eign he was well
received at Court, his reputation as a magician increasing; and
in 1604 he is found presenting a petition to the king, imploring
his good offices in dispelling the injurious imputation of being
'a conjuror, or caller, or invocator of devils.' Lilly, the most
celebrated magician of the seventeenth century in England, was in
the highest repute during the civil wars: his prophetic services
were sought with equal anxiety by royalists and patriots, by king
and parliament.[107] Sometimes the professor of the occult
science may have been his own dupe: oftener he imposed and
speculated upon the credulity of others.

[106] While traversing Bohemia, on a particular occasion, it
was revealed to be God's pleasure that the two friends
should have a community of wives; a little episode noted in
Dee's journal. 'On Sunday, May 3, 1587, I, John Dee, Edward
Kelly, and our two wives, covenanted with God, and
subscribed the same for indissoluble unities, charity, and
friendship keeping between us four, and all things between
us to be common, as God by sundry means willed us to do.' A
sort of inspiration of frequent occurrence in religious
revelations, from the times of the Arabian to those of the
American prophet.

[107] William Lilly wrote a History of his own life and
times. His adroitness in accommodating his prophecies to the
alternating chances of the war does him considerable credit
as a prophet.

Prospero is the type of the Theurgic, as Comus is of the Goetic,
magician. His spiritual minister belongs to the order of good, or
at least middle spirits--

'Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.'[108]

[108] Released by his new lord from the sorceric spell of
that 'damn'd witch Sycorax,' he comes gratefully, if
somewhat weariedly, to answer his 'blest pleasure; be't to
fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curl'd
clouds,' &c.

Prospero, by an irresistible magic, subdued to his service the
reluctant Caliban, a monster 'got by the devil himself upon his
wicked dam:' but that semi-demon is degraded into a mere beast of
burden, brutal and savage, with little of the spiritual essence
of his male parent. Comus, as represented in that most beautiful
drama by the genius of Milton, is of the classic rather than
Christian sort: he is the true son of Circe, using his mother's
method of enchantment, transforming his unwary victims into the
various forms