[ Footnotes to the Diary]
[a.] It is almost unnecessary to observe that this and the following are notes of nativities. They are not for the most part contemporary notices, but apparently inserted at various times by Dee when professionally consulted as an astrologer.
[b.] “Anno 1555, Aug. 1, hora quarta a meridie Wigorniæ natus Dominus Edouardus Kelæus,” MS. Ashm. 1788, fol. 140, where there is a horoscope of this nativity in the handwriting of Dr. Dee. Ashmole, in his MS. 1790, fol. 58, says “Mr. Lilly told me that John Evans informed him that he was acquainted with Kelly’s sister in Worcester, that she shewed him some of the gold her brother had transmuted, and that Kelly was first an apothecary in Worcester.”
[c.] The brother of the celebrated astrologer before mentioned.
[d.] “Dr. Dee dwelt in a house neere the water side, a little westward from the church [at Mortlake]. The buildings which Sir Fr. Crane erected for working of tapestry hangings, and are still (1673) employed to that use, were built upon the ground whereon Dr. Dee’s laboratory and other roomes for that use stood. Upon the west is a square court, and the next is the house wherein Dr. Dee dwelt, now inhabited by one Mr. Selbury, and further west his garden.” —MS. Ashm. 1788, fol. 149. The same account says that “Dr. Dee was wel beloved and respected of all persons of quality thereabouts, who very often invited him to their houses or came to his.”
[e.] This of course is his celebrated Monas Hieroglyphica, frequently printed, and the nature of which I attempted to explain in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Herbert, according to MS. Ashm. 1788, “dwelt then in Mortlack and was an intimate friend of Dr. Dee’s.”
[f.] This was his work printed in 1577 under the title of General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the perfect Art of Navigation, in folio, now a book of the greatest rarity. The original manuscript of it is in MS. Ashm. 1789, and Dee’s own copy of the published work with MS. notes and additions is preserved in the British Museum. In his Letter Apologetical, 4to. Lond. 1603, he cites this work under the title of The Brytish Monarchie, as having been written in the year 1576.
[g.] Ashmole informs us that Walsingham continued for a length of time one of Dr. Dee’s best patrons.
[h.] Rogers was a member of the University of Oxford, and a large commonplace-book in his handwriting is in Archbishop Tenison’s library in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.
[i.] That is, Galfridus Monumetensis de gestis regum Britanniæ. Hackluyt mentions this fact in his collection of voyages.