but one or two entries in his _Life and Times_, written by himself, are
illuminating, especially his record of family amenities, thus:--

"The 16th of February 1653/4, my second Wife died; for whose Death
I shed no Tears. I had 500_l._ with her as a Portion, but she and
her poor Relations spent me 1000_l._ _Gloria Patri, & Filio, &
Spiritui Sancto: sicul erat in principio et nunc et semper, & in
saecula saeculorum_: For the 20th of _April_ 1653, these Enemies of
mine, _viz._ Parliament-men, were turned out of doors by _Oliver
Cromwell_."

"In _October_ 1654, I married the third Wife, who is signified in my
Nativity by _Jupiter_ in _Libra_: And she is so totally in her
Conditions, to my great Comfort."

Lilly got into trouble with the Parliament men later. He had predicted a
town in conflagration, and when the Fire of London occurred in 1666 he
was accused of having caused it. He had to appear before a Parliamentary
committee specially sitting on the matter, but he was able to satisfy
the chairman that he had nothing to do with the fire. He admitted that
he had drawn mysterious designs of persons in winding sheets and digging
graves, which were to foretell the plague, and of towers and houses on
fire, which might have meant the city of London blazing; but he had
never fixed the exact year for these things to happen. So the committee
let him off. If he had lived till the next century, when William the
Third's horse had thrown his rider, and the Jacobite toast was "the
little gentleman in black velvet," Lilly could have pointed with pride
to other cabalistic drawings in his _Merlin_ One shows a mole walking
about under a dragon; another, a mole attacking a crown.

[Illustration: _Epsom._]

CHAPTER XXIV

EPSOM

The Widest Street in Surrey.--A lucky find.--Barbara
Villiers.--Pepys at the Wells.--Nell Gwynne.--Aldermen and lazy
ladies.--Epsom's fall.--A knavish apothecary.--Baron Swasso, his
house.--Miss Wallin, bone-setter; bone-setter, Mrs. Mapp.--Epsom
re-made at the table.--Eclipse.--The Road to the Derby.--The Ring
round the Gibbet.--Catherine-wheels, Motor-cars, Kites, Pills.--Lord
Rosebery.--Lord Lyttelton's ghost.

Epsom is the centre of the country between the great railway lines. It
has its own railway, but it is midway between the lines that run express
trains to Brighton and Southampton: Epsom's own expresses only run for
two we