4

"This my commission is from God. I feign nothing, neither am I a hypocrite, an ambitious man, or doting or dreaming in this cause. If I speak otherwise than I have just cause, I forsake my salvation," said he.

Rudolph was probably very much bored by this mystical rhapsody. He excused himself from seeing the vision at this time, and said he would hear more later. He promised friendship and patronage, and Dee, who says he had told him almost more thanhe intended of his purposes, "to the intent they might get some root or better stick in his minde," was fain to take his leave. In a few days he was informed, through the Spanish ambassador, that one Doctor Curtius, of the Privy Council, "a wise, learned, and faithful councillor," was to be sent to listen to him on the Emperor's behalf. Uriel, whose head had been bound of late in a black silk mourning scarf because of Kelly's misdoings, now reappeared in a wheel of fire, and announced favour to Rudolph.

"If he live righteously and follow me truly, I will hold up his house with pillars of hiacinth, and his chambers shall be full of modesty and comfort. I will bring the East wind over him as a Lady of Comfort, and she shall sit upon his castles with Triumph, and she shall sleep with joy."

To Dee, he says, has been given "the spirit of choice." Dee petitions that his understanding of that dark saying may be opened: "Dwell thou in me, O Lord, for I am frail and without thee very blind."

The conference between Dee and Curtius on September 15 lasted for six hours. It took place at the Austrian's house, whither Dee was permitted, it seems, to take the magic stone and teh books of the dealings. Dee in all good faith promised that many excellent things should happen to Rudolph, if only he would listen to the voice of Uriel. Dee's sincerity, credulous though it appears, was as yet unshaken. He lived in a transcendental atmosphere, and trembled, as he believed, on the brink of a great revelation. The very heavens seemed opening to him, and soon, he thought, he would probe knowledge to its heart.

Kelly, on the other hand, was under no delusion. He had worked the spirit mystery for long enough without profit; already he was beginning to more than suspect that the game was played out; that their dreams of Laski as King of Poland, dispensing wealth and favour to his two helpers, were never to be realised; that the Emperor's favour would be equally chimerical and vain; and that some more profitable occupation had better be sought. At the back of his mind lay always the hope of the golden secret. Somehow and somewhere this last aspiration of the alchemist must be realised.

At the very time when the two learned doctors were holding their confabulation, Kelly, says Dee, was visited at their lodgings with a wicked spirit who told him that Dee's companion would use him like a serpent, "compassing his destruction with both head and tayle; and that our practices would never come to any fruitful end."

This was a true prophecy indeed, but many things were yet to come to pass.