Chapter XLIX, Section 1b

If centaury be mixed with honey, and the blood of a lapwing, and be put in a lamp, they that stand about will look much larger than they are wont; and if it be lit in a clear night the Stars will seem to scatter one from another. Such force, also, is in the ink of the cuttle-fish that it, being put into a lamp, makes blackamoors appear. It is also reported that a candle, made of some Saturnine things, being lighted, if it be extinguished in the mouth of a man newly dead, will afterwards, as oft as it shines alone, bring a feeling of sadness and great fear upon them that stand about it. Of such like torches and lamps doth Hermes speak more of, also Plato and Chyrannides, and of the latter writers, Albertus, in a certain treatise of this particular thing. Colors, also, are a class of lights, which, being duly mixed with things, are wont to expose such things to the influence of those Stars to which the colors are agreeable. And we shall afterwards speak of some colors which are the Lights of the Planets, by which even the natures of Fixed Stars themselves are understood, which also may be applied to the flames of lamps and candles. But in this place we shall relate how the colors of inferior mixed things are distributed to divers planets. All colors as black, lucid, earthy, leaden, or brown, have relation to Saturn. Sapphire and airy colors, and those which are always green, clear, purple, darkish, golden, or mixed with silver, belong to Jupiter. Red colors, and burning, fiery, flaming, violet, purple, bloody, and iron colors, resemble Mars. Golden, saffron, purple, and bright colors, resemble the Sun. But all white, fair, curious, green, ruddy, betwixt saffron and purple, resemble Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Moreover, amongst the Signs of the Zodiac, known as the Houses of the Heaven, the first and seventh hath the color white; the second and twelfth, green; the third and eleventh, saffron; the fourth and the tenth, red; the fifth and ninth, a honey color; and the sixth and eighth, black. The Elements, also, have their colors, by which natural philosophers judge of the complexion and property of their nature. For an earthy color, caused of coldness and dryness, is brown, and black, and manifests black choler and a Saturnine nature. Blue, tending towards whiteness, doth denote phlegm. [paragraph continues] For cold makes white; moisture and dryness makes black. Reddish color shews blood; but fiery, flaming, burning hot, shews choler, which, by reason of its subtilty and aptness to mix with others, doth cause divers colors more; for if it be mixed with blood, and blood be most predominant, it makes a florid red; if choler predominate, it makes a reddish color: if there be an equal mixtion, it makes a sad red. But if adust choler be mixed with blood it makes a hempen color; and red, if blood predominate; and somewhat red if choler prevail; but if it be mixed with a melancholy humor it makes a black color; but with melancholy and phlegm together, in an equal proportion, it makes a hempen color. If phlegm abound, a mud color; if melancholy, a bluish; but if it be mixed with phlegm alone, in an equal proportion, it makes a citron color; if unequally, a pale or palish.