I was well acquainted with the Speculator of John a Windor, a scrivener, sometimes living in Newbury.  This Windor was club-fisted, wrote with a pen betwixt both his hands.  I have seen many bonds and bills wrote by him.  He was much given to debauchery, so that at some times the Daemons would not appear to the Speculator; he would then suffumigate:  sometimes, to vex the spirits, he would curse them, fumigate with contraries.  Upon his examination before Sir Henry Wallop, Kt. which I have seen, he said, he once visited Dr. Dee in Mortlack; and out of a book that lay in the window, he copied out that call which he used, when he invocated—­

It was that—­which near the beginning of it hath these words,

  Per virtutem illorum qui invocant nomen tuum,
  Hermeli—­mitte nobis tres Angelos, &c.

Windor had many good parts, but was a most lewd person:  My master Wright knew him well, and having dealing in those parts, made use of him as a scrivener.

Oliver Withers, servant to Sir H. Wallop, brought up John a Windor’s examination unto London, purposely for me to peruse.  This Withers was Mr. Fiske’s scholar three years more or less, to learn astrology of him; but being never the wiser, Fiske brought him unto me:  by shewing him but how to judge one figure, his eyes were opened:  He made the Epistle before Dr. Neve’s book, now in Mr. Sander’s hands, was very learned in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues.

Having mentioned Dr. John Dee, I hold it not impertinent to speak something of him; but more especially of Edward Kelly’s Speculator.

Dr. Dee himself was a Cambro Briton, educated in the university of Oxford, there took his degree of Doctor; afterwards for many years in search of the profounder studies, travelled into foreign parts:  to be serious, he was Queen Elizabeth’s intelligencer, and had a salary for his maintenance from the Secretaries of State.  He was a ready witted man, quick of apprehension, very learned, and of great judgment in the Latin and Greek tongues.  He was a very great investigator of the more secret Hermetical learning, a perfect astronomer, a curious astrologer, a serious geometrician; to speak truth, he was excellent in all kinds of learning.

With all this, he was the most ambitious person living, and most desirous of fame and renown, and was never so well pleased as when he heard himself stiled Most Excellent.

He was studious in chymistry, and attained to good perfection therein; but his servant, or rather companion, Kelly, out-went him, viz. about the Elixir or Philosopher’s Stone; which neither Kelly or Dee attained by their own labour and industry.  It was in this manner Kelly obtained it, as I had it related from an ancient minister, who knew the certainty thereof from an old English merchant, resident in Germany, at what time both Kelly and Dee were there.