n associate as denying or disputing the immortality of the
soul, as well as the divinity of Christ. This was in 1529.
Torralvo, put to the torture, admitted that his informing spirit,
Zequiel, was a demon by whose assistance he performed his aerial
journeys and all his extraordinary feats, both of prophecy and of
actual power. Some part of the severity of the tortures was
remitted by the demon's opportune reply to the curiosity of the
presiding inquisitors, that Luther and the Reformers were bad and
cunning men. Torralvo seems to have avoided the extreme penalty
of fire by recanting his heresies, submitting to the superior
judgment of his gaolers, and still more by the interest of his
powerful employers; and he was liberated not long afterwards.

[105] The diffusion and progress of astrology in the last
two centuries before the Empire, in Greece and Italy, was
favoured chiefly by the four following causes: its
resemblance to the meteorological astrology of the Greeks;
the belief in the conversion of the souls of men into stars;
the cessation of the oracles; the belief in a tutelary
genius.--Sir G. C. Lewis's _Historical Survey of the
Astronomy of the Ancients_, chap. v.

The life of Dr. Dee, an eminent Cambridge mathematician, and of
his associate Edward Kelly, forms a curious biography. Dee was
born in 1527. He studied at the English and foreign universities
with great success and applause; and while the Princess Elizabeth
was quite young he acquired her friendship, maintained by
frequent correspondence, and on her succession to the throne the
queen showed her good will in a conspicuous manner. John Dee left
to posterity a diary in which he has inserted a regular account
of his conjurations, prophetic intimations, and magical
resources. Notwithstanding his mathematical acumen, he was the
dupe of his cunning subordinate--more of a knave, probably, than
his master. In 1583 a Polish prince, Albert Laski, visiting the
English court, frequented the society of the renowned astrologer,
by whom he was initiated in the secrets of the art; and predicted
to be the future means of an important revolution in Europe. The
astrologers wandered over all Germany, at one time favourably
received by the credulity, at another time ignominiously ejected
by the indignant disappointment, of a patron.[106] Dee returned
to England in 1589, and was finally appointed to the wardenship
of the college at Manchester. In James's r