hole
years we kept it secret. When it was divulged, and some people blamed
her for it, she constantly replied, that she had no kindred; if I proved
kind, and a good husband, she would make me a man; if I proved
otherwise, she only undid herself. In the third and fourth years after
our marriage, we had strong suits of law with her first husband's
kindred, but overthrew them in the end. During all the time of her life,
which was until October, 1633, we lived very lovingly, I frequenting no
company at all; my exercises were sometimes angling, in which I ever
delighted: my companions, two aged men. I then frequented lectures, two
or three in a week; I heard Mr. Sute in Lombard-Street, Mr. Gouge of
Black-Fryars, Dr. Micklethwait of the Temple, Dr. Oldsworth, with
others, the most learned men of these times, and leaned in judgment to
Puritanism. In October, 1627, I was made free of the Salters' company in
London.

HOW I CAME TO STUDY ASTROLOGY.

It happened on one Sunday, 1632, as myself and a Justice of Peace's
clerk were, before service, discoursing of many things, he chanced to
say, that such a person was a great scholar, nay, so learned, that his
could make an Almanack, which to me then was strange: one speech begot
another, till, at last, he said, he could bring me acquainted with one
Evans in Gunpowder-Alley, who had formerly lived in Staffordshire, that
was an excellent wise man, and studied the Black Art. The same week
after we went to see Mr. Evans. When we came to his house, he, having
been drunk the night before, was upon his bed, if it be lawful to call
that a bed whereon he then lay; he roused up himself, and, after some
compliments, he was content to instruct me in astrology; I attended his
best opportunities for seven or eight weeks, in which time I could set a
figure perfectly: books he had not any, except _Haly de judiciis
Astrorum_, and _Orriganus's Ephemerides_; so that as often as I entered
his house, I thought I was in the wilderness. Now something of the man:
he was by birth a Welshman, a Master of Arts, and in sacred orders; he
had formerly had a cure of souls in Staffordshire, but now was come to
try his fortunes at London, being in a manner enforced to fly for some
offences very scandalous, committed by him in these parts, where he had
lately lived; for he gave judgment upon things lost, the only shame of
astrology: he was the most saturnine person my eyes ever beheld, either
before I practised