4


Mr. Newbury, who had been in India, came early in the New Year. Dee recounts how the stage in that well-known old London place of amusement, the Paris Garden, on Bankside, Southwark, fell down suddenly while it was crammed with people beholding the bear-baiting. "Many people were killed thereby, more hurt, and all amazed. The godly expound it as a due plague of God for the wickedness there used, and teh Sabbath day so profanely spent." Sunday was the great day for the bear-fights.

"1583. - Jan. 23. Mr. Secretarie Walsingham cam to my howse, where by good luk he found Mr. Awdrian Gilbert, and so talk was begonne of Northwest Straights discovery.

"Jan. 24. Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis went by appointment to Mr. Secretary, to Mr. Beale his house, where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretarie privie of the N.W. passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed uppon in generall.

"Feb. 3. Mr. Savile, Mor. Powil the younger, travaylors, Mr. Ottomeen his sonne cam to be acquaynted with me.

"Feb. 4. Mr. Edmunds of the Privie Chamber, Mr. Lee, Sir Harry Lee, his brother, who had byn in Moschovia, cam to be acquaynted with me.

"Feb. 11. The Queene lying at Richmond went to Mr. Secretarie Walsingham to dynner; she coming by my dore gratiously called me to her, and so I went by her horse side as far as where Mr. Hudson dwelt.

"Feb. 18. Lady Walsingham cam suddenly to my house very freely, and shortly after that she was gone, cam Syr Francis himself, and Mr. Dyer.

"March 6. I and Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davis did mete with Mr. Alderman Barnes, Mr. Townson and Mr. Yong and Mr. Hudson, about the N.W. passage.

"March 17. Mr. John Davys went to Chelsey with Mr. Adrian Gilbert to Mr. Radforths, and so, the 18th day from thence, to Devonshyre.

"April 18. The Queene went from Richmond toward Greenwich, and at her going on horsbak, being new up, she called for me by Mr. Rawly his putting her in mynde, and she sayd `quod defertur non aufertur,' and gave me her right hand to kisse."

While these every-day events were going on and being chronicled, Dee was also occupying himself with the search for a medium. He first tried one named Barnabas Saul (he seems to have been a licensed preacher), who professed himself an occultist. Saul gives news of buried treasure - great chests of precious books hidden somewhere near Oundle in Northamptonshire, but the disappointed book-lover finds the hoard an illusion. Then Saul, who slept in a chamber over the hall at Mortlake, is visited at midnight by "a spiritual creature."

The first real seance that Dee records, "Actio Saulina," took place on December 21, 1581. The skryer was bidden to look into the "great crystalline globe," and a message was transmitted by the angel Annael through the percipient to the effect that many things should be declared to Dee, not by the present worker, "but by him that is assigned to the stone." After New Year's tide, on any day but the Sabbath, the stone was to be set inthe sun, the brighter the day the better, and sight should be given. The sitters might "deal both kneeling and sitting." When we consider how very real to a devout person in the Middle Ages apparitions of the devil and of evil spirits were, there seems nothing at all extraordinary in Dee's belief that good spirits also might be permitted to come to his call, for purposes of good.


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