My great-grandfather, William Aubrey (LL.Dr.), and he were cosins, and intimate acquaintance. Mr. Ashmole hath letters between them, under their owne hands, viz. one of Dr. W. A. to him[796] (ingeniosely and learnedly written) touching the Sovraignty of the Sea, of which J. D. writt a booke which he dedicated to queen Elizabeth and desired my great grandfather's advice upon it. Dr. A.'s countrey-house was at Kew, and J. Dee lived at Mortlack, not a mile distant. I have heard my grandmother say they were often together.
Arthur Dee, M.D., his son, lived and practised at Norwich, an intimate friend of Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., who told me that Sir William Boswell, the Dutch ambassador, had all John Dee's MSS.: quaere his executors for his papers. He[797] lived then somewhere in Kent.
Memorandum:—Sir William Boswell's widowe lives at Bradburne, neer Swynoke, in Kent. Memorandum:—Mr. Hake, of the Physitians' Colledge, hath a MS. of Mr. John Dee's, which see or gett.
Quaere A. Wood for the MSS. in the Bodlean library of Doctor Gwyn, wherein[798] are severall letters between him and John Dee, and Doctor Davies, of chymistrey and of magicall secrets, which my worthy friend Mr. Meredith Lloyd hath seen and read: and he tells me that he haz been told that Dr. Barlowe gave it to the Prince of Tuscany[799].
Meredith Lloyd sayes that John Dee's printed booke of Spirits, is not above the third part of what was writt, which were in Sir Robert Cotton's library; many whereof were much perished by being buryed, and Sir Robert Cotton bought the field to digge after it.
Memorandum:—he told me of John Dee, etc., conjuring at a poole[LVIII.] in Brecknockshire, and that they found a wedge of gold; and that they were troubled and indicted as conjurers at the assizes; that a mighty storme and tempest was raysed in harvest time, the countrey people had not knowen the like.
[LVIII.] Vide Almanac, about the poole in Brecon.
His picture in a wooden cutt is at the end of Billingsley's Euclid, but Mr. Elias Ashmole hath a very good painted copie of him from his sonne Arthur. He had a very fair, clear[800] complexione (as Sir Henry Savile); a long beard as white as milke. A very handsome man.
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