Lysand. Both periods merit the appellation. In Henry's time, the invention of printing was of early growth; but the avidity of readers considerable. The presses of Rome, Venice, and Paris, sent forth their costly productions; and a new light, by such means, was poured upon the darkened mind. Our own presses began to contribute to the diffusion of this light; and, compared with the preceding part of the fifteenth century, the reign of Henry VII. was highly distinguished for its bibliomaniacal celebrity. Undoubtedly, the æra of Queen Elizabeth was the golden age of Bibliomaniacism.
Do not let me forget, in my rambling method of treating of books and book-men, the name and celebrity of the renowned Dr. John Dee. Let us fancy we see him in his conjuring cap and robes—surrounded with astrological, mathematical, and geographical instruments—with a profusion of Chaldee characters inscribed upon vellum rolls—and with his celebrated Glass suspended by magical wires. Let us then follow him into his study at midnight, and view him rummaging his books; contemplating the heavens; making calculations; holding converse with invisible spirits; writing down their responses: anon, looking into his correspondence with Count a Lasco and the emperors Adolphus and Maximilian; and pronouncing himself, with the most heartfelt complacency, the greatest genius of his age![332] In the midst of these self-complacent reveries, let us imagine we see his wife and little ones intruding; beseeching him to burn his books and instruments; and reminding him that there was neither a silver spoon, nor a loaf of bread, in the cupboard. Alas, poor Dee!—thou wert the dupe of the people and of the Court: and, although Meric Casaubon has enshrined thy conjurations in a pompous folio volume, thy name, I fear, will only live in the memory of bibliomaniacs!
[332] Those who are fond of copious biographical details of astrologers and conjurers will read, with no small pleasure and avidity, the long gossipping account of Dee, which Hearne has subjoined to his edition of John Confrat. Monach. de rebus gestis Glaston., vol. ii.; where twelve chapters are devoted to the subject of our philosopher's travels and hardships. Meric Casaubon—who put forth a pompous folio volume of "A true and faithful relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee and some spirits:" 1659—gravely assures us, in an elaborate, learned, and rather amusing preface, that the volume contains what "he thinks is not to be paralleled in that kind by any book that hath been set out in any age to read:" sign A. This is true enough; for such a farago of incongruous, risible, and horrible events, are no where else recorded. "None but itself can be its parallel." Casaubon wrote a professed dissertation (1652, 8vo.) upon witches, and nothing seemed to be too unpalatable for his credulity to swallow. A compressed and rather interesting account of Dee, who was really the weakest as well as the ablest scholar and philosopher of his day, will be found in Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum, p. 480. From the substance of these authorities, the reader is presented with the following sketch. The first chapter in Hearne's publication, which treats of the "entrance and ground plot of his first studies," informs us that he had received his Latin education in London and Chelmsford: that he was born in July, 1527, and at 15 years of age was entered at the University of Cambridge, 1542. In the three following years, "so vehemently was he bent to study that, for those years, he did inviolably keep this order; only to sleep 4 hours every night; to allow to meat and drink (and some refreshing after) 2 hours every day; and of the other 18 hours, all (excepting the time of going to, and being at, divine service) was spent in his studies and learning." In May, 1547, after having taken his Bachelor's decree, he went abroad. "And after some months spent about the Low Countries, he returned home, and brought with him the first astronomer's staff in brass, that was made of Gemma Frisius devising; the two great globes of Gerardus Mercator's making, and the astronomer's ring of brass, as Gemma Frisius had newly framed it." Dee's head now began to run wild upon astronomy, or rather astrology; and the tremendous assistance of the "occult art" was called in to give effect to the lectures which he read upon it at home and abroad. "He did set forth (and it was seen of the University) a Greek comedy of Aristophanes, named, in Greek, ειρήνη, in Latin, Pax; with the performance of the Scarabæus his flying up to Jupiter's palace, with a man and his basket of victuals on his back: whereat was great wondering and many vain reports spread abroad of the means how that was effected. In that college (Trinity, for he had now left St. John's), by his advice and endeavours, was their Christmas magistrate first named and confirmed an emperor." The first emperor of this sort, (whose name, it must be confessed, is rather unpopular in a University) he takes care to inform us, "was one Mr. Thomas Dun, a very goodly man of person, stature, and complexion, and well learned also." Dee afterwards ranks these things among "his boyish attempts and exploits scholastical." In 1548 he was made Master of Arts, and in the same year "went over beyond the seas again, and never after that was any more student in Cambridge." Abroad, almost every emperor and nobleman of distinction, according to his own account, came to see and hear him. "For recreation, he looked into the method of the civil law, and profitted therein so much that, in Antinomiis, imagined to be in the law, he had good hap to find out (well allowed of) their agreements; and also to enter into a plain and due understanding of diverse civil laws, accounted very intricate and dark." At Paris, when he gave lectures upon Euclid's elements, "a thing never done publicly in any university in Christendom, his auditory in Rhemes college was so great, and the most part elder than himself, that the mathematical schools could not hold them; for many were fain, without the schools, at the windows, to be Auditores et Spectatores, as they could best help themselves thereto. And by the first four principal definitions representing to their eyes (which by imagination only are exactly to be conceived) a greater wonder arose among the beholders than of his Aristophanes Scarabæus mounting up to the top of Trinity Hall, ut supra." Notwithstanding the tempting offers to cause him to be domiciled in France and Germany, our astrologer, like a true patriot, declined them all. The French king offered an annual stipend of 200 French crowns; a Monsieur Babeu, Monsieur de Rohan, and Monsieur de Monluc, offered still greater sums, but were all refused. In Germany he was tempted with the yearly salary of 3000 dollars; "and lastly, by a messenger from the Russie or Muscovite Emperor, purposely sent with a very rich present unto him at Trebona castle, and with provision for the whole journey (being above 1200 miles from the castle where he lay) of his coming to his court at Moscow, with his wife, children, and whole family, there to enjoy at his imperial hands 2000lib. sterling yearly stipend; and of his Protector yearly a thousand rubles; with his diet also to be allowed him free out of the emperor's own kitchen: and to be in dignity with authority amongst the highest sort of the nobility there, and of his Privy Counsellors."—But all this was heroically declined by our patriotic philosopher. Lord Pembroke and Lord Leicester introduced Dee to the notice of Q. Elizabeth, before her coronation. At which time her Majesty used these words—"Where my brother hath given him a crown, I will give him a noble!" Before the accession of Elizabeth, he was imprisoned on being accused of destroying Queen Mary by enchantment. "The Queen Elizabeth herself became a prisoner in the same place (Hampton Court) shortly afterwards; and Dee had for bedfellow one Barthelet Green, who was afterwards burnt." Dee himself was examined by Bishop Bonner. On the deanery of Gloucester becoming void in 1564, Dee was nominated to fill it: but the same deanery was afterwards bestowed on Mr. Man, who was sent into Spain in her Majesty's service. "And now this Lent, 1594, when it became void again (says Dee), I made a motion for it, but I came too late; for one that might spend 400 or 500 lib. a year already, had more need of it than I belike; or else this former gift was but words only to me, and the fruit ever due to others, that can espy and catch better than I for these 35 years could do." Mistris Blanche à Parry came to his house with an offer from the Queen of "any ecclesiastical dignity within her kingdom, being then, or shortly becoming, void and vacant"—but "Dee's most humble and thankful answer to her Majesty, by the same messenger, was that cura animarum annexa did terrifie him to deal with." He was next promised to "have of her Majesty's gift other ecclesiastical livings and revenues (without care of souls annexed) as in her Majesty's books were rated at two hundred pounds yearly revenue; of which her Majesty's gift he never as yet had any one penny." In Oct. 1578, he had a consultation with Mr. Doctor Bayly, her Majesty's physician, "about her Majestie's grievous pangs and pains by reason of the toothake and rheum," &c. "He set down in writing, with hydrographical and geographical description, what he then had to say or shew, as concerning her Majesty's title royal to any foreign countries. Whereof two parchment great rolls full written, of about xii white vellum skins, were good witnesses upon the table before the commissioners." Dee had refused an hundred pounds for these calligraphical labours. A list of his printed and unprinted works: the former 8 (ending with the year 1573), the latter 36 (ending with the year 1592), in number. Anno 1563, Julii ultimo, the Earl of Leicester and Lord Laskey invited themselves to dine with Dee in a day or two; but our astrologer "confessed sincerely that he was not able to prepare them a convenient dinner, unless he should presently sell some of his plate or some of his pewter for it. Whereupon," continues Dee, "her Majesty sent unto me very royally within one hour after forty angels of gold, from Sion; whither her Majesty was now come by water from Greenwich." A little before Christmas, 1599, Dee mentions a promise of another royal donation of 100l.—"which intent and promise, some once or twice after, as he came in her Majesty's sight, she repeated unto him; and thereupon sent unto him fifty pounds to keep his Christmas with that year—but what, says he, is become of the other fifty, truly I cannot tell! If her Majesty can, it is sufficient; 'Satis, citò, modò, satis bene, must I say.'" In 1591, his patroness, the Countess of Warwick, made a powerful diversion at Court to secure for him the mastership of St. Cross, then filled by Dr. Bennet, who was to be made a bishop.—The queen qualified her promise of Dee's having it with a nota bene, if he should be fit for it. In 1592, the Archbishop of Canterbury openly "affirmed that the mastership of St. Crosse was a living most fit for him; and the Lord Treasurer, at Hampton Court, lately to himself declared, and with his hand very earnestly smitten on his breast used these very words to him—'By my faith, if her Majestie be moved in it by any other for you, I will do what I can with her Majestie to pleasure you therein, Mr. Dee.'" But it is time to gratify the Bibliomaniac with something more to his palate. Here followeth, therefore, as drawn up by our philosopher himself, an account of
Dee's Library:
"4000 Volumes—printed and unprinted—bound and unbound—valued at 2000 lib.
1 Greek, 2 French, and 1 High Dutch, volumes of MSS., alone worth 533 lib. 40 years in getting these books together."
Appertaining thereto,
Sundry rare and exquisitely made Mathematical Instruments.
A radius Astronomicus, ten feet long.
A Magnet Stone, or Loadstone; of great virtue—"which was sold out of the library for v shill. and for it afterwards (yea piece-meal divided) was more than xx lib. given in money and value."