One authority says that, whilst the indictment was being read, she turned pale and trembled, and when Weston"s name was mentioned hid her face behind her fan. Another remarks: "She won pity by her sober demeanour, which, in my opinion," he adds, "was more curious and confident than was fit for a lady in such distress, yet she shed, or made show of some tears, divers times." The evidence against her was too strong to be confuted, and she pleaded guilty. When the judge asked her if she had anything to say in arrest of judgment, she replied, in low, almost inaudible tones, that she could not extenuate her fault. She implored mercy, and begged that the lords would intercede with the King on her behalf. Sentence was then p.r.o.nounced, and the prisoner sent back to the Tower, to await the King"s decision.
On the following day the Earl was tried. Bacon again acted as prosecutor, and in his opening speech he said that the evidence to be brought forward by the Government would prove four points: 1. That Somerset bore malice against Overbury before the latter"s imprisonment; 2. That he devised the plan by which that imprisonment was effected; 3. That he actually sent poisons to the Tower; 4. That he had made strenuous efforts to conceal the proofs of his guilt. He added that he himself would undertake the management of the case on the first two points, leaving his subordinates, Montague and Crew, to deal with the third and fourth.
Bacon had chosen for himself a comparatively easy task. The ill-feeling that had existed between Overbury and his patron was beyond doubt; while it was conclusively shown, and, indeed, hardly disputed, that Somerset had had a hand in Overbury"s imprisonment, and in the appointment of Helwys and Weston as his custodians. Pa.s.sages from Lord Northampton"s letters to the Earl proved the existence of a plot in which both were mixed up, and that Helwys had expressed an opinion that Overbury"s death would be a satisfactory termination of the imbroglio. But he might probably have based this opinion on the fact that Overbury was seriously ill, and his recovery more than doubtful.
When Bacon had concluded his part of the case, Ellesmere, who presided, urged Somerset to confess his guilt. "No, my lord," said the Earl calmly, "I came hither with a resolution to defend myself."
Montague then endeavoured to demonstrate that the poison of which Overbury died had been administered with Somerset"s knowledge. But he could get no further than this: that Somerset had been in the habit of sending powders, as well as tarts and jellies, to Overbury; but he did not, and could not prove that the powders were poisonous. Nor was Serjeant Crew able to advance the case beyond the point reached by Bacon; he could argue only on the a.s.sumption of Somerset"s guilt, which his colleagues had failed to establish.
In our own day it would be held that the case for the prosecution had completely broken down; and I must add my conviction that Somerset was in no way privy to Overbury"s murder. He had a.s.sented to his imprisonment, because he was weary of his importunity; but he still retained a kindly feeling towards him, and was evidently grieved at the serious nature of his illness. As a matter of fact, it was not proved even that Overbury died of poison, though I admit that this is put beyond doubt by collateral circ.u.mstances. Somerset"s position, however, before judges who were more or less hostilely disposed, with the agents of the Crown bent on obtaining his conviction, and he himself without legal advisers, was both difficult and dangerous. He was embarra.s.sed by the necessity of keeping back part of his case. He was unable to tell the whole truth about Overbury"s imprisonment. He could not make known all that had pa.s.sed between Lady Ess.e.x and himself before marriage, or that Overbury had been committed to the Tower to prevent him from giving evidence which would have certainly quashed Lady Ess.e.x"s proceedings for a divorce. And, in truth, if he mustered up courage to tell this tale of shame, he could not hope that the peers, most of whom were his enemies, would give credence to it, or that, if they believed it, they would refrain from delivering an adverse verdict.
Yet he bore himself with courage and ability, when, by the flickering light of torches, for the day had gone down, he rose to make his defence. Acknowledging that he had consented to Overbury"s imprisonment in order that he might throw no obstacles in the way of his marriage with Lady Ess.e.x, he firmly denied that he had known anything of attempts to poison him. The tarts he had sent were wholesome, and of a kind to which Overbury was partial; if any had been tampered with, he was unaware of it. The powders he had received from Sir Robert Killigrew, and simply sent them on; and Overbury had admitted, in a letter which was before the Court, that they had done him no mischief. Here Crew interrupted: The three powders from Killigrew had been duly accounted for; but there was a fourth powder, which had not been accounted for, and had (it was a.s.sumed) contained poison. Now, it was improbable that the Earl could remember the exact history of every powder sent to Overbury two years before, and, besides, it was a mere a.s.sumption on the part of the prosecution that this fourth powder was poison. But Somerset"s inability to meet this point was made the most of, and gave the peers a sufficient pretext for declaring him guilty. The Earl received his sentence with the composure he had exhibited throughout the arduous day, which had shown how a nature enervated by luxury and indulgence can be braced up by the chill air of adversity, and contented himself with expressing a hope that the Court would intercede with the King for mercy.
I have dwelt at some length on the details of this celebrated trial because it is the last (in English jurisprudence) in which men and women of rank have been mixed up with the secret practices of the magician; though, for other reasons, it is one of very unusual interest. In briefly concluding the recital, I may state that James was greatly relieved when the trial was over, and he found that nothing damaging to himself had been disclosed. It is certain that Somerset was in possession of some dark secret, the revelation of which was much dreaded by the King; so that precautions had even been taken, or at all events meditated, to remove him from the Court if he entered upon the dangerous topic, and to continue the trial in his absence. He would probably have been silenced by force. The Earl, however, refrained from hazardous disclosures, and James could breathe in peace.
On July 13, the King pardoned Lady Somerset, who was certainly the guiltiest of all concerned. The Earl was left in prison, with sentence of death suspended over him for several years, in order, no doubt, to terrify him into silence. A few months before his death, James appears to have satisfied himself that he had nothing to fear, and ordered the Earl"s release (January, 1622). Had he lived, he would probably have restored him to his former influence and favour.[34]
FOOTNOTES:
[32] This woman has a place in the records of fashion as introducer of the novelty of yellow-starching the extensive ruffs which were then generally worn. When Lord Chief Justice c.o.ke sentenced her to death (as we shall hereafter see) for her share in the murder of Overbury, he ordered that "as she was the person who had brought yellow-starched ruffs into vogue, she should be hanged in that dress, that the same might end in shame and detestation." As the hangman was also adorned with yellow ruffs, it is no wonder that c.o.ke"s prediction was amply fulfilled.
[33] Arthur Wilson, in his "Memoirs," furnishes a strange account of the practices in which Lady Ess.e.x, Mrs. Turner, and the conjurer took part. "The Countess of Ess.e.x," he says, "to strengthen her designs, finds out one of her own stamp, Mrs. Turner, a doctor of physic"s widow, a woman whom prodigality and looseness had brought low; yet her pride would make her fly any pitch, rather than fall into the jaws of Want. These two counsel together how they might stop the current of the Earl"s affection towards his wife, and make a clear pa.s.sage for the Viscount in his place. To effect which, one Dr. Forman, a reputed conjurer (living at Lambeth) is found out; the women declare to him their grievances; he promises sudden help, and, to amuse them, frames many little pictures of bra.s.s and wax--some like the Viscount and Countess, whom he must unite and strengthen, others like the Earl of Ess.e.x, whom he must debilitate and weaken; and then with philtrous powders, and such drugs, he works upon their persons. And to practise what effects his arts would produce, Mrs. Turner, that loved Sir Arthur Manwaring (a gentleman then attending the Prince), and willing to keep him to her, gave him some of the powder, which wrought so violently with him, that through a storm of rain and thunder he rode fifteen miles one dark night to her house, scarce knowing where he was till he was there. Such is the devilish and mad rage of l.u.s.t, heightened with art and fancy.
"These things, matured and ripened by this juggler Forman, gave them a.s.surance of happy hopes. Her courtly incitements, that drew the Viscount to observe her, she imputed to the operation of those drugs he had tasted; and that harshness and stubborn comportment she expressed to her husband, making him (weary of such entertainments) to absent himself, she thought proceeded from the effects of those unknown potions and powders that were administered to him. So apt is the imagination to take impressions of those things we are willing to believe.
"The good Earl, finding his wife nurseled in the Court, and seeing no possibility to reduce her to reason till she were estranged from the relish and taste of the delights she sucked in there, made his condition again known to her father. The old man, being troubled with his daughter"s disobedience, embittered her, being near him, with wearisome and continued chidings, to wean her from the sweets she doted upon, and with much ado forced her into the country. But how harsh was the parting, being sent away from the place where she grew and flourished! Yet she left all her engines and imps behind her: the old doctor and his confederate, Mrs. Turner, must be her two supporters. She blazons all her miseries to them at her depart, and moistens the way with her tears. Chartley was an hundred miles from her happiness; and a little time thus lost is her eternity. When she came thither, though in the pleasantest part of the summer, she shut herself up in her chamber, not suffering a beam of light to peep upon her dark thoughts. If she stirred out of her chamber, it was in the dead of the night, when sleep had taken possession of all others but those about her. In this implacable, sad, and discontented humour, she continued some months, always murmuring against, but never giving the least civil respect to, her husband, which the good man suffered patiently, being loth to be the divulger of his own misery; yet, having a manly courage, he would sometimes break into a little pa.s.sion to see himself slighted and neglected; but having never found better from her, it was the easier to bear with her."
[34] See "The State Trials;" "The Carew Letters;" Spedding, "Life and Letters of Lord Bacon;" Amos, "The Grand Oyer of Poisoning;" and S. R.
Gardiner, "History of England," vol. iv., 1607-1616.
DR. LAMBE.
A worthy successor to Simon Forman appeared in Dr. Lambe, or Lamb, who, in the first two Stuart reigns, attained a wide celebrity as an astrologer and a quack doctor. A curious story respecting his pretended magical powers is related by Richard Baxter in his "Certainty of the World of Spirits" (1691). Meeting two acquaintances in the street, who evidently desired some experience of his skill in the occult art, he invited them home with him, and ushered them into an inner chamber. There, to their amazement, a tree sprang up before their eyes in the middle of the floor. Before they had ceased to wonder at this sight surprising, three diminutive men entered, with tiny axes in their hands, and, nimbly setting to work, soon felled the tree. The doctor then dismissed his guests, who went away with a conviction that he was as potent a necromancer as Roger Bacon or Cornelius Agrippa.
That same night a tremendous gale arose, so that the house of one of Lambe"s visitors rocked to and fro, threatening to topple over with a crash, and bury the man and his wife in the ruins. In great terror his wife inquired, "Were you not at Dr. Lambe"s to-day?" The husband acknowledged that it was so. "And did you bring anything away from his house?" Yes: when the dwarfs felled the tree, he had been foolish enough to pick up some of the chips, and put them in his pocket. Here was the cause of the hurricane! With all speed he got rid of the chips; the storm immediately subsided, and the remainder of the night was spent in undisturbed repose.
Lambe was notorious for the lewdness of his life and his evil habits.
But his supposed skill and success as a soothsayer led to his being frequently consulted by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with the result that each helped to swell the volume of the other"s unpopularity. The Puritans were angered at the Duke"s resort to a man of Lambe"s character and calling; the populace hated Lambe as the tool and instrument of the Duke. In 1628 the brilliant favourite of Charles I. was the best-hated man in England, and every slander was hurled at him that the resources of political animosity could supply.
The ballads of the time--an indisputably satisfactory barometer of public opinion--inveighed bitterly and even furiously against his luxuriousness, his love of dress, his vanity, his immorality, and his proved incompetence as soldier and statesman. He was accused of having poisoned Lords Hamilton, Lennox, Southampton, Oxford, even James I.
himself. He had sat in his boat, out of the reach of danger, while his soldiers perished under the guns of Re. He had corrupted the chastest women in England by means of the love-philtre which Dr. Lambe concocted for him. In a word, the air was full of the darkest and dreadest accusations.
Lambe"s connection with the Duke brought on a catastrophe which his magical art failed to foresee or prevent. He was returning, one summer evening--it was June 13--from the play at the Fortune Theatre, when he was recognised by a company of London prentices. With a fine scent for the game, they crowded round the unfortunate magician, and hooted at him as the Duke"s devil, hustling him to and fro, and treating him with cruel roughness. To save himself from further violence, he hired some sailors to escort him to a tavern in Moorgate Street, where he supped. On going forth again, he found that many of his persecutors lingered about the door; and, bursting into a violent rage, he threatened them with his vengeance, and told them "he would make them dance naked." Still guarded by his sailors, he hurried homeward, with the mob close at his heels, shouting and gesticulating, and increasing every minute both in numbers and fury. In the Old Jewry he turned to face them with his protectors; but this movement of defence, construed into one of defiance, stimulated the pa.s.sions of the populace to an ungovernable pitch; they made a rush at him, from which he took refuge in the Windmill tavern. A volley of stones smashed against pane and door; and with shouts, screams, and yells, they demanded that he should be given up. But the landlord, a man of courage and humanity, would not throw the poor wretch to his pursuers as the huntsman throws the captured fox to the fangs of his hounds. He detained him for some time, and then he provided him with a disguise before he would suffer him to leave. The precaution was useless, for hate is keen of vision: the man was recognised; the pursuit was resumed, and he was hunted through the streets, pale and trembling with terror, his dress disordered and soiled, until he again sought an asylum. The master of this house, however, fell into a paroxysm of alarm, and dismissed him hastily, with four constables as a bodyguard. But what could these avail against hundreds? They were swept aside--the doctor, bleeding and exhausted, was flung to the ground, and sticks and stones rained blows upon him until he was no longer able to ask for mercy. One of his eyes was beaten out of its socket; and when he was rescued at length by a posse of constables and soldiers, and conveyed to the Compter prison, it was a dying man who was borne unconscious across its threshold.
Such was the miserable ending of Dr. Lambe. Charles I. was much affected when he heard of it; for he saw that it was a terrible indication of the popular hostility against Lambe"s patron. The murderers had not scrupled to say that if the Duke had been there they would have handled him worse; they would have minced his flesh, so that every one of them might have had a piece. Summoning to his presence the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, the King bade them discover the offenders; and when they failed in what was an impossible task, he imposed a heavy fine upon the City.
The ballad-writers of the day found in the magician"s fate an occasion for attacking Buckingham: one of them, commenting on his supposed contempt for Parliament, puts the following arrogant defiance into his mouth:
"Meddle with common matters, common wrongs, To th" House of Commons common things belong ...
Leave him the oar that best knows how to row And State to him that the best State doth know ...
Though Lambe be dead, _I"ll_ stand, and you shall see I"ll smile at them that can but bark at me."
CHAPTER V.
THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS: WILLIAM LILLY.
"Lilly was a prominent, and, in the opinion of many of his contemporaries, a very important personage in the most eventful period of English history. He was a princ.i.p.al actor in the farcical scenes which diversified the b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy of civil war; and while the King and the Parliament were striving for mastery in the field, he was deciding their destinies in the closet. The weak and the credulous of both parties who sought to be instructed in "destiny"s dark counsels," flocked to consult the "wily Archimagus," who, with exemplary impartiality, meted out victory and good fortune to his clients, according to the extent of their faith and the weight of their purses. A few profane Cavaliers might make his name the burthen of their malignant rhymes--a few of the more scrupulous among the saints might keep aloof in sanctified abhorrence of the "Stygian sophister"--but the great majority of the people lent a willing and reverential ear to his prophecies and prognostications. Nothing was too high or too low, too mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his genius. The stars, his informants, were as communicative on the most trivial as on the most important subjects. If a scheme was set on foot to rescue the King, or to retrieve a stray trinket; to restore the royal authority, or to make a frail damsel an honest woman; to cure the nation of anarchy, or a lap-dog of a surfeit--William Lilly was the oracle to be consulted. His almanacks were spelled over in the tavern, and quoted in the Senate; they nerved the arm of the soldier, and rounded the period of the orator. The fashionable beauty, dashing along in her calash from St.
James"s or the Mall, and the prim starched dame from Watling Street or Bucklersbury, with a staid foot-boy, in a plush jerkin, plodding behind her--the reigning toast among "the men of wit about town," and the leading groaner in a tabernacle concert--glided alternately into the study of the trusty wizard, and poured into his attentive ear strange tales of love, or trade, or treason. The Roundhead stalked in at one door, whilst the Cavalier was hurried out at the other.
"The confessions of a man so variously consulted and trusted, if written with the candour of a Cardan or a Rousseau, would indeed be invaluable. The "Memoirs of William Lilly," though deficient in this particular, yet contain a variety of curious and interesting anecdotes of himself and his contemporaries, which, when the vanity of the writer or the truth of his art is not concerned, may be received with implicit credence.
"The simplicity and apparent candour of his narrative might induce a hasty reader of this book to believe him a well-meaning but somewhat silly personage, the dupe of his own speculations--the deceiver of himself as well as of others. But an attentive examination of the events of his life, even as recorded by himself, will not warrant so favourable an interpretation. His systematic and successful attention to his own interest, his dexterity in keeping on "the windy side of the law," his perfect political pliability, and his presence of mind and fertility of resources when entangled in difficulties, indicate an accomplished impostor, not a crazy enthusiast. It is very possible and probable that, at the outset of his career, he was a real believer in the truth and lawfulness of his art, and that he afterwards felt no inclination to part with so pleasant and so profitable a delusion.... Of his success in deception, the present narrative exhibits abundant proofs.
The number of his dupes was not confined to the vulgar and illiterate, but included individuals of real worth and learning, of hostile parties and sects, who courted his acquaintance and respected his predictions. His proceedings were deemed of sufficient importance to be twice made the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry; and even after the Restoration--when a little more scepticism, if not more wisdom, might have been expected--we find him examined by a Committee of the House of Commons respecting his foreknowledge of the Great Fire of London. We know not whether it "should more move our anger or our mirth" to see our a.s.semblage of British Senators--the contemporaries of Hampden and Falkland, of Milton and Clarendon, in an age which moved into action so many and such mighty energies--gravely engaged in ascertaining the cause of a great national calamity from the prescience of a knavish fortune-teller, and puzzling their wisdoms to interpret the symbolical flames which blazed in the misshapen woodcuts of his oracular publications.
"As a set-off against these honours may be mentioned the virulent and unceasing attacks of almost all the party scribblers of the day; but their abuse he shared in common with men whose talents and virtues have outlived the malice of their contemporaries."--_Retrospective Review._
William Lilly was born at Diseworth, in Leicestershire, on May 1, 1602. He came of an old and reputable family of the yeoman cla.s.s, and his father was at one time a man of substance, though, from causes unexplained, he fell into a state of great impoverishment. William from the first was intended to be a scholar, and at the age of eleven was sent to the grammar-school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he made a fair progress in his cla.s.sical studies. In his sixteenth year he began to be much troubled in his dreams regarding his chances of future salvation, and felt a large concern for the spiritual welfare of his parents. He frequently spent the night in weeping and praying, and in an agony of fear lest his sins should offend G.o.d. That in this exhibition of early piety he was already preparing for his career of self-hypocrisy and deception, I will not be censorious enough to a.s.sert; but in after-life his conscience was certainly much less sensitive, and he ceased to trouble himself about the souls of any of his kith and kin.
He was about eighteen when the collapse of his father"s circ.u.mstances compelled him to leave school. He had used his time and opportunities so well that he had gained the highest form, and the highest place on that form. He spoke Latin as readily as his native tongue; could improvise verses upon any theme--all kinds of verses, hexameter, pentameter, phalenciac, iambic, sapphic--so that if any ingenious youth came from remote schools to hold public disputations, Lilly was always selected as the Ashby-de-la-Zouch champion, and in that capacity invariably won distinction. "If any minister came to examine us," he said, "I was brought forth against him, nor would I argue with him unless in the Latin tongue, which I found few could well speak without breaking Priscian"s head; which, if once they did, I would complain to my master, _Non bene intelliget linguare Latinam, nec prorsus loquitur_. In the derivation of words, I found most of them defective; nor, indeed, were any of them good grammarians. All and every of those scholars who were of my form and standing went to Cambridge, and proved excellent divines; only I, poor William Lilly, was not so happy; fortune then frowning upon my father"s present condition, he not in any capacity to maintain me at the University."
The _res angustae domi_ pressing heavily upon the quick-witted, ingenious, and active young fellow, he set forth--as so many d.i.c.k Whittingtons have done before and since--to make his fortune in London City. His purse held only 20s., with which he purchased a new suit--hose, doublets, trunk, and the like--and with a donation from his friends of 10s., he took leave of his father ("then in Leicester gaol for debt") on April 4th, and tramping his way to London, in company with "Bradshaw the carrier," arrived there on the 9th. When he had gratified the carrier and his servants, his capital was reduced to 7s. 6d. in money, a suit of clothes on his back, two shirts, three bands, one pair of shoes, and as many stockings. The master to whom he had been recommended--Leicestershire born, like himself--a certain Gilbert Wright, received him kindly, purchasing for him a new cloak--a welcome addition to Lilly"s scanty wardrobe; and Lilly then settled down, contentedly enough, to his laborious duties, though they were hardly of a kind to gratify the tastes of an earnest scholar. "My work," he says, "was to go before my master to church; to attend my master when he went abroad; to make clean his shoes; sweep the street; help to drive bucks when he washed; fetch water in a tub from the Thames (I have helped to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning); weed the garden; all manner of drudgeries I willingly performed; sc.r.a.pe trenchers," etc.
In 1624 his mistress (he says) died of cancer in the breast, and he came into possession--by way of legacy, I suppose--of a small scarlet bag belonging to her, which contained some rare and curious things.
Among others, several sigils, amulets, or charms: some of Jupiter in trine, others of the nature of Venus; some of iron, and one of gold--pure angel gold, of the bigness of a thirty-shilling piece of King James"s coinage. In the circ.u.mference, on one side, was engraven, _Vicit Leo de tribu Judae Tetragrammaton_, and within the middle a holy lamb. In the circ.u.mference on the obverse side were Amraphel and three {+++}, and in the centre, _Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega_.
According to Lilly, this sigil was framed under the following circ.u.mstances:
"His mistress"s former husband travelling into Suss.e.x, happened to lodge in an inn, and to lie in a chamber thereof, wherein, not many months before, a country grazier had lain, and in the night cut his own throat. After this night"s lodging he was perpetually, and for many years, followed by a spirit, which vocally and articulately provoked him to cut his throat. He was used frequently to say, "I defy thee, I defy thee," and to spit at the spirit. This spirit followed him many years, he not making anybody acquainted with it; at last he grew melancholy and discontented, which being carefully observed by his wife, she many times hearing him p.r.o.nounce, "I defy thee," desired him to acquaint her with the cause of his distemper, which he then did. Away she went to Dr. Simon Forman, who lived then in Lambeth, and acquaints him with it; who having framed this sigil, and hanged it about his neck, he wearing it continually until he died, was never more molested by the spirit. I sold the sigil for thirty-two shillings, but transcribed the words _verbatim_ as I have related."
Lilly continued some time longer in the service of Master Gilbert Wright. When the plague broke out in London in 1625, he, with a fellow-servant, was left in charge of his employer"s house. He seems to have taken things easily enough, notwithstanding the sorrow and suffering that surrounded him on every side. Purchasing a ba.s.s-viol, he hired a master to instruct him in playing it; the intervals he spent in bowling in Lincoln"s Inn Fields, with Wat the Cobbler, d.i.c.k the Blacksmith, and such-like companions. "We have sometimes been at our work at six in the morning, and so continued till three or four in the afternoon, many times without bread or drink all that while.
Sometimes I went to church and heard funeral sermons, of which there was then great plenty. At other times I went early to St. Antholin"s, in London, where there was every morning a sermon. The most able people of the whole city and suburbs were out of town; if any remained, it were such as were engaged by parish officers to remain; no habit of a gentleman or woman continued; the woeful calamity of that year was grievous, people dying in the open fields and in open streets. At last, in August, the bills of mortality so increased, that very few people had thoughts of surviving the contagion. The Sunday before the great bill came forth, which was of five thousand and odd hundreds, there was appointed a sacrament at Clement Danes"; during the distributing whereof I do very well remember we sang thirteen parts of the 119th Psalm. One Jacob, our minister (for we had three that day, the communion was so great), fell sick as he was giving the sacrament, went home, and was buried of the plague the Thursday following."
Having been led by various circ.u.mstances to apply himself to the study of astrology, he sought a guide and teacher in the person of one Master Evans, whom he describes as poor, ignorant, boastful, drunken, and knavish; he had a character, or reputation, however, for erecting a figure (or horoscope) predicting future events, discovering secrets, restoring stolen goods, and even for raising spirits, when it so pleased him. Of this crafty cheat he relates an extraordinary story. Some time before Lilly became acquainted with him, Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby visited him at his lodgings in the Minories, in order that they might enjoy what is nowadays called a "spiritualistic seance." The magician drew the mysterious circle, and placed himself and his visitors within it. He began his invocations; but suddenly Evans was caught up from the others, and transferred, he knew not how, to Battersea Fields, near the Thames. Next morning a countryman discovered him there, fast asleep, and, having roused him, informed him, in answer to his inquiries, where he was. Evans in the afternoon sent a messenger to his wife, to acquaint her with his safety, and dispel the apprehensions she might reasonably entertain.
Just as the messenger arrived, Sir Kenelm Digby also arrived, not unnaturally curious to learn the issue of the preceding day"s adventure. This monstrous story Evans told to Lilly, who, I suppose, affected to believe it, and asked him how such an issue chanced to attend on his experiment. Because, the knave replied, in performing the invocation rites, he had carelessly omitted the necessary suffumigation, and at this omission the spirit had taken offence. It is evident that the spirits insist on being treated with due regard to etiquette.
Lilly, by the way, records some quaint biographical particulars respecting the astrologers of his time; they are not of a nature, however, to elevate our ideas of the profession. One would almost suppose that free intercourse with the inhabitants of the unseen world had an exceptionally bad effect on the morals and manners of the mortals who enjoyed it; or else the spirits must have had a penchant for low society. Lilly speaks of one William Poole, who was a nibbler at astrological science, and, in addition, a gardener, an apparitor, a drawer of lime, a plasterer, a bricklayer; in fact, he bragged of knowing no fewer than seventeen trades--such was the versatility of his genius! It is pleasant to know that this wonderfully clever fellow could condescend to "drolling," and even to writing poetry (heaven save the mark!), of which Lilly, in his desire to astonish posterity, has preserved a specimen. Master Poole"s rhymes, however, are much too offensively coa.r.s.e to be transferred to these pages.
This man of many callings died about 1651 or 1652, at St. Mary Overy"s, in Southwark, and Lilly quotes a portion of his last will and testament:
"_Item._ I give to Dr. Arder all my books, and one ma.n.u.script of my own, worth one hundred of Lilly"s Introduction.
"_Item._ If Dr. Arder gives my wife anything that is mine, I wish the D--l may fetch him body and soul."