eit,
William Lilly was the oracle to be consulted. His _almanacks_
were spelled over in the tavern and quoted in the senate; they
nerved the arm of the soldier, and rounded the periods of the
orator. The fashionable beauty, dashing along in her calash from
St. James's or the Mall, and the prim, starched dame, from
Watling-street or Bucklersbury, with a staid foot-boy, in a
plush jerkin, plodding behind her--the reigning toast among 'the
men of wit about town,' and the leading groaner in a tabernacle
concert--glided alternately into the study of the trusty wizard,
and poured into his attentive ear strange tales of love, or
trade, or treason. The Roundhead stalked in at one door, whilst
the Cavalier was hurried out at the other.

"The _Confessions_ of a man so variously consulted and trusted,
if written with the candour of a Cardan or a Rousseau, would
indeed be invaluable. The _Memoirs of William Lilly_, though
deficient in this essential ingredient, yet contain a variety of
curious and interesting anecdotes of himself and his
cotemporaries, which, where the vanity of the writer, or the
truth of his art, is not concerned, may be received with
implicit credence.

"The simplicity and apparent candour of his narrative might
induce a hasty reader of this book to believe him a well-meaning
but somewhat silly personage, the dupe of his own
speculations--the deceiver of himself as well as of others. But
an attentive examination of the events of his life, even as
recorded by himself, will not warrant so favourable an
interpretation. His systematic and successful attention to his
own interest--his dexterity in keeping on 'the windy side of the
law'--his perfect political pliability--and his presence of mind
and fertility of resources when entangled in
difficulties--indicate an accomplished impostor, not a crazy
enthusiast. It is very possible and probable, that, at the
outset of his career, he was a real believer in the truth and
lawfulness of his art, and that he afterwards felt no
inclination to part with so pleasant and so profitable a
delusion: like his patron, Cromwell, whose early fanaticism
subsided into hypocrisy, he carefully retained his folly as a
cloak for his knavery. Of his success in deception, the present
narrative exhibits abundant proofs. The number of hi