reading, yet I well know you never found the least trace thereof in any
author yet extant.

In composing, contriving, ordering, and framing thereof (viz. the first
part) a great part of that year was spent. I again perused all, or most,
authors I had, sometimes adding, at other times diminishing, until at
last I thought it worthy of the press. When I came to frame the second
part thereof, having formerly collected out of many manuscripts, and
exchanged rules with the most able professors I had acquaintance with,
in transcribing those papers for impression, I found, upon a strict
inquisition, those rules were, for the most part, defective; so that
once more I had now a difficult labour to correct their deficiency, to
new rectify them according to art; and lastly, considering the
multiplicity of daily questions propounded unto me, it was as hard a
labour as might be to transcribe the papers themselves with my own hand.
The desire I had to benefit posterity and my country, at last overcame
all difficulties; so that what I could not do in one year, I perfected
early the next year, 1647; and then in that year, viz. 1647, I finished
the third book of[14] nativities,[15] during the composing whereof, for
seven whole weeks, I was shut up of the plague, burying in that time two
maid-servants thereof; yet towards November that year, the Introduction,
called by the name of _Christian Astrology_, was made publick. There
being, in those times, some smart difference between the army and the
Parliament, the head-quarters of the army were at Windsor, whither I was
carried with a coach and four horses, and John Booker with me. We were
welcome thither, and feasted in a garden where General Fairfax lodged.
We were brought to the General, who bid us kindly welcome to Windsor;
and, in effect, said thus much:

[Footnote 14: The name of the person whose nativity is directed