you; that, since the fire, I have taken such pains in the search thereof, but cannot or could not give myself any the least satisfaction therein I conclude that it was the finger of God only; but what instruments he used thereunto, I am ignorant.
Those were troublous times; plagues were common in Europe, fires of frequent occurrence, and modern methods of extinguishing them had not been invented.
Lilly did not pretend to have foreseen the year, or to reflect any light upon the instruments; yet he was constantly ascertaining "who stole fish" and what had become of lost dogs, and affirms that he never failed in questions of that sort. His hieroglyphics could have been applied to a variety of events. It would have been easy to interpret that which he afterward declared foretold the Great Plague as signifying murders and the hasty concealment of bodies, or the burial of soldiers after a battle. The hieroglyphic typifying the fire could have been applied to any other of a hundred things, as falling into a fire might be made to illustrate most catastrophes.
The coincidences in English history, it is to be noted, consist of certain events drawn from a period of six hundred years, which events occurred during the progression of Saturn through Aries. Saturn remains long in that sign, and his returns are separated by a considerable time. In the confused history of England during those six centuries there were hundreds of battles, and great events were numerous; yet but thirteen of these having an evil character are produced. English history furnishes scores of disasters which occurred when Saturn was not in Aries. In like manner, Jupiter is in Aries every twelve years or thereabouts; yet but seven prosperous events are produced from 1196—nearly seven hundred years!
