Читать книгу Discover the Truth Behind Witchcraft Stories - William Godwin - Страница 222

Soon afterwards our magician made the acquaintance of a certain Edward Kelly (or Talbot), who was in every way fitted for the mediumistic rôle. He was clever, plausible, impudent, unscrupulous, and a most accomplished liar. A native of Worcester, where he was born in 1555, he was bred up, according to one account, as a druggist, according to another as a lawyer; but all accounts agree that he became an adept in every kind of knavery. He was pilloried, and lost his ears (or at least was condemned to lose them) at Lancaster, for the offence of coining, or for forgery; afterwards retired to Wales, assumed the name of Kelly, and practised as a conjurer and alchemist. A story is told of him which illustrates the man’s unhesitating audacity, or, at all events, the notoriety of his character: that he carried with him one night into the park of Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, a man who thirsted after a knowledge of the future, and, when certain incantations had been completed, caused his servants to dig up a corpse, interred only the day before, that he might compel it to answer his questions.

How he got introduced to Dr. Dee I do not profess to know; but I am certainly disinclined to accept the wonderful narrative which Mr. Waite renders in so agreeable a style—that Kelly, during his Welsh sojourn, was shown an old manuscript which his landlord, an innkeeper, had obtained under peculiar circumstances. ‘It had been discovered in the tomb of a bishop who had been buried in a neighbouring church, and whose tomb had been sacrilegiously up-torn by some fanatics,’ in the hope of securing the treasures reported to be concealed within it. They found nothing, however, but the aforesaid manuscript, and two small ivory bottles, respectively containing a ponderous white and red powder. ‘These pearls beyond price were rejected by the pigs of apostasy: one of them was shattered on the spot, and its ruddy, celestine contents for the most part lost. The remnant, together with the remaining bottle and the unintelligible manuscript, were speedily disposed of to the innkeeper in exchange for a skinful of wine.’ The innkeeper, in his turn, parted with them for one pound sterling to Master Edward Kelly, who, believing he had obtained a hermetic treasure, hastened to London to submit it to Dr. Dee.

This accomplished and daring knave was engaged by the credulous doctor as his skryer, at a salary of £50 per annum, with ‘board and lodging,’ and all expenses paid. These were liberal terms; but it must be admitted that Kelly earned them. Now, indeed, the crystal began to justify its reputation! Spirits came as thick as blackberries, and voices as numerous as those of rumour! Kelly’s amazing fertility of fancy never failed his employer, upon whose confidence he established an extraordinary hold, by judiciously hinting doubts as to the propriety of the work he had undertaken. How could a man be other than trustworthy, when he frankly expressed his suspicions of the mala fides of the spirits who responded to the summons of the crystal? It was impossible—so the doctor argued—that so candid a medium could be an impostor, and while resenting the imputations cast upon the ‘spiritual creatures,’ he came to believe all the more strongly in the man who slandered them. The difference of opinion gave rise, of course, to an occasional quarrel. On one occasion (in April, 1582) Kelly specially provoked his employer by roundly asserting that the spirits were demons sent to lure them to their destruction; and by complaining that he was confined in Dee’s house as in a prison, and that it would be better for him to be near Cotsall Plain, where he might walk abroad without danger.

Some time in 1583 a certain ‘Lord Lasky,’ that is, Albert Laski or Alasco, prince or waiwode of Siradia in Poland, and a guest at Elizabeth’s Court, made frequent visits to Dee’s house, and was admitted to the spirit exhibitions of the crystal. It has been suggested that Kelly had conceived some ambitious projects, which he hoped to realize through the agency of this Polish noble, and that he made use of the crystal to work upon his imagination. Thenceforward the spirits were continually hinting at great European revolutions, and uttering vague predictions of some extraordinary good fortune which was in preparation for Alasco. On May 28 Dee and Kelly were sitting in the doctor’s study, discussing the prince’s affairs, when suddenly appeared—perhaps it was an optical trick of the ingenious Kelly—‘a spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired on her head, with her hair rowled up before, and hanging down very long behind, with a gown of soy, changeable green and red, and with a train; she seemed to play up and down, and seemed to go in and out behind my books, lying in heaps; and as she should ever go between them, the books seemed to give place sufficiently, dividing one heap from the other while she passed between them. And so I considered, and heard the diverse reports which E. K. made unto this pretty maid, and I said, “Whose maiden are you?”’ Here follows the conversation—inane and purposeless enough, and yet deemed worthy of preservation by the credulous doctor:

DOCTOR DEE’S CONVERSATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL CREATURE.

She. Whose man are you?

Dee. I am the servant of God, both by my bound duty, and also (I hope) by His adoption.

A Voice. You shall be beaten if you tell.

She. Am not I a fine maiden? give me leave to play in your house; my mother told me she would come and dwell here.

(She went up and down with most lively gestures of a young girl playing by herself, and divers times another spake to her from the corner of my study by a great perspective glasse, but none was seen beside herself.)

She. Shall I? I will. (Now she seemed to answer me in the foresaid corner of my study.) I pray you let me tarry a little? (Speaking to me in the foresaid corner.)

Dee. Tell me what you are.

She. I pray you let me play with you a little, and I will tell you who I am.

Dee. In the name of Jesus then, tell me.

She. I rejoice in the name of Jesus, and I am a poor little maiden; I am the last but one of my mother’s children; I have little baby children at home.

Dee. Where is your home?

She. I dare not tell you where I dwell, I shall be beaten.

Dee. You shall not be beaten for telling the truth to them that love the truth; to the Eternal Truth all creatures must be obedient.

She. I warrant you I will be obedient; my sisters say they must all come and dwell with you.

Dee. I desire that they who love God should dwell with me, and I with them.

She. I love you now you talk of God.

Dee. Your eldest sister—her name is Esiměli.

She. My sister is not so short as you make her.

Dee. O, I cry you mercy! she is to be pronounced Esimīli!

Kelly. She smileth; one calls her, saying, Come away, maiden.

She. I will read over my gentlewomen first; my master Dee will teach me if I say amiss.

Dee. Read over your gentlewomen, as it pleaseth you.

She. I have gentlemen and gentlewomen; look you here.

Kelly. She bringeth a little book out of her pocket. She pointeth to a picture in the book.

She. Is not this a pretty man?

Dee. What is his name?

She. My (mother) saith his name is Edward: look you, he hath a crown upon his head; my mother saith that this man was Duke of York.

And so on.

The question here suggests itself, Was this passage of nonsense Dr. Dee’s own invention? And has he compiled it for the deception of posterity? I do not believe it. It is my firm conviction that he recorded in perfect good faith—though I own my opinion is not very complimentary to his intelligence—the extravagant rigmarole dictated to him by the arch-knave Kelly, who, very possibly, added to his many ingenuities some skill in the practices of the ventriloquist. No great amount of artifice can have been necessary for successfully deceiving so admirable a subject for deception as the credulous Dee. It is probable that Dee may sometimes have suspected he was being imposed upon; but we may be sure he was very unwilling to admit it, and that he did his best to banish from his mind so unwelcome a suspicion. As for Kelly, it seems clear that he had conceived some widely ambitious and daring scheme, which, as I have said, he hoped to carry out through the instrumentality of Alasco, whose interest he endeavoured to stimulate by flattering his vanity, and representing the spiritual creature as in possession of a pedigree which traced his descent from the old Norman family of the Lacys.

With an easy invention which would have done credit to the most prolific of romancists, he daily developed the characters of his pretended visions.24 Consulting the crystal on June 2, he professed to see a spirit in the garb of a husbandman, and this spirit rhodomontaded in mystical language about the great work Alasco was predestined to accomplish in the conversion and regeneration of the world. Before this invisible fictionist retired into his former obscurity, Dee petitioned him to use his influence on behalf of a woman who had committed suicide, and of another who had dreamed of a treasure hidden in a cellar. Other interviews succeeded, in the course of which much more was said about the coming purification of humanity, and it was announced that a new code of laws, moral and religious, would be entrusted to Dee and his companions. What a pity that this code was never forthcoming! A third spirit, a maiden named Galerah, made her appearance, all whose revelations bore upon Alasco, and the greatness for which he was reserved: ‘I say unto thee, his name is in the Book of Life. The sun shall not passe his course before he be a king. His counsel shall breed alteration of his State, yea, of the whole world. What wouldst thou know of him?’

‘If his kingdom shall be of Poland,’ answered Dee, ‘in what land else?’

‘Of two kingdoms,’ answered Galerah.

‘Which? I beseech you.’

‘The one thou hast repeated, and the other he seeketh as his right.’

‘God grant him,’ exclaimed the pious doctor, ‘sufficient direction to do all things so as may please the highest of his calling.’

‘He shall want no direction,’ replied Galerah, ‘in anything he desireth.’

Whether Kelly’s invention began to fail him, or whether it was a desire to increase his influence over his dupe, I will not decide; but at this time he revived his pretended conscientious scruples against dealing with spirits, whom he calumniously declared to be ministers of Satan, and intimated his intention of departing from the unhallowed precincts of Mortlake. But the doctor could not bear with equanimity the loss of a skryer who rendered such valuable service, and watched his movements with the vigilance of alarm. It was towards the end of June, the month made memorable by such important revelations, that Kelly announced, one day, his design of riding from Mortlake to Islington, on some private business. The doctor’s fears were at once awakened, and he fell into a condition of nervous excitement, which, no doubt, was exactly what Kelly had hoped to provoke. ‘I asked him,’ says Dee, ‘why he so hasted to ride thither, and I said if it were to ride to Mr. Henry Lee, I would go thither also, to be acquainted with him, seeing now I had so good leisure, being eased of the book writing. Then he said, that one told him, the other day, that the Duke (Alasco) did but flatter him, and told him other things, both against the Duke and me. I answered for the Duke and myself, and also said that if the forty pounds’ annuity which Mr. Lee did offer him was the chief cause of his minde setting that way (contrary to many of his former promises to me), that then I would assure him of fifty pounds yearly, and would do my best, by following of my suit, to bring it to pass as soon as I possibly could, and thereupon did make him promise upon the Bible. Then Edward Kelly again upon the same Bible did sweare unto me constant friendship, and never to forsake me; and, moreover, said that unless this had so fallen out, he would have gone beyond the seas, taking ship at Newcastle within eight days next. And so we plight our faith each to other, taking each other by the hand upon these points of brotherly and friendly fidelity during life, which covenant I beseech God to turn to His honour, glory, and service, and the comfort of our brethren (His children) here on earth.’

This concordat, however, was of brief duration. Kelly, who seems to have been in fear of arrest,25 still threatened to quit Dee’s service; and by adroit pressure of this kind, and by unlimited promises to Alasco, succeeded in persuading his two confederates to leave England clandestinely, and seek an asylum on Alasco’s Polish estates. Dee took with him his second wife, Jane Fromond, to whom he had been married in February, 1578, his son Arthur (then about four years old), and his children by his first wife. Kelly was also accompanied by his wife and family.

On the night of September 21, 1583, in a storm of rain and wind, they left Mortlake by water, and dropped down the river to a point four or five miles below Gravesend, where they embarked on board a Danish ship, which they had hired to take them to Holland. But the violence of the gale was such that they were glad to transfer themselves, after a narrow escape from shipwreck, to some fishing-smacks, which landed them at Queenborough, in the Isle of Sheppey, in safety. There they remained until the gale abated, and then crossed the Channel to Brill on the 30th. Proceeding through Holland and Friesland to Embden and Bremen, they thence made their way to Stettin, in Pomerania, arriving on Christmas Day, and remaining until the middle of January.

Meanwhile, Kelly was careful not to intermit those revelations from the crystal which kept alive the flame of credulous hope in the bosom of his two dupes, and he was especially careful to stimulate the ambition of Alasco, whose impoverished finances could ill bear the burden imposed upon them of supporting so considerable a company. They reached Siradia on February 3, 1584, and there the spirits suddenly changed the tone of their communications; for Kelly, having unexpectedly discovered that Alasco’s resources were on the brink of exhaustion, was accordingly prepared to fling him aside without remorse. The first spiritual communication was to the effect that, on account of his sins, he would no longer be charged with the regeneration of the world, but he was promised possession of the Kingdom of Moldavia. The next was an order to Dee and his companions to leave Siradia, and repair to Cracow, where Kelly hoped, no doubt, to get rid of the Polish prince more easily. Then the spirits began to speak at shorter intervals, their messages varying greatly in tone and purport, according, I suppose, as Alasco’s pecuniary supplies increased or diminished; but eventually, when all had suffered severely from want of money, for it would seem that their tinctures and powders never yielded them as much as an ounce of gold, the spirits summarily dismissed the unfortunate Alasco, ordered Dee and Kelly to repair to Prague, and entrusted Dee with a Divine communication to Rudolph II., the Emperor of Germany.

Quarrels often occurred between the two adepts during the Cracow period. In these Kelly was invariably the prime mover, and his object was always the same: to confirm his influence over the man he had so egregiously duped. At Prague, Dee was received by the Imperial Court with the distinction due to his well-known scholarship; but no credence was given to his mission from the spirits, and his pretensions as a magician were politely ignored. Nor was he assisted with any pecuniary benevolences; and the man who through his crystal and his skryer had apparently unlimited control over the inhabitants of the spiritual world could not count with any degree of certainty upon his daily bread. He failed, moreover, to obtain a second interview with the Emperor. On attending at the palace, he was informed that the Emperor had gone to his country seat, or else that he had just ridden forth to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, or that his imperfect acquaintance with the Latin tongue prevented him from conferring with Dee personally; and eventually, at the instigation of the Papal nuncio, Dee was ordered to depart from the Imperial territories (May, 1586).

The discredited magician then betook himself to Erfurt, and afterwards to Cassel. He would fain have visited Italy, where he anticipated a cordial welcome at those Courts which patronized letters and the arts, but he was privately warned that at Rome an accusation of heresy and magic had been preferred against him, and he had no desire to fall into the fangs of the Inquisition. In the autumn of 1586, the Imperial prohibition having apparently been withdrawn, he followed Kelly into Bohemia; and in the following year we find both of them installed as guests of a wealthy nobleman, named Rosenberg, at his castle of Trebona. Here they renewed their intercourse with the spirit world, and their operations in the transmutation of metals. Dee records how, on December 9, he reached the point of projection! Cutting a piece out of a brass warming-pan, he converted it—by merely heating it in the fire, and pouring on it a few drops of the magical elixir—a kind of red oil, according to some authorities—into solid, shining silver. And there goes an idle story that he sent both the pan and the piece of silver to Queen Elizabeth, so that, with her own eyes, she might see how exactly they tallied, and that the piece had really been cut out of the pan! About the same time, it is said, the two magicians launched into a profuse expenditure,—Kelly, on one of his maid-servants getting married, giving away gold rings to the value of £4,000. Yet, meanwhile, Dee and Kelly were engaged in sharp contentions, because the spirits fulfilled none of the promises made by the latter, who, his invention (I suppose) being exhausted, resolved, in April, 1587, to resign his office of ‘skryer,’ and young Arthur Dee then made an attempt to act in his stead.

The conclusion I have arrived at, after studying the careers and characters of our two worthies, is that they were wholly unfitted for each other’s society; a barrier of ‘incompatibility’ rose straitly between them. Dee was in earnest; Kelly was practising a sham. Dee pursued a shadow which he believed to be a substance; Kelly knew that the shadow was nothing more than a shadow. Dee was a man of rare scholarship and considerable intellectual power, though of a credulous and superstitious temper; Kelly was superficial and ignorant, but clever, astute, and ingenious, and by no means prone to fall into delusions. The last experiment which he made on Dee’s simple-mindedness stamps the man as the rogue and knave he was; while it illustrates the truth of the preacher’s complaint that there is nothing new under the sun. The doctrine of free marriage propounded by American enthusiasts was a remanet from the ethical system of Mr. Edward Kelly.

Kelly had long been on bad terms with his wife, and had conceived a passionate attachment towards Mrs. Dee, who was young and charming, graceful in person, and attractive in manner. To gratify his desires, he resorted to his old machinery of the crystal and the spirits, and soon obtained a revelation that it was the Divine pleasure he and Dr. Dee should exchange partners. Demoralized and abased as Dee had become through his intercourse with Kelly, he shrank at first from a proposal so contrary to the teaching and tenor of the religion he professed, and suggested that the revelation could mean nothing more than that they ought to live on a footing of cordial friendship. But the spirits insisted on a literal interpretation of their command. Dee yielded, comparing himself with much unction to Abraham, who, in obedience to the Divine will, consented to the sacrifice of Isaac. The parallel, however, did not hold good, for Abraham saved his son, whereas Dr. Dee lost his wife!

It was then Kelly’s turn to affect a superior morality, and he earnestly protested that the spirits could not be messengers from heaven, but were servants of Satan. Whereupon they then declared that he was no longer worthy to act as their interpreter. But why dwell longer on this unpleasant farce? By various means of cajolery and trickery, Kelly contrived to accomplish his design.

This communistic arrangement, however, did not long work satisfactorily—at least, so far as the ladies were concerned; and one can easily understand that Mrs. Dee would object to the inferior position she occupied as Kelly’s paramour. However this may be, Dee and Kelly parted company in January, 1589; the former, according to his own account, delivering up to the latter the mysterious elixir and other substances which they had made use of in the transmutation of metals. Dee had begun to turn his eyes wistfully towards his native country, and welcomed with unfeigned delight a gracious message from Queen Elizabeth, assuring him of a friendly reception. In the spring he took his departure from Trebona; and it is said that he travelled with a pomp and circumstance worthy of an ambassador, though it is difficult to reconcile this statement with his constant complaints of poverty. Perhaps, after all, his three coaches, with four horses to each coach, his two or three waggons loaded with baggage and stores, and his hired escort of six to twenty-four soldiers, whose business it was to protect him from the enemies he supposed to be lying in wait for him, existed only, like the philosopher’s stone, in the imagination! He landed at Gravesend on December 2, was kindly received by the Queen at Richmond a day or two afterwards, and before the year had run out was once more quietly settled in his house ‘near the riverside’ at Mortlake.

Kelly, whom the Emperor Maximilian II. had knighted and created Marshal of Bohemia, so strong a conviction of his hermetic abilities had he impressed on the Imperial mind, remained in Germany. But the ingenious, plausible rogue was kept under such rigid restraint, in order that he might prepare an adequate quantity of the transmuting stone or powder, that he wearied of it, and one night endeavoured to escape. Tearing up the sheets of his bed, he twisted them into a rope, with which to lower himself from the tower where he was confined. But he was a man of some bulk; the rope gave way beneath his weight, and falling to the ground, he received such severe injuries that in a few days he expired (1593).

Dee’s later life was, as Godwin remarks, ‘bound in shallows and miseries.’ He had forfeited the respect of serious-minded men by his unworthy confederacy with an unscrupulous adventurer. The Queen still treated him with some degree of consideration, though she had lost all faith in his magical powers, and occasionally sent him assistance. The unfortunate man never ceased to weary her with the repetition of his trials and troubles, and strongly complained that he had been deprived of the income of his two small benefices during his six years’ residence on the Continent. He related the sad tale of the destruction of his library and apparatus by an ignorant mob, which had broken into his house immediately after his departure from England, excited by the rumours of his strange magical practices. He enumerated the expenses of his homeward journey, arguing that, as it had been undertaken by the Queen’s command, she ought to reimburse him. At last (in 1592) the Queen appointed two members of her Privy Council to inquire into the particulars of his allegations. These particulars he accordingly put together in a curious narrative, which bore the long-winded title of:

‘The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee, his dutiful Declaracion and Proof of the Course and Race of his Studious Lyfe, for the Space of Halfe an Hundred Yeares, now (by God’s Favour and Helpe) fully spent, and of the very great Injuries, Damages, and Indignities, which for those last nyne Years he hath in England sustained (contrary to Her Majesties very gracious Will and express Commandment), made unto the Two Honourable Commissioners, by Her Most Excellent Majesty thereto assigned, according to the intent of the most humble Supplication of the said John, exhibited to Her Most Gracious Majestie at Hampton Court, Anno 1592, November 9.’

It has been remarked that in this ‘Compendious Rehearsal’ he alludes neither to his magic crystal, with its spiritualistic properties, nor to the wonderful powder or elixir of transmutation. He founds his claim to the Queen’s patronage solely upon his intellectual eminence and acknowledged scholarship. Nor does he allude to his Continental experiences, except so far as relates to his homeward journey. But he is careful to recapitulate all his services, and the encomiastic notices they had drawn from various quarters, while he details his losses with the most elaborate minuteness. The quaintest part of his lamentable and most fervent petition is, however, its conclusion. Having shown that he has tried and exhausted every means of raising money for the support of his family, he concludes:

‘Therefore, seeing the blinded lady, Fortune, doth not governe in this commonwealth, but justitia and prudentia, and that in better order than in Tullie’s “Republica,” or bookes of offices, they are laied forth to be followed and performed, most reverently and earnestly (yea, in manner with bloody teares of heart), I and my wife, our seaven children, and our servants (seaventeene of us in all) do this day make our petition unto your Honors, that upon all godly, charitable, and just respects had of all that, which this day you have seene, heard, and perceived, you will make such report unto her Most Excellent Majestie (with humble request for speedy reliefes) that we be not constrained to do or suffer otherwise than becometh Christians, and true, and faithfull, and obedient subjects to doe or suffer; and all for want of due mainteynance.’

The main object Dee had in view was the mastership of St. Cross’s Hospital, which Elizabeth had formerly promised him. This he never received; but in December, 1594, he was appointed to the Chancellorship of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which in the following year he exchanged for the wardenship of the College at Manchester. He still continued his researches into supernatural mysteries, employing several persons in succession as ‘skryers’; but he found no one so fertile in invention as Kelly, and the crystal uttered nothing more oracular than answers to questions about lovers’ quarrels, hidden treasures, and petty thefts—the common stock-in-trade of the conjurer. In 1602 or 1604, he retired from his Manchester appointment, and sought the quiet and seclusion of his favourite Mortlake. His renown as ‘a magician’ had greatly increased—not a little, it would seem, to his annoyance; for on June 5, 1604, we find that he presented a petition to James I. at Greenwich, soliciting his royal protection against the wrong done to him by enemies who mocked him as ‘a conjurer, or caller, or invocator of devils,’ and solemnly asserting that ‘of all the great number of the very strange and frivolous fables or histories reported and told of him (as to have been of his doing) none were true.’ It is said that the treatment Dee experienced at this time was the primary cause of the Act passed against personal slander (1604)—a proof of legislative wisdom which drew from Dee a versified expression of gratitude—in which, let us hope, the sincerity of the gratitude is not to be measured by the quality of the verse. It is addressed to ‘the Honorable Members of the Commons in the Present Parliament,’ and here is a specimen of it, which will show that, though Dee’s crystal might summon the spirits, it had no control over the Muses:

‘The honour, due unto you all,

And reverence, to you each one

I do first yield most spe-ci-all;

Grant me this time to heare my mone.

‘Now (if you will) full well you may

Fowle sclaundrous tongues for ever tame;

And helpe the truth to beare some sway

In just defence of a good name.’

Thenceforward Dee sinks into almost total obscurity. His last years were probably spent in great tribulation; and the man who had dreamed of converting, Midas-like, all he touched into gold, seems frequently to have wanted bread. It was a melancholy ending to a career which might have been both useful and brilliant, if his various scholarship and mental energy had not been expended upon a delusion. Unfortunately for himself, Dee, with all his excellent gifts, wanted that greatest gift of all, a sound judgment. His excitable fancy and credulous temper made him the dupe of his own wishes, and eventually the tool of a knave far inferior to himself in intellectual power, but surpassing him in strength of will, in force of character, in audacity and inventiveness. Both knave and dupe made but sorry work of their lives. Kelly, as we have seen, broke his neck in attempting to escape from a German prison, and Dee expired in want and dishonour, without a friend to receive his last sigh.

He died at Mortlake in 1608, and was buried in the chancel of Mortlake Church, where, long afterwards, Aubrey, the gossiping antiquary, was shown an old marble slab as belonging to his tomb.

His son Arthur, after acting as physician to the Czar of Russia and to our own Charles I., established himself in practice at Norwich, where he died. Anthony Wood solemnly records that this Arthur, in his boyhood, had frequently played with quoits of gold, which his father had cast at Prague by means of his ‘stone philosophical.’ How often Dee must have longed for some of those ‘quoits’ in his last sad days at Mortlake, when he sold his books, one by one, to keep himself from starvation!

After Dee’s death, his fame as a magician underwent an extraordinary revival; and in 1659, when the country was looking forward to the immediate restoration of its Stuart line of kings, the learned Dr. Meric Casaubon thought proper to publish, in a formidable folio volume, the doctor’s elaborate report of his—or rather Kelly’s—supposed conferences with the spirits—a notable book, as being the initial product of spiritualism in English literature. In his preface Casaubon remarks that, though Dee’s ‘carriage in certain respects seemed to lay in works of darkness, yet all was tendered by him to kings and princes, and by all (England alone excepted) was listened to for a good while with good respect, and by some for a long time embraced and entertained.’ And he adds that ‘the fame of it made the Pope bestir himself, and filled all, both learned and unlearned, with great wonder and astonishment.... As a whole, it is undoubtedly not to be paralleled in its kind in any age or country.’