Having now in part recovered my health, being weary of the country, and
perceiving there was money to be got in London, and thinking myself to
be as sufficiently enabled in astrology as any I could meet with, I made
it my business to repair thither; and so in September 1641 I did; where,
in the years 1642 and 1643, I had great leisure to better my former
knowledge: I then read over all my books of astrology, over and over;
had very little or no practice at all: and whereas formerly I could
never endure to read _Valentine Naibod's Commentary upon Alcabitius_,
now having seriously studied him, I found him to be the profoundest
author I ever met with; him I traversed over day and night, from whom I
must acknowledge to have advanced my judgment and knowledge unto that
height I soon after arrived at, or unto: a most rational author, and the
sharpest expositor of _Ptolemy_ that hath yet appeared. To exercise my
genius, I began to collect notes, and thought of writing some little
thing upon the [symbol: aspect "conjunction"] of [symbol: Saturn] and
[symbol: Jupiter] then approaching: I had not wrote above one sheet, and
that very meanly, but James Lord Galloway came to see me; and, by
chance, casting his eyes upon that rude collection, he read it over, and
so approved of it, yea, so encouraged me to proceed farther, that then,
and after that time, I spent most of my time in composing thereof, and
bringing it, in the end, into that method wherein it was printed 1644. I
do seriously now profess, I had not the assistance of any person living,
in the writing or composing thereof. Mr. Fiske sent me a small
manuscript, which had been Sir Christopher Heydon's, who had wrote
something of the conjunction of [symbol: Saturn] and [symbol: Jupiter],
1603; out of which, to bring my method in order, I transcribed, in the
beginning, five or six lines, and not any more, though that graceless
fellow Gadbury wrote the contrary: but, _Semel et semper nebulo et
mendax_. I did formerly write one treatise, in the year 1639, upon the