were at this work, a great wind arose, ‘so high, so blustering, and loud,’ that all were frightened, ’and knew not what to think or do;’ all save Lilly, who gave ’directions and commands to dismiss the daemons,’ and then all became quiet again.  These doings Lilly did not approve, and says he ’could never again be induced to join in such kind of work.’  He engaged, however, in another transaction of still worse character, which seems to have been even more unpleasant to him; for he says:  ’After that I became melancholy, very much afflicted with the hypochondriac melancholy, growing lean and spare, and every day worse; so that in the year 1635, my infirmity continuing and my acquaintance increasing, I resolved to live in the country, and in March and April, 1636, I removed my goods unto Hersham (Horsham in Sussex, thirty-six miles from London), where I continued until 1641, no notice being taken who or what I was:’  and in this time he burned some of his books, which treated of things he did not approve, and which he disliked to practise; for this man really had a conscience as good as the average, or even better:  he was driven into solitude by the reproaches of it—­or, perhaps, by the scoldings of a wife who ’was of the nature of Mars.’

Thus far we have followed Lilly’s account of himself closely, using often his own words, because they give a more correct idea of the man than could be got from the words of another; but henceforth to the end, we will skip much and be brief.  This astrologer did not always rely on his special art to discover things hidden, but used often quite ordinary means; sometimes such as are common to officers of detective police.  His confessions of doings in that kind are candid enough, and we must say of his ‘History of his Life and Times’ that it is, on the whole, a simple, truthful statement of facts; not an apology for a life at all; for he seldom attempts to excuse or justify his actions, but leaves a plain record with the reader for good or evil.

A man, it is sometimes said, is to be judged by the company he keeps, and we will therefore say a few words of this astrologer’s friends.  Of men like William Pennington, of Muncaster, in Cumberland, ’of good family and estate,’ introduced to Lilly by David Ramsay, the king’s clockmaker, in 1634, who are otherwise unknown to us, we will say nothing.  But the reader surely knows something of Hugh Peters, the Puritan preacher—­who could do other things as well as preach:  with him Lilly had ‘much conference and some private discourses,’ and once in the Christmas holidays, a time of leisure, Peters and the Lord Gray of Groby invited him to Somerset House, and requested him to bring two of his almanacs.  At another time Peters took Lilly along with him into Westminster Hall ‘to hear the king tried.’  But the most influential friend, perhaps, was Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke, a man well known to readers of English history as very prominent in the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate.