VISIONS IN A BERYL OR CRYSTAL.
BERYL is a kind of Crystal that hath a weal tincture of red; it is one of the twelve stones mentioned in the Revelation. I have heard,* that spectacles were first made of this stone, which is the reason that the Germans do call a spectacle-glass (or pair of spectacles) a Brill.
*Dr J. Pell
Dr. Pocock of Oxford, in his Commentary on Hosea, hath a learned discourse of the Urim and Thummim; as also Dr. Spenser of Cambridge. That the priest had his visions in the stone of the breast plate.
The Prophets had their seers, viz. young youths who were to behold those visions, of whom Mr. Abraham Cowley writes thus.
With hasty wings, time present they out-fly,
And tread the doubtful maze of destiny;
There walk and sport among the years to come,
And with quick eye pierce every causes womb.
The magicians now use a crystal sphere, or mineral pearl, as No. 3, for this purpose, which is inspected by a boy, or sometimes by the querent himself.
No. 3. {Illustration}
There are certain formulas of prayer to be used, before they make the inspection, which they term a call. In a manuscript of Dr. Forman of Lambeth, (which Mr. Elias Ashmole had) is a discourse of this, and the prayer. Also there is the call which Dr. Nepier did use.
James Harrington (author of Oceana) told me that the Earl of Denbigh, then Ambassador at Venice, did tell him, that one did shew him there several times in a glass, things past and to come.
When Sir Marmaduke Langdale was in Italy, he went to one of those
Magi, who did shew him a glass, where he saw himself kneeling before a
crucifix: he was then a Protestant; afterwards he became a Roman
Catholick. He told Mr. Thomas Henshaw, E.S.S., this himself.
I have here set down the figure of a consecrated Beryl, as No. 4, now in the possession of Sir Edward Harley, Knight of the Bath, which he keeps in his closet at Brampton-Bryan in Herefordshire, amongst his Cimelia, which I saw there. It came first from Norfolk; a minister had it there, and a call was to be used with it. Afterwards a miller had it, and both did work great cures with it, (if curable) and in the Beryl they did see, either the receipt in writing, or else the herb. To this minister, the spirits or angels would appear openly, and because the miller (who was his familiar friend) one day happened to see them, he gave him the aforesaid Beryl and Call: by these angels the minister was forewarned of his death.
No. 4. {Illustration}
This account I had from Mr. Ashmole. Afterwards this Beryl came into some-body's hand in London, who did tell strange things by it; insomuch that at last he was questioned for it, and it was taken away by authority, (it was about 1645).
This Beryl is a perfect sphere, the diameter of it I guess to be something more than an inch: it is set in a ring, or circle of silver resembling the meridian of a globe: the stem of it is about ten inches high, all gilt. At the four quarters of it are the names of four angels, viz. Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel. On the top is a cross patee.
Sam. Boisardus hath writ a book "de Divinatione per Crystallum".
A clothier's widow of Pembridge in Herefordshire, desired Dr. Sherborne (one of the canons of the church of Hereford, and Rector of Pembridge) to look over her husband's writings after his decease: among other things he found a call for a crystal. The clothier had his cloths oftentimes stolen from his racks; and at last obtained this trick to discover the thieves. So when he lost his cloths, he went out about midnight with his crystal and call, and a little boy, or little maid with him (for they say it must be a pure virgin) to look in the crystal, to see the likeness of the person that committed the theft. The doctor did burn the call, 1671.