A LETTER FROM THE King of Denmark TO Mr. WILLIAM lily: Occasioned by the DEATH of his PATRON THE King of Sweden.  
LONDON: Printed for Gustavus Montelion. 1660.   

A LETTER From the KING of DENMARK, TO WIL. lily.  
Most Inauspicious, most Obstreperous, most Sonoriferous, most Spherical, most Antarctical, most Phaetontaical, and supper luminary Professor of Injudicious Astrology,  
THy Apothegms were so positive, and thy Alm●nacks claimed such a familiarity with the Skies, that We thought it had been thy custom to fir astride upon the North Pole, commanding the stars, even as a pedagogue aweth his Boys; and awing the seven Plane●s, even as one should say, Ye Rogues, do ye not mind what I speak to ye? We had to ought that the twinkling of the Stars had been onely their trembling at thy Power; and that Mars's checks looked read onely with the Cuffs which thou gavest him for his Disobedience.— Happiest of happiest men art thou, thought We, O King of Sweden, who hast tied William lily with a Gold Chain to thy Interest, which is now by his, yea by his onely means, so great in heaven, that the very Stars fight for thee! How miserabe thought I, are We, that are thus threatened by the Celestial Influences! Saturn and thou, God wot, were going to devour our poor Kingdom, even as that god was wont to chop up his own children, and we thought 'twas in vain to resist the will of Heaven for we could not imagine that such a small Kingdom as ours would be ever able to bear up under the heavy and disastrous Pressures of Horoscopical, Ascendant, Quartile, Sextile, Retrograde, Almuten, and Combust Thou didst amaze us, and although we were not ignorant of the dismal and exemplary Fates of Immanuel of Portugal, simon the Bulgarian, and Lodowick Sforza Duke of milan, which happened so contrary to the flatteries of their Windmill-pated Star-gazers, who promised them such Mountains of Happiness; yet for all this we had almost forfeited our reason in the belief of what thou didst promise to thy Pa●ron of Sweden, for that thou didst affirm his successses with such a brazen peremptoriness, that we poor ignorant Mortals could not choose but say to ourselves, Sure this man is wiser than Thales Milesius, and knows more then all the world besides, else he could never be so confident. Thou didst talk as if Mercury had been thy Foot-post, and that thou hadst kept a Weekly Correspondence with the Coelum Empyreuna, or that the soul of Abenragel had lain leaguer in the Cusp of Aries, to give thee Intelligence; thus thou didst for a good while confounded and amuse, our Intellectuals: But Time, which thou hast been so long fooling with thy Prophecies, hath at length brought thee to light. And now good Mr. lily, Sweet William, what are become of all your Alchodens, Triplicities, Benesicials and Maleficials, and your Genethliack Gimcracks, with more artificial Scrauls in 'em, than a girl makes when she first learns to frame her Letters: Did you not erect a certain stately Structure of twelve Houses, and furnish them all at your own charges, with the Triumphs of your Patron? Come, come, do not deny it, 'tis very true, and you did therefore receive a Golden Sawcidge too to hang about your Illustrious shoulders. Pray what are become of all those gaudy Triumphs? Alas, they are all marched off, with such a remarkable Sic transit, that never human frailty so bejaded poor Prince before; And for thy part, methinks we now see thee with thy Dragons tail clapped between thy legs, looking like a Dog that hath stolen a Pudding, to see thy old friends the Stars leave thee thus thus in the suds. You bid your Patron conquer, but alas! he was beaten. You bid him take Copenhaguen, but the Royal Knave was sullen, and would not. You bid him live, but he, as if it had been to spite his Astrologer, doth the quiter contrary, and dyes. Thus your brother Chald●ans  told Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, how that they should not die but in their full old age, and at home, and in peace, and untouched in their honor; yet all men know their ends were quiter otherwise, violent, immature, and tragical.  
Therefore, O thou Worshipper of the Heathen gods, leave thy Canting, and thy Vaunting, and thy Flaunting; give over thy Predictions, and thy Benedictions, thy Maledictions, and thy Fictions, that are neither Significal, nor Hieroglyphical, nor real, nor essential, but most Nonsensical and Excentrical from all truth that ever was, is, and shall be in this world and in the world to come. You may think to be colloguing with us, and to that purpose be telling strange stories of our future happiness and good fortune; but good King of the Gypsies trouble not thyself, thou wilt lose thy labour we assure thee; thou getst no Gold Chains here, we defy thee and all thy Laplanders: Nor shall we keep a Servant that consults thee so much as upon the loss of a Silver Spoon. We are resolved to follow honest Horace's advice to Leuconor, and to take things as they come; being fully satisfied in all thy Chaldaean Impostures. However, to show thee that we have something of good wishes left for thee, as thou professest thyself to be a Christian, we advice thee to remember the stories of Diophantus and Gauricus, who brought themselves to their unforeseen ends, while they prophesied the Misfortunes of other men, and became sufferers of that which their own Divination never had the good fortune to foreknow. This Gauricus was a Sycophant, and a great meddler with State affairs, but his end was sad: Thou art the same, therefore beware by other mens harms. Truly, we are afraid thou art a man very much lost in this world, and therefore that thou mayst not be long in the hearing of thy merited Reproaches, do as thy Brother Cardanus did; prophesy thou shalt die by such a time, but let it be very sudden; and if then thou dost not find such an inclination to death as thou oughtest to have, starve thyself to verify the Prediction. I know no other way for thee to regain thy own, and the lost Credit of thy scandalous Science. We could now bid you God b'w'ye, in the phrase of an almanac, and say, Farewell Frost; but we are loth to offend thee too much: for we know thou dost not care to hear of his Memory. Therefore God rest his bones, for they had little rest when he taught thy friend religion. And if thou wilt take our advice, let God rest thy bones too, for thou hast taken a great deal of pains; thy Name's up, and thou mayst even now go to bed and sleep. But if ever thou appearest again, and writest any thing beyond Prescriptions for letting of blood, and sowing of Pot-herbs, Cursed be thou, and Cursed be all they that read them. Which is the earnest desire of him that never had any reason to be either  
Your Friend or Servant, Elsenore, March 4.  
FINIS.