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 streets, 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, scrape trenchers, and so forth. If I had any profession, it was of this nature. I should never have denied my being a tailor, had I been one.' Diligent he surely was; and his master rewarded him by an annuity of twenty pounds. Gilbert Wright being gathered to his fathers, his widow, who had been twice married to old men, was now resolved to be cozened no more. To her maid, Lilly's fellow-servant, the lusty dame frequently observed, that she cared not if she married a man that would love her, though he had never a penny. After a few tender hints of this kind, Lilly became bold; and one day after dinner, when all her talk was about husbands, he saluted her; she spoke lovingly; he obtained her hand, which, six years afterwards, was snatched from him by

death; she leaving him one thousand pounds as a reward for all his services. Lilly now throve apace; he married a second wife; she was of the nature of Mars, and brought him five hundred pounds as a portion; and with this addition to his fortune he fairly embarked himself in the study of astrology, the black art, alchemy, and all other occult sciences..

"Lucrative as these pursuits may have been, he carried them on in conjunction with other professions of a less occult nature. According to his own confession, Lilly was a pimp. True it is, that when he ordered the fair lady from Greenwich to go at such a day and see a play at Salisbury Court, which she did, and within one quarter of an hour the young lord came into the same box wherein she was, the conjunction between the fair Greenwich lady and the young lord was effected, not by human means, but by the ministry of the angels Uriel, Raphael, and Zadkiel, and the Pentacle of Solomon. But all is vanity. I grew weary,' he exclaims, of such employments, and since have burned my books, which instruct these curiosities.' Lilly also picked

pur

pockets, and stole papers; but these feats were performed out of pure friendship, for the pose of helping Mr. Pennington. And, in addition to these honourable exertions of science, Lilly was an intelligencer, or in plain English, a spy; for which he received a pension from the Council of State, under the Commonwealth. In his more avowed calling of an astrologer, there is no doubt but that his Mercurius Anglicus was an useful ally to the Roundheads. He tells us, with much satisfaction, that during one of Cromwell's battles, a soldier stood with the almanack in his hand, exclaiming, as the troops passed by, Lo! hear what Lilly saith, you are in this month promised victory: fight it out, brave boys!' and then read that month's prediction. Lilly was a very prudent astrologer. Until the cause of the king began to decline rapidly, he tells us that he was more cavalier than roundhead. Subsequently, he could still discern that the configurations of the planets boded no certainty to the prevailing party; and, to use his own words, I engaged, body and soul, in the cause of Parliament, but still with much

affection unto his Majesty's person, and unto monarchy, which I loved and approved beyond any government whatever.' The same prescience created an instinctive antipathy between him and the Presbyterians; and, therefore, when Cromwell became Protector, Lilly felt himself in favour, and he could write as freely and as satirically' as he chose. Using these expressions, he could scarcely intend to conceal the secret, that his astrology was merely the vehicle of the opinions which he was paid to favour."* Lilly died on the 9th June, 1681.

6

The far-famed French astrologer, John Baptist Morinus was born on the 23d February, 1583, brought up to physic, and admitted to the faculty of doctor in 1613. Claude Dormi, bishop of Bologne, soon honoured him with his patronage; and in his house Morinus became intimate with one Davidson, a Scotsman, and an astrologer,

* Ib. page 187.

vol. iii. p. 126.

See also Granger's Biog. Hist. There is a good but scarce print

extant, by Hollar, of William Lilly, student in astrology, duod.

another inmate of the bishop's family. The consequence of this friendship was somewhat curious. "Davidson," says Bayle, " grew out of conceit with astrology, because of the uncertainty of the art, and betook himself to physic; while Morinus, on the contrary, for a like reason, was disgusted with physic, and applied himself to astrology and both with such success, that they deserve to be ranked among the famous men of that age."* Among the first efforts of his newly adopted art was the calculation of the events of the year 1617; by which Morinus found that his patron was threatened either with death or imprisonment, and failed not to inform him of it. prelate only laughed at the prediction ; but meddling, soon after, in some intrigue of state, and mistaking the right side, he was treated as a rebel, and cast into prison." Deprived thus of his patron, Morinus entered into the service of the Abbot of St. Evroul, in Normandy. But higher distinctions awaited him; and he was summoned to court, under the pretext of filling the situation of physiBayle's Dict. Morinus.

"The