Lilly's Easy and Familiar method of judging eclipses, Part 1: Eclipses in general, and the Lord of the Eclipse.

An easie and familiar method whereby to judge the effects depending on eclipses, either of the sun or moon

By William Lilly, student in Astrology

Non Nobis nati summus; partim partria, partim amici vendicant. 

London, printed by the Company of stationers, and H, Blunden at the Castle in Corn Hill, 1652. 

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The following short work is, as far as I know, William Lilly's major work on mundane astrology. It's long drawn out title excepted, it gives a fairly straightforward method of determining the effects of eclipses on various nations.

The pamphlet is only about 50 pages long, but placing the whole of it in one blog post would be unwieldy. So I have decided to split it into several parts.

Part 1: A discourse on eclipses in general, as well as how to determine the "Eclipse Lord" and interpret it : (p 1- 17) -- This post.

Part 2: Interpretations on the eclipse depending on decan of the sign it is in, https://edwardwhite123.blogspot.com/2020/06/lillys-easy-and-familiar-method-of.html

Part 3: A "Sidereal Zodiac" for 1652.(https://edwardwhite123.blogspot.com/2020/06/lillys-easy-and-familiar-method-of_19.html). As will be made plain below, this "Sidereal zodiac" is used to add an additional level of interpretation for eclipses, but is worthy as a standalone article.

Part 4: A summary of Ptolemy's method of judging eclipses.
Part 5: Lilly's response to someone in Bristol who criticised him on religious grounds.

I have no plans to transcribe parts 4 and 5 yet.


The source text that I am using is a PDF of a scan of the pamphlet that has been uploaded on to Early English Books Online. The original (IIRC) was in the British Library.

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Editorial conventions:

MN= Marginal note

Page numbers in original are signified by numbers in square brackets.

My notes are indented, and preceded with “Ed”

I have added more subheadings to make reading the text easier. These are in brackets.
The rather erratic and profuse italicisisation in the original has not been observed here.

I have also attempted to modernize the spelling, but if Lilly uses archaic nouns or verbs, I have left them be [eg, "Water foul" for what we would spell "Waterfowl"] 

I have expanded the signs Lilly used, so:

is transcribed thus:

Fixed signs, as Taurus, Leo, Aquarius and Scorpio, show much ado about buildings, double bodied signs, as Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, threaten matter to Kings, Princes or Principal magistrates. 

Here is a two-page spread of the original for comparison (EEBO)