‘1590, May 18th.—The two gentlemen, the unckle Mr. Richard Candish (Cavendish), and his nephew, the most famous Mr. Thomas Candish, who had sayled round about the world, did visit me at Mortlake.
‘1590, December 4th.—The Quene’s Majestie called for me at my dore, circa 3½ a meridie as she passed by, and I met her at Est Shene gate, where she graciously, putting down her mask, did say with mery chere, “I thank thee, Dee; there wus never promisse made, but it was broken or kept.” I understode her Majesty to mean of the hundred angels she promised to have sent me this day, as she yesternight told Mr. Richard Candish.
‘1595, October 9th.—I dyned with Sir Walter Rawlegh at Durham House.’
(v.) Some of the entries which refer to Dee’s connection with Lasco and Kelly are interesting:
‘1583, March 18th.—Mr. North from Poland, after he had byn with the Quene he came to me. I received salutation from Alaski, Palatine in Poland.
‘1583, May 13th.—I became acquaynted with Albertus Laski at 7½ at night, in the Erle of Leicester his chamber, in the court at Greenwich.
‘1583, May 18th.—The Prince Albertus Laski came to me at Mortlake, with onely two men. He came at afternone, and tarryed supper, and after sone set.
‘1583, June 15th.—About 5 of the clok cum the Polonian prince, Lord Albert Lasky, down from Bisham, where he had lodged the night before, being returned from Oxford, whither he had gon of purpose to see the universityes, wher he was very honorably used and enterteyned. He had in his company Lord Russell, Sir Philip Sydney, and other gentlemen: he was rowed by the Quene’s men, he had the barge covered with the Quene’s cloth, the Quene’s trumpeters, etc. He came of purpose to do me honour, for which God be praysed!
‘1583, September 21st.—We went from Mortlake, and so the Lord Albert Lasky, I, Mr. E. Kelly, our wives, my children and familie, we went toward our two ships attending for us, seven or eight myle below Gravesende.
‘1586, September 14th.—Trebonam venimus.
‘1586, October 18th.—E. K. recessit a Trebona versus Pragam curru delatus; mansit hic per tres hebdomadas.
‘1586, December 19th.—Ad gratificandam Domino Edouardo Garlando, et Francisco suo fratri, qui Edouardus nuncius mihi missus erat ab Imperatore Moschoriæ ut ad illum venirem, E. K. fecit proleolem (?) lapidis in proportione unius ... gravi arenæ super quod vulgaris oz. et ½ et producta est optimè auri oz. fere: quod aurum post distribuimus a crucibolo una dedimus Edouardo.
‘1587, January 18th.—Rediit E. K. a Praga. E. K. brought with him from the Lord Rosenberg to my wyfe a chayne and juell estemed at 300 duckettes; 200 the juell stones, and 100 the gold.
‘1587, September 28th.—I delivered to Mr. Ed. Kelley (earnestly requiring it as his part) the half of all the animall which was made. It is to weigh 20 oz.; he wayed it himself in my chamber: he bowght his waights purposely for it. My lord had spoken to me before for some, but Mr. Kelly had not spoken.
‘1587, October 28th and 29th.—John Carp did begyn to make furnaces over the gate, and he used of my rownd bricks, and for the yron pot was contented now to use the lesser bricks, 60 to make a furnace.
‘1587, November 8th.—E. K terribilis expostulatio, accusatio, etc., hora tertia a meridie.
‘1587, December 12th.—Afternone somewhat, Mr. Ed. Kelly (did) his lamp overthrow, the spirit of wyne long spent to nere, and the glas being not stayed with buks about it, as it was wont to be; and the same glass so flitting on one side, the spirit was spilled out, and burnt all that was on the table where it stode, lynnen and written bokes,—as the bok of Zacharias, with the “Alkanor” that I translated out of French, for some boy spirituall could not; “Rowlaschy,” his third boke of waters philosophicall; the boke called “Angelicum Opus;” all in pictures of the work from the beginning to the end; the copy of the man of Badwise “Conclusions for the Transmution of Metalls;” and 40 leaves in 4to., entitled “Extractiones Dunstat,” which he himself extracted and noted out of Dunstan his boke, and the very boke of Dunstan was but cast on the bed hard by from the table.’
This so-called ‘Book of St. Dunstan’ was one which Kelly professed to have bought from a Welsh innkeeper, who, it was alleged, had found it among the ruins of Glastonbury.
‘1588, February 8th.—Mr. E. K., at nine of the clok, afternone, sent for me to his laboratory over the gate to see how he distilled sericon, according as in tyme past and of late he heard of me out of Ripley. God lend his heart to all charity and virtue!
‘1588, August 24th.—Vidi divinam aquam demonstratione magnifici domini et amici mei incomparabilis Domini Ed. Kelii ante meridiem tertia hora.
‘1588, December 7th.—γρεατ φρενδκιρ προμισιδ φορ μανι, ανδ τυυο ουνκες φορ θε θινγ.’31
FOOTNOTES
26. ‘The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee,’ edited by J. O. Halliwell (Phillipps) for the Camden Society, 1842.
27. This was Sir Edward Dyer, the friend of Spenser and Sidney, remembered by his poem ‘My Mind to me a Kingdom is.’
28. The ‘Monas Hieroglyphica.’
29. The celebrated navigator, whose heroic death is one of our worthiest traditions.
30. A warm and steady friend to Dr. Dee.
31. This Diary, written in a very small and illegible hand on the margins of old almanacs, was discovered by Mr. W. H. Black in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford.
Chapter IV.
Magic and Imposture—A Couple of Knaves
The secrecy, the mystery, and the supernatural pretensions associated with the so-called occult sciences necessarily recommended them to the knave and the cheat as instruments of imposition. If some of the earlier professors of Hermeticism, the first seekers after the philosophical stone, were sincere in their convictions, and actuated by pure and lofty motives, it is certain that their successors were mostly dishonest adventurers, bent upon turning to their personal advantage the credulous weakness of their fellow-creatures. With some of these the chief object was money; others may have craved distinction and influence; others may have sought the gratification of passions more degrading even than avarice or ambition. At all events, alchemy became a synonym for fraud: a magician was accepted as, by right of his vocation, an impostor; and the poet and the dramatist pursued him with the whips of satire, invective, and ridicule, while the law prepared for him the penalties usually inflicted upon criminals. These penalties, it is true, he very frequently contrived to elude; in many instances, by the exercise of craft and cunning; in others, by the protection of powerful personages, to whom he had rendered questionable services; and again in others, because the agent of the law did not care to hunt him down so long as he forbore to bring upon himself the glare of publicity. Thus it came to pass that generation after generation saw the alchemist still practising