5

A month or two after this, Saul was indicted on some charge and tried in Westminster Hall, but, thanks to Mr. Serjeant Walmesley and a couple of clever lawyers, he was acquitted. There was an end of his clairvoyance, however: "he confessed he neyther herd or saw any spirituall crature any more." If the accusation against him had been that of sorcery, he was wise to risk no further appearances in Westminster Hall. He seems to have spread abroad many false reports about Dee, who reproached him bitterly when he called at Mortlake a few months later. Dee had, however, gained psychical experience by these early and tentative experiments.

The field was now open for a maturer applicant. When he arrived, he was to change the whole current of Dee's life and outlook, to become at once a helper and a stumbling-block, a servant and a master, loving as a son, treacherous as only a jealous foe. It was a strange fate that sent Edward Kelly to Dee at this moment, when everything was ripe for his appearance. And it was characteristic of the man that he was ushered into Dee's life under a feigned name.

On March 8, two days after Saul had confessed he saw and heard no more of the spirits, Dee writes in his diary, "Mr. Clerkson and his frende cam to my howse." He makes the visit very emphatic by repeating the information: "Barnabas went home abowt 2 or 3 o'clock, he lay not at my howse now; he went, I say, on Thursday, and Mr. Clerkson came." At nine o'clock the same night, there was a wonderful exhibition of the aurora in the northern and eastern heavens, which Dee describes minutely in Latin in the diary. The next day, March 9, he mentions Clerkson's friend by name as "Mr. Talbot," and shows how that individual appears to have begun ingratiating himself with his new patron by telling him what a bad man his predecessor was. Barnabas had said that Dee would mock at the new medium; Barnabas had "cosened" both Clerkson and Dee. This, Talbot professed to have been told by "a spiritual creature."

The pair proceeded at once to business. On the 10th, they sat downto gaze into "my stone in a frame given me of a friend," with very remarkable results. Information was vouchsafed that they should jointly together have knowledge of the angels, if the will of God, viz., conjunction of mind and prayer between them, be performed. They were bidden to "abuse not this excellency nor overshadow it with vanity, but stick firmly, absolutely and perfectly in the love of God for his honour, together." There were forty-nine good angels, all their names beginning with B, who were to be answerable to their call.

The first entry that Dee makes in his Book of Mysteries concerning Talbot is as follows: -

"One Mr. Edward Talbot cam to my howse, and he being willing and desyrous to see or shew something in spirituall practise, wold have had me to have done something therein. And I truely excused myself therein: as not, in the vulgarly accownted magik, neyther studied or exercised. But confessed myself long tyme to have byn desyrous to have help in my philosophicall studies through the cumpany and information of the blessed Angels of God. And thereuppon, I brought furth to him my stonein the frame (which was given me of a frende), and I sayd unto him that I was credibly informed that to it (after a sort) were answerable Aliqui Angeli boni. And also that I was once willed by a skryer to call for the good Angel Annael to appere in that stone in my owne sight. And therefore I desyred him to call him, and (if he would) Anachor and Anilos likewise, accounted good angels, for I was not prepared thereto.

"He [Talbot] settled himself to the Action, and on his knees at my desk, setting the stone before him, fell to prayer and entreaty, etc. In the mean space, I in my Oratory did pray and make motion to God and his good creatures for the furdering of this Action. And within one quarter of an hour (or less) he had sight of one in the stone."