Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/33

 that Virgil had passed so exact a judgment upon the Breed of Dogs, and Horses, thought that he possibly might be able to give him some Light concerning his own. He took him into his Closet, where they continu'd in private a considerable time. Virgil was a great Mathematician, which, in the Sense of those times, took in Astrology: And if there be any thing in that Art, which I can hardly believe; if that be true which the Ingenious De le Chambre asserts confidently; that from the Marks on the Body, the Configuration of the Planets at a Nativity may be gathered, and the Marks might be told by knowing the Nativity, never had one of those Artists a fairer Opportunity to shew his skill, than Virgil now had; for Octavius had Moles upon his Body, exactly resembling the Constellation call'd Ursa Major. But Virgil had other helps: The Predictions of Cicero, and Catulus, and that Vote of the Senate had gone abroad, that no Child Born at Rome, in the Year of his Nativity, should be bred up; because the