often to London, and staying weeks with his honored
friend--a kind of Damon and Pythias affair without the heroics. Ashmole,
we said, was famous in his time; but indeed he has a kind of fame now,
and cannot soon be altogether forgotten, for he founded the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford, and in the library there the curious can probably find
all his books, and read them, if they will; but I, who have read one of
them, shall not seek for more.[3]

But indeed Lilly attracted the attention of Oliver Cromwell himself, and
once had an interview with him--a remarkably silent one. The occasion of
it was as follows: The astrologer, in his _Martinus Anglicus_
(astrological almanac) for 1650, had written that 'the Parliament should
not continue, but a new government should arise;' and the next year he
'was so bold as to aver therein that the Parliament stood upon a
tottering foundation, and that the commonalty and soldiers would join
together against it.' These things, and others, published in _Anglicus_,
offended the Presbyterians, and on motion of some one of them, it was
ordered that '_Anglicus_ should be inspected by the committee for
plundered ministers;' and the next day thereafter Lilly was brought
before the committee, which was very full that day (thirty-six in
number), for the matter was an interesting one, whispered of before in
private, and now made public by prophecy. The astrologer, by skilful
management of friends, and some lies of his own, got off without damage
to himself.

At the close of the first day's proceedings in committee, as the
sergeant-at-arms was carrying Lilly away, he was commanded to bring him
into the committee room again. 'Oliver Cromwell, lieutenant-general of
the army, having never seen me, caused me to be produced again, where he
steadfastly beheld me for a good space, and then I went with the
messenger.' This first meeting was, it appears, the only one, for Lilly
speaks of no other; but Cromwell spoke a good word for him that same
night, and was ever after rather friendly to him, or at least tolerant
of him. The lieutenant-general, looking fixedly at this man 'for a good
space,' saw nothing very bad in him; and knowing that his prophecies
favored the good cause, he, a man of strong, practical sense, was
willing to let him work as one of the influences of that time.

This was not Lilly's only appearance before Parliament; sixteen years
later we shall find him there again; but of that at its time