AN ALMANAC-MAKER

Is the worst part of an astronomer; a certain compact of figures,
characters, and ciphers, out of which he scores the fortune of a year,
not so profitably as doubtfully. He is tenant by custom to the planets,
of whom he holds the twelve houses by lease parol; to them he pays
yearly rent, his study and time, yet lets them out again with all his
heart for 40s. per annum. His life is merely contemplative; for his
practice, 'tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of credit, and if by
chance he purchase any, he loseth it again at the year's end, for time
brings truth to light. Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe are his patrons, whose
volumes he understands not but admires, and the rather because they are
strangers, and so easier to be credited than controlled. His life is
upright, for he is always looking upward, yet dares believe nothing
above _primum mobile_, for 'tis out of the reach of his Jacob's staff.
His charity extends no further than to mountebanks and sow-gelders, to
whom he bequeaths the seasons of the year to kill or torture by. The
verses of his book have a worse pace than ever had Rochester hackney;
for his prose, 'tis dappled with ink-horn terms, and may serve for an
almanac; but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old
shepherd shall make a dunce of him. He would be thought the devil's
intelligencer for stolen goods, if ever he steal out of that quality. As
a fly turns to a maggot, so the corruption of the cunning man is the
generation of an empiric; his works fly forth in small volumes, yet not
all, for many ride post to chandlers and tobacco shops in folio. To be
brief, he falls three degrees short of his promises, yet is he the key
to unlock terms and law days, a dumb mercury to point out highways, and
a bailiff of all marts and fairs in England. The rest of him you shall
know next year, for what he will be then he himself knows not.