that they had better be bought in the name
of a gentleman, a dear friend, though for her
own real use and advantage. Alter the old
man was dead the widow could by no means
obtain the deed of purchase of those lands
from her friend, and in her perplexity applied
to Evans, who for a sum of money—forty
pounds—promised to place the deed in her
possession, by a given time. Then Evans
applied himself to the invocation of the angel
Salmon, of the nature of Mars. He lived an
orderly life for a fortnight, wore his surplice
constantly, and read his litany at select hours
every day. At the end of the fortnight Salmon
appeared and having received his commands
vanished for a short time, after which
he re-appeared with the very deed in question,
and deposited it gently on a table over
which a white cloth had been spread. The
deed had been kept by the gentleman who
was retaining it, together with other of his
deeds and securities in a large wooden chest,
which was locked in a chamber at one end of
his house; but upon Salmon's carrying the
document away, all that part of the house
had been blown down, and all the gentleman's
own proper documents and evidences
had been torn to pieces and dispersed upon
the wind. There can be no doubt then that
Mr. Lilly placed himself under the tuition of
a great enchanter.

By the death of Mrs. Lilly the First, her
happy widower was left possessed of property
very nearly to the value of one thousand
pounds. He followed his studies closely for
a year, during which time a scholar pawned
to him, for forty shillings, a large volume
written on parchment, containing the names
of those angels and pictures which were
thought to instruct in the several liberal
sciences. Out of this book Lilly sucked much
wisdom. The budding astrologer bought, in
the year following, a moiety of thirteen houses
in the Strand, and, as a business speculation,
took another wife, who had five hundred
pounds fortune; but, alas! "was of
the nature of Mars." Another speculation,
entered upon at the same time, proved a
total failure.

Davy Ramsey, his Majesty's clockmaker,
had been informed that there was a great
quantity of treasure buried in the cloister of
Westminster Abbey. He apprised Dean
Williams of this fact, and the dean, who was
also Bishop of Lincoln, gave him liberty to
search, with this proviso—that if any
treasure was found, his church should go part
in it. Davy Ramsey then went to John
Scott of Pudding Lane, once a page to Lord
Norris, who professed the use of the Mosaical
roils, and engaged his assistance. Mr. Lilly
was invited to take part in the enterprise,
and joined it willingly. One winter's night,
therefore, it happened that Davy Ramsey,
with Lilly, and other gentlemen, entered the
cloisters, and began experimenting. On the
west side the rods turned one over another—
an argument that there the treasure was.
The labourers dug six feet deep, and found a
coffin, which, says Lilly, "In regard it was
not heavy, we did not open, a neglect we
afterwards repented." From the cloisters
the disappointed treasure-hunters went into
the abbey, where there arose "so fierce, so
high, so blustering, and loud a wind, that we
believed the west end of the church would
have fallen upon us. Our rods would not
move at all. The candles and torches all but
one were extinguished, or burnt dimly. John
Scott," says Lilly, "was amazed, looked pale,
knew not what to think or do until I gave
directions, and commenced to dismiss the
demons, which, when done, all was quiet
again." Each man went home empty, Davy
Ramsey carrying the half-quartern sack he
had brought thither to take away the treasure
in. Lilly and the wiser heads of the party
had no doubt that the miscarriage was caused
by the too great number of persons who
assisted in the operation—some laughing,
some deriding; and it was quite certain that,
if the demons had not been dismissed, the
chief part of the Abbey Church of
Westminster would have been blown to the
ground.

What further experiences Mr. Lilly had,
how he knew spirits seen in crystals, who
showed visions of absent people opening
trunks and taking out red waistcoats—with
much more after the manner of the wise and
spiritual in the year one, eight, five, five—we
go not on to tell.

And yet—however the case be now—great
students might, without shame to their wits,
pore into senseless mysteries in Lilly's days.
The astrologers formed a strong body, met
and dined together twice every year, and
dined well; for Elias Ashmole—the same
Ashmole whose museum and library are
among the scholastic treasures of the
University of Oxford—was astrologer as well as
herald and antiquary; and in his diary, after
an astrologer's feast, there comes always a
twinge. Thus, on the fourteenth of August,
sixteen' fifty-one, he was chairman at the
astrologers' feast in Painter's Hall, and he
records how, "This night, about one of the
clock, I fell ill of a surfeit, occasioned [not in
the least, of course, by sack] by drinking
water after venison. I was greatly oppressed
in my stomach, and next day Mr. Saunders,
the astrologian, sent me a piece of briony-
root to hold in my hand, and, within a
quarter of an hour, my stomach was freed
from that great oppression which nothing
which I took from Dr. Wharton could do
before." Fits of gout, ague, &c., troubled
Ashmole much, and after every astrologers'
feast the attacks were severe, but
he had his remedies. As thus:—"March
eleven.—I took, early in the morning, a good
dose of the elixir, and hung three spiders
about my neck, and they drew my ague away.
Deo gratias."