Note 8 — PRACTICAL ASTROLOGY, &c.

The noted Thumersen, in the seventeenth century, was invested at Berlin with the respective offices of printer to the court, bookseller, almanack-maker, astrologer, chemist, and first physician. Messengers daily arrived from the most respectable houses in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and even from England, for the purpose of consulting him respecting the future fortunes of new-born infants, acquainting him with the hour of their nativity, and soliciting his advice and directions as to their management. Many volumes of this singular correspondence are still preserved in the Royal library at Berlin. He died in high reputation and favour with his superstitious contemporaries; and his astrological Almanack is still published in some of the less enlightened provinces of Germany.