appointed Mr. Wright to keep his lodgings
in Whitehall. Mr. Wright, having espoused
a widow in Newgate Market, was recommended
by the lord chancellor to the Salters'
Company, as worthy to be admitted a
member. So he was, and lived to become master
thereof. "He was a man," says Lilly, "of
excellent natural parts, and could speak
publicly upon any occasion, very rationally, and
to the purpose. I write this that the world
may know he was no tailor, or myself of that
or any other profession. My work 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 we 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 drudgery I
willingly performed,—ecrape trenchers, &c.
If I had any profession, it was of this nature.
I should never have denied being a tailor,
had I been one; for there is no calling so base
which may not afford a livelihood; and had
not my master entertained me, I would have
been of a very much more mean profession,
rather than have returned into the
country."

Mrs. Wright, formerly of Newgate Market
died, and Mr. Wright married another wife,
also for the sake of her estate, she being
competently rich, but seventy years of age, and
he being sixty-six, or more. Notwithstanding
the maturity of their years, this couple
was perplexed by jealousy, and perpetually
engaged in quarrels founded on
suspicion of each other. Mrs. Wright, also
consulted cunning men, with the desire of
ascertaining whether she should ever be so
happy as to bury her husband; and it was the
  frequent coming and going of astrologers and
fortunetellers that excited the first wish of
Lilly to become acquainted with the secrets
of their science. He did not make much
progress, for want of books. Mrs. Wright II.
died of a cancer, and after her death there
was found under her arm a scarlet bag
containing many things, "several sigils, some of
Jupiter in Trine, others of the nature of
Venus, some of iron and one of gold, of pure
virgin gold, of the bigness of a thirty shilling
piece of King James's coin. In the
circumference on one side was engraven 'VICIT
LEO DE TRIBUS JUDÆ TETRAGRAMMATON +.
Within the middle there was engraven a
holy lamb. In the other circumference there
was ANNAPHEL and three +. In the middle,
SANCTUS PETRUS ALPHA ET OMEGA." A
former husband of Mrs. Wright II. had
procured this charm from Dr. Simon Forman,
the astrologer, to exorcise a spirit by
which he was visited. For thirty-two
shillings Lilly sold the charm, which was his
perquisite.

In the year of the plague, of sixteen twenty-
five. Lilly remaining in London with his
master, practised music at home on the bas-
viol, and bowling in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In
the same year, his master brought home
Mrs. Wright III., and died himself sixteen
'twenty-seven, leaving his widow owner of his
property, mistress of his servants and of his
house, at the corner of the Strand. Mr. Lilly
soon attracted the old lady's attention. "She
made me," he says, "sit down at dinner, with
my hat on my head, and said she intended to
make me her husband, for which I gave her
many salutes." She kept her promise, and
before she had been many months a widow,
Mrs. Wright the Third became Mrs. Lilly the
First. She lived six years in that capacity;
and, if Lilly himself be a fair witness on
the matter, found no reason to regret her
choice. Lilly amused himself with fishing,
and frequented no company. In one year,
widower and drysalter, Lilly began to spend
his days of independence and of dignity, in
study. He chose for tutor the Reverend Mr.
Evans, an astrologer, living in Gunpowder
Alley, whom he found, when visiting him for
the first time, "upon a bed, if it may be
lawful to call that a bed on which he lay, he
having been drunk the night before. He
raised himself up," says Lilly, "and after
some compliments, was content to instruct me
in astrology."

The reverend professor was by birth a
Welshman, M.A., and in holy orders. He had,
indeed, once been incumbent of a living in
Staffordshire, but had been forced to fly his
parish. His pupil describes him as "the
most saturnine person my eyes ever beheld,
either before I practised or since; of middle
stature; broad forehead; beetle browed;
thick shoulders; flat nosed, full lipped, down
looking; black, curling, stiff hair; splay-
footed. To give him his right he had the
most piercing judgment of theft that I ever
met withal, yet for money he would willingly
give contrary judgments, was much given to
debauchery, and then, very abusive and
quarrelsome, seldom without a black eye, or one
mischief or another. This is the same Evans
who made so many antimonial cups, upon the
sale whereof he principally subsisted. He
understood Latin very well, the Greek tongue
not at all. He had some arts above and beyond
astrology, for he was well versed in the
water of spirits, and had many times used
the circular way of invocating, as in the time
of our familiarity he told me."

Many examples of his cunning, as indeed
they were, had this teacher to give to his
believing scholar. Witness what he had once
done on behalf of a young lady in Staffordshire
by help of the great spirit Salmon, who
seems to have sufficed for his work without
help from the attendant sprites of which there
is no mention made—Cucumber or Lobster-
sauce.

The young lady had married for her
preferment, a rich man advanced in years. The
old husband desired to buy some lands for
his wife's maintenance, but she was advised