well-disposed to
Dee, Kelley, and their attendant retinue of invisible spirits. When Dee
grandiloquently introduced himself, in a Latin oration, as a messenger
from the unseen world, the emperor curtly checked him with the remark
that he did not understand Latin. And the next day a hint was given him
that, at the request of the papal nuncio, he and Kelley were to be
arrested and sent to Rome for trial as necromancers. Before night-fall
they were in full flight, to remain homeless wanderers until another
Bohemian count, hearing of their presence in his dominions, took them
under his protection on the proviso that they were to replenish his
exchequer by converting humble pewter into silver and gold.

In this, of course, they signally failed, and the next few years of
their lives were years of the greatest misery. This, at any rate, so far
as Dee was concerned. Kelley, with pitiless insistence, drew his pay
regularly, and when funds were not forthcoming, refused to act as
crystal-gazer and spirit interpreter. On one of these occasions Dee
tried to replace him by training his son, Arthur Dee, as a
crystal-gazer; but, try as he might, the boy said he could see in the
crystal nothing but meaningless clouds and specks. Had Dee not been
thoroughly infatuated this might have disillusioned him, and convinced
him that Kelley had simply been preying on his credulity. But the old
man--he was now well advanced in years--saw in his son's failure only
proof of Kelley's superior gifts, and by dint of great sacrifices
contrived to find the money necessary to persuade him to return to his
post. At last a day came when money could no longer be found, and then
Kelley definitely determined to break the partnership. According to one
account, he informed Dee that, for the sake of his immortal soul, he
could no longer have dealings with the spirits; that they were spirits
not of good but of evil, and Mephistopheles was their master; and that,
did he continue to traffic with them, Mephistopheles would soon have
him, body and soul. Another version--given by the astrologer, William
Lilly, who is said to have been consulted by the friends of King Charles
I. as to the best time for that unhappy monarch to attempt to escape
from prison--says that one fine morning Kelley took French leave of Dee,
running away with an alchemically inclined friar who had promised him a
good income. Whatever the facts of his final rupture with his
long-suffering master,