Horoscope

that part of the heavens, or more strictly speaking, that part of the ecliptic, which is in the eastern horizon at the instant of one's birth. The term is also applied, and more frequently, to a diagram of the heavens by means of which the astrologer was able to determine what stars were in the horizon at any particular time. He pretended to have the power to read the future of a person the hour and date of whose birth was known. In the Middle Ages astrologers were present at the birth of a prince or heir to cast the horoscope; that is, to map out and announce the influence of the planets and stars present, as it were, at his birth. That some people possessed an occult ability to consult the stars and foretell their influence was fixed in the belief of the Middle Ages, but the exercise of this supposed power has been wrapped up from time immemorial with the grossest fraud and deception. For an account of these practices the reader is referred to Scott's Quentin Durward. See also ASTROLOGER.