[7] There can be no doubt of the reality of all these magical apparatus, for we actually possess them. The magical mirror, having lost its theurgic enchantment, finally was placed among the curiosities of the late Earl of Oxford. Lysons describes it as a round piece of volcanic glass finely polished—some one calls it Kennel coal. The hieroglyphical cakes of wax were deposited at the British Museum, probably at the time the precious manuscripts of Dee’s conferences with “the Spirits” were so carefully lodged in the Cottonian Collections.
[8] This superstition retains all its freshness in the East. A magician at Cairo recently,
“Taking in of SHADOWS WITH A GLASS”—(The Alchemist of Jonson), has, I believe, been recorded by a noble lord; having startled the lookers-on with one shadow, painfully recognised, and another of a great bibliophile, who, seen in the glass, walking in a garden with his hands full of books, was supposed to be the worthy Archdeacon Wrangham. I must however add, that the same magician showed himself very dull to a dear friend of mine; and that his “speculator,” a boy called, apparently accidentally, from the street, only displayed his gift in nonsensical mendacity.
[9] In the golden days of animal magnetism, more than forty years ago, I heard many tales, and visited many scenes, where there must have been much imposture practised, more credulity contagious, and much which I never could comprehend. In the magnetic sleep, where the body seemed extinct—and in the luminous crisis, where the soul was wakeful in all its invisible operations—the inspired communicant, undisturbed by the sly contrivances of the unbeliever, seemed transported when and where they listed. A Mr. Baldwin, in 1795 our consul at Alexandria, in search of what he called the Divinity of Truth, imagined he had found it in this new and mystical science. Always seeking for fitting subjects, a cunning Arab long served his purpose on ordinary matters, but it was his fortune to fall on an Italian wanderer far more susceptible of the magnetic influence. For three years, in his own abode, he has chronicled down “The Sittings,” as he calls them, where, in the magnetic sleep, the communicant poured forth in verse and prose mysteries and revelations. On his return to England, Mr. Baldwin printed, by Bulmer, in an unpublished quarto, these “Sittings,” in the native language of the inspired; as the subject was an improvisatore, it probably cost him little to charm Mr. Baldwin in “celestial colloquy sublime” with answers to most unanswerable inquiries; and descriptions of ecstatic scenes which made the pen tremble with wonder and delight in the hands of the infatuated scribe. Baldwin, with the faith of Dee, wrote down the revelations of his Edward Kelley.
[10] This volume is Dee’s “Monas Hieroglyphica, Mathematice, Cabalistice, et Anagogice Explicata,” 1564; a book which Elizabeth lamented she could not comprehend. It is reprinted in the “Theatrum Chymicum Britannicum” of that lover of the occult sciences, Elias Ashmole.
[11] The often-repeated tales of this vanished alchemy may startle the incredulous; but the dupes and the knaves have been so numerous that we cannot distinguish between them. Sir Humphry Davy assured me that making gold might be no impossible thing, though, publicly divulged, a very useless discovery. Metals seem to be composite bodies, which nature is perpetually preparing, and it may be reserved for the future researchers in science to trace, and perhaps to imitate, some of these curious operations. Dr. Girtanner of Gottingen predicted, not many years ago, that “In the nineteenth century the transmutation of metals would be generally practised;” a set of kitchen utensils in gold, he assures us, would save us from the deathly oxides of copper, &c.
[12] Harl. MSS., 6986 (26)—A letter from Dr. Dee to the Queen, congratulating her on the defeat of the Armada. He declares that he is ready with Kelley, and their families, to return home. Dated Nov. 1588.
[13] This letter, from the Burleigh Papers, is printed by Strype.—Annals, iv. 3.
[14] We have several manuscript letters which passed between Dee and Stowe. They show all the warmth of their literary intercourse. Dee offers his present aid, and promises his future assistance.
[15] The curious may find a copious narrative of the recovery of these manuscripts, written by Ashmole himself, printed in Ayscough’s Catalogue of MSS., p. 371, where also he is referred to the autographs of Dee, in the British Museum.