Blake's "usage [of the stars] had historic roots in the medieval idea, still current in his day, of the baleful influence of the stars, the bringers of pestilence and (the word itself is shaped by this notion) 'disaster'. The brighter and clearer the stars, the closer was their influence . . . So popular eighteenth-century astronomy postulated a creator who fixed the stars and the planets in their separate courses, establishing a celestial order, rank and division, which Experience reflected in microcosm. The churchmen, philosophers and politicians were quick to apply the new science as 'proof' of analogous moral, religious, and social 'certainties'" (Gardner 155-156).

One sees evidence of this in these lines from Dr. Isaac Watts:

The Almighty voice bid ancient night
Her endless realms resign,
And lo, ten thousand globes of light
In fields of azure shine.

Now Wisdom with superior sway
Guides the vast moving frame
Whilst all the ranks of being pay
Deep reverence to his name.

Lord of the armies of the sky
He marshalls all the stars.
Red comets lift their banners high
And wide proclaim his wars.

Chained to his throne a volume lies
With all the fates of men,
With every angel's form and size
Drawn by th'eternal pen.

(qtd. in Gardner 156).

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