ubb Fiske, Sarah Shelborne, and many others._

_To these we may add, the uncommon effects of the Crystal, the
appearance of Queen Mabb, and other strange and miraculous operations,
which owe their origin to folly, curiosity, superstition, bigotry, and
imposture._

THE

LIFE

OF

WILLIAM LILLY,

STUDENT IN ASTROLOGY.

Wrote by himself in the 66th Year of his Age, at Hersham, in the
Parish of Walton-upon-Thames, in the County of Surry. _Propria
Manu._

I[1] was born in the county of Leicester, in an obscure town, in the
north-west borders thereof, called Diseworth, seven miles south of the
town of Derby, one mile from Castle-Donnington, a town of great
rudeness, wherein it is not remembered that any of the farmers thereof
did ever educate any of their sons to learning, only my grandfather sent
his younger son to Cambridge, whose name was Robert Lilly, and died
Vicar of Cambden in Gloucestershire, about 1640.

[Footnote 1: "William Lilly was a prominent, and, in the opinion
of many of his cotemporaries, a very important personage in the
most eventful period of English history. He was a principal
actor in the farcical scenes which diversified the bloody
tragedy of civil war; and while the King and the Parliament were
striving for mastery in the field, he was deciding their
destinies in the closet. The weak and the credulous of both
parties, who sought to be instructed in 'destiny's dark
counsels,' flocked to consult the 'wily Archimage,' who, with
exemplary impartiality, meted out victory and good fortune to
his clients, according to the extent of their faith, and the
weight of their purses. A few profane Cavaliers might make his
name the burthen of their _malignant_ rhymes--a few of the more
scrupulous among the _Saints_ might keep aloof in sanctified
abhorrence of the 'Stygian sophister'--but the great majority of
the people lent a willing and reverential ear to his prophecies
and prognostications. Nothing was too high or too low--too
mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his genius. The
stars, his informants, were as communicative on the most trivial
as on the most important subjects. If a scheme was set on foot
to rescue the king, or to retrieve a stray trinket--to restore
the royal authority, or to make a frail damsel an honest
woman--to cure the nation of anarchy, or a lap-dog of a surf