the trine of Jupiter. If you please to set the figure, the time was December 16, 1 hour 24 minutes PM. Saturn is upon the cusp of the ascendant; about this time, she got cold.

And I am of opinion that the ascendant and Sixth House being earthly signs at this time, and the Moon in conjunction with Mars in another earthly sign, does clearly show her being bound in body. This day, which should have mitigated her disease, increased it, and now her doctor (if I may call him so without a solecism) begins to play the antick, I had almost said the madman. Now he exercises his purging faculty, and left his wits in bed and asleep with his last night's mistress. Sure I am a phyisician would admire to hear Scammony given to a creature that had the smallpox coming out upon her. 

To conclude. I very ill crisis is threatened.

The first crisis comes about upon the 18th of December, three quarters of an hour past 11 at night; the face of heaven is not much altered from what it was at the decumbiture. The Moon separartes from the sextile of Venus, lady of the ascendant, and applies to the quartile of Saturn, and had Doctor Dunce only judged she would have died now, as indeed he did, he might have been pardoned, although he had fail'd; but alas, he poor man had little skill in times and seasons. His skill was employed to know a woman from a man, when he had got her in bed. 

He did not only say, but also swore that she would die about the intercidental time, though such a thing be seldom seen in a man's age. But let us to our art, and let the doctor's ignorance alone. 

You shall find, if you please to set the position o'heaven, the scheme almost the same with that of the decumbiture; the Moon carries the beams of the lady of the ascendant to the quartile of Saturn, the Sun and Mars cast hurtful beams to the ascendant, and indeed my own opinion is that had the Moon applied to Mars as she did to Saturn, it had kill'd her.

Howsoever the premises considered, it is clear that this is likely to be the time of greatest danger in all her sickness, and so indeed it was. Now must the disease needs be strongest, nature weakest, and if this time be past, the bitterness of death is past. Indeed, at this time the combat was sore; she distracted, senseless, the smallpox began to fall down, and withal strength almost spent. But above all, the doctor swore she could not live while morning.

Rational hopes of her life are the dignities of Saturn in the ascendant, but especially the trine of the Sun and Jupiter upon that day. It is the opinion of the learned in this art that let the significators of life and death be seated or disposed as badly as they can be, yet if the Sun be in conjunction or good aspect with Jupiter, the sick will live. And truly so did she, almost to admiration. 

But some will ask, and 'tis a question worth the answering, that if the Sun and Jupiter preserve life as you say when they are so seated, what's the reason men die at that time? For we see men die daily.

To this I answer briefly that truly in the nativity of some people Jupiter is the killing planet, and in the sickness of such sick persons Jupiter will as soon kill as Saturn and Mars. Every planet must do his office.

I proceed.

The second judicial time comes about the 21 of December, at noon or a very little after, at which time Mars is lord of the ascendant, strong and in his exaltation.

The Moon having left the sextile of the Sun applies to his sextile. The face of heaven is quite and clean altered from what it was at the decumbiture, a manifest sign of some change. Besides, though Saturn be in the ascendant and Mars in the 10th House, yet Jupiter is in the 6th; therefore, some good may be hoped. I do not know that it is besides the rule of art if I should affirm that as Mars in the Fourth House of the decumbiture kept her doctor's (you may call it) folly or madness (which you please) close, so now in the Tenth House reveals it. Now, and not till now, did I know of her not going to stool; from this time she took a clyster everyday till she amended. 

The second crisis comes upon the Sun, the 26 of December, about one hour afternoon, at which time the Moon is strong in her own exaltation, and applies to the trine of the Sun and Mercury; at this time her fever left her, and she began to recover. And upon the third crisis, which happened upon the first of January, she went abroad.