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 bass-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, Dick 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 circumstances 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 séance.’ 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 coarse 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 manuscript 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.’
Terrified at this uncompromising malediction, the doctor handed over all the deceased conjurer’s books and goods to Lilly, who in his turn handed them over to the widow; and in this way Poole’s curse was eluded, and his widow got her rights.
The true name of this Dr. Arder, it seems, was Richard Delahay. He had originally practised as an attorney; but falling into poverty, and being driven from his Derbyshire home by the Countess of Shrewsbury, he turned to astrology and physic, and looked round about him for patients, though with no very great success. He had at one time known a Charles Sledd, a friend of Dr. Dee, ‘who used the crystal, and had a very perfect sight’—in modern parlance, was a good medium.
Dr. Arder often declared to Lilly that an angel had on one occasion offered him a lease of life for a thousand years, but for some unexplained reasons he declined the valuable freehold. However, he outlived the Psalmist’s span, dying at the ripe old age of eighty.
A much more famous magician was John Booker, who, in 1632 and 1633, gained a great notoriety by his prediction of a solar eclipse in the nineteenth degree of Aries, 1633, taken out of ‘Leuitius de Magnis Conjunctionibus,’ namely, ‘O Reges et Principes,’ etc., both the King of Bohemia and Gustavus, King of Sweden, dying during ‘the effects of that eclipse.’
John Booker was born at Manchester, of good parentage, in 1601. In his youth he attained a very considerable proficiency in the Latin tongue. From his early years we may take it that he was destined to become an astrologer—he showed so great a fancy (otherwise inexplicable!) for poring over old almanacks. In his teens he was despatched to London to serve his apprenticeship to a haberdasher in Lawrence Lane. But whether he contracted a distaste for the trade, or lacked the capital to start on his own account, he abandoned it on reaching manhood, and started as a writing-master at Hadley, in Middlesex. It is said that he wrote singularly well, ‘both Secretary and Roman.’ Later in life he officiated as clerk to Sir Christopher Clithero, Alderman of London, and Justice of the Peace, and also to Sir Hugh Hammersley, Alderman, and in these responsible positions became well known to many citizens who, like Cowper’s John Gilpin, were ‘of credit and renown.’
In star-craft this John Booker was a past master! His verses upon the months, framed according to their different astrological significations, ‘being blessed with success, according to his predictions,’ made him known all over England. He was a man of ‘great honesty,’ abhorring any deceit in the art he loved and studied. So says Lilly; but it is certain that if an astrologer be in earnest, he must deceive himself, if he do not deceive others. This Booker had much good fortune in detecting thefts, and was not less an adept in resolving love-questions. His knowledge of astronomy was by no means limited; he understood a good deal of physic; was a great advocate of the antimonial cup, whose properties were first discovered by Basil Valentine; not unskilled in chemistry, though he did not practise it. He died in the sweet odour of a good reputation in 1667, leaving behind him a tolerable library (which was purchased by Elias Ashmole, the antiquary), a widow, four children, and the MSS. of his annual prognostications. During the Long Parliament period he published his ‘Bellum Hibernicale,’ which is described as ‘a very sober and judicious book,’ and, not long before his death, a small treatise on Easter Day, wherein he displayed a laudable erudition.
Lilly has also something to say about a Master Nicholas Fiske, licentiate in physic, who came of a good old family, and was born near Framlingham, in Suffolk. He was educated for the University, but preferred staying at home, and studying astrology and medicine, which he afterwards practised at Colchester, and at several places in London.
‘He was a person very studious, laborious, of good apprehension, and had by his own industry obtained both in astrology, physic, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and algebra,