d cut the bell-ropes and smoke them.

I come now to continue the story of my own life, but thought it not
inconvenient to commit unto memory something concerning those persons
who practised when first I became a student in astrology; I have wrote
nothing concerning any of them, which I myself do not either know, or
believe to be true.

In October 1633 my first wife died, and left me whatever was hers: it
was considerable, very near to the value of one thousand pounds.

One whole year and more I continued a widower, and followed my studies
very hard; during which time a scholar pawned unto me, for forty
shillings, _Ars Notoria_,[8] a large volume wrote in parchment, with the
names of those angels, and their pictures, which are thought and
believed by wise men, to teach and instruct in all the several liberal
sciences, and is attained by observing elected times, and those prayers
appropriated unto the several angels.

[Footnote 8: Among Dr. Napier's MSS. I had an _Ars Notoria_,
written by S. Forman in large vellum.]

I do ingenuously acknowledge, I used those prayers according to the form
and direction prescribed for some weeks, using the word _astrologia_ for
_astronomia_; but of this no more: that _Ars Notoria_, inserted in the
latter end of Cornelius Agrippa signifieth nothing; many of the prayers
being not the same, nor is the direction to these prayers any thing
considerable.

In the year 1634, I taught Sir George Peckham, Knight, astrology, that
part which concerns sickness, wherein he so profited, that in two or
three months he would give a very true discovery of any disease, only by
his figures. He practised in Nottingham, but unfortunately died in 1635,
at St. Winifred's Well in Wales; in which well he continued so long
mumbling his _Pater Nosters_ and _Sancta Winifrida ora pro me_, that the
cold struck into his body; and, after his coming forth of that well,
never spoke more.

In this year 1634, I purchased the moiety of thirteen houses in the
Strand for five hundred and thirty pounds.

In November, the 18th day, I was again the second time married, and had
five hundred pounds portion with that wife; she was of the nature of
Mars.

Two accidents happened to me in that year something memorable.

Davy Ramsey, his Majesty's clock-maker, had been informed, that there
was a great quantity of treasure buried in the cloyster of
Westminster-Abbey; he acquaints Dean Williams therewith, who was also
t