Witch, Warlock, and Magician Part 6

and all expenses paid. These were liberal terms; but it must be admitted that Kelly earned them. Now, indeed, the crystal began to justify its reputation! Spirits came as thick as blackberries, and voices as numerous as those of rumour! Kelly's amazing fertility of fancy never failed his employer, upon whose confidence he established an extraordinary hold, by judiciously hinting doubts as to the propriety of the work he had undertaken. How could a man be other than trustworthy, when he frankly expressed his suspicions of the _mala fides_ of the spirits who responded to the summons of the crystal? It was impossible--so the doctor argued--that so candid a medium could be an impostor, and while resenting the imputations cast upon the 'spiritual creatures,' he came to believe all the more strongly in the man who slandered them. The difference of opinion gave rise, of course, to an occasional quarrel. On one occasion (in April, 1582) Kelly specially provoked his employer by roundly a.s.serting that the spirits were demons sent to lure them to their destruction; and by complaining that he was confined in Dee's house as in a prison, and that it would be better for him to be near Cotsall Plain, where he might walk abroad without danger.

Some time in 1583 a certain 'Lord Lasky,' that is, Albert Laski or Alasco, prince or waiwode of Siradia in Poland, and a guest at Elizabeth's Court, made frequent visits to Dee's house, and was admitted to the spirit exhibitions of the crystal. It has been suggested that Kelly had conceived some ambitious projects, which he hoped to realize through the agency of this Polish n.o.ble, and that he made use of the crystal to work upon his imagination. Thenceforward the spirits were continually hinting at great European revolutions, and uttering vague predictions of some extraordinary good fortune which was in preparation for Alasco. On May 28 Dee and Kelly were sitting in the doctor's study, discussing the prince's affairs, when suddenly appeared--perhaps it was an optical trick of the ingenious Kelly--'a spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired on her head, with her hair rowled up before, and hanging down very long behind, with a gown of soy, changeable green and red, and with a train; she seemed to play up and down, and seemed to go in and out behind my books, lying in heaps; and as she should ever go between them, the books seemed to give place sufficiently, dividing one heap from the other while she pa.s.sed between them. And so I considered, and heard the diverse reports which E. K. made unto this pretty maid, and I said, "Whose maiden are you?"' Here follows the conversation--inane and purposeless enough, and yet deemed worthy of preservation by the credulous doctor:

DOCTOR DEE'S CONVERSATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL CREATURE.

SHE. Whose man are you?

DEE. I am the servant of G.o.d, both by my bound duty, and also (I hope) by His adoption.

A VOICE. You shall be beaten if you tell.

SHE. Am not I a fine maiden? give me leave to play in your house; my mother told me she would come and dwell here.

(_She went up and down with most lively gestures of a young girl playing by herself, and divers times another spake to her from the corner of my study by a great perspective gla.s.se, but none was seen beside herself._)

SHE. Shall I? I will. (_Now she seemed to answer me in the foresaid corner of my study._) I pray you let me tarry a little? (_Speaking to me in the foresaid corner._)

DEE. Tell me what you are.

SHE. I pray you let me play with you a little, and I will tell you who I am.

DEE. In the name of Jesus then, tell me.

SHE. I rejoice in the name of Jesus, and I am a poor little maiden; I am the last but one of my mother's children; I have little baby children at home.

DEE. Where is your home?

SHE. I dare not tell you where I dwell, I shall be beaten.

DEE. You shall not be beaten for telling the truth to them that love the truth; to the Eternal Truth all creatures must be obedient.

SHE. I warrant you I will be obedient; my sisters say they must all come and dwell with you.

DEE. I desire that they who love G.o.d should dwell with me, and I with them.

SHE. I love you now you talk of G.o.d.

DEE. Your eldest sister--her name is Esimeli.

SHE. My sister is not so short as you make her.

DEE. O, I cry you mercy! she is to be p.r.o.nounced Esimili!

KELLY. She smileth; one calls her, saying, Come away, maiden.

SHE. I will read over my gentlewomen first; my master Dee will teach me if I say amiss.

DEE. Read over your gentlewomen, as it pleaseth you.

SHE. I have gentlemen and gentlewomen; look you here.

KELLY. She bringeth a little book out of her pocket. She pointeth to a picture in the book.

SHE. Is not this a pretty man?

DEE. What is his name?

SHE. My (mother) saith his name is Edward: look you, he hath a crown upon his head; my mother saith that this man was Duke of York.

And so on.

The question here suggests itself, Was this pa.s.sage of nonsense Dr.

Dee's own invention? And has he compiled it for the deception of posterity? I do not believe it. It is my firm conviction that he recorded in perfect good faith--though I own my opinion is not very complimentary to his intelligence--the extravagant rigmarole dictated to him by the arch-knave Kelly, who, very possibly, added to his many ingenuities some skill in the practices of the ventriloquist. No great amount of artifice can have been necessary for successfully deceiving so admirable a subject for deception as the credulous Dee. It is probable that Dee may sometimes have suspected he was being imposed upon; but we may be sure he was very unwilling to admit it, and that he did his best to banish from his mind so unwelcome a suspicion. As for Kelly, it seems clear that he had conceived some widely ambitious and daring scheme, which, as I have said, he hoped to carry out through the instrumentality of Alasco, whose interest he endeavoured to stimulate by flattering his vanity, and representing the spiritual creature as in possession of a pedigree which traced his descent from the old Norman family of the Lacys.

With an easy invention which would have done credit to the most prolific of romancists, he daily developed the characters of his pretended visions.[24] Consulting the crystal on June 2, he professed to see a spirit in the garb of a husbandman, and this spirit rhodomontaded in mystical language about the great work Alasco was predestined to accomplish in the conversion and regeneration of the world. Before this invisible fictionist retired into his former obscurity, Dee pet.i.tioned him to use his influence on behalf of a woman who had committed suicide, and of another who had dreamed of a treasure hidden in a cellar. Other interviews succeeded, in the course of which much more was said about the coming purification of humanity, and it was announced that a new code of laws, moral and religious, would be entrusted to Dee and his companions. What a pity that this code was never forthcoming! A third spirit, a maiden named Galerah, made her appearance, all whose revelations bore upon Alasco, and the greatness for which he was reserved: 'I say unto thee, his name is in the Book of Life. The sun shall not pa.s.se his course before he be a king. His counsel shall breed alteration of his State, yea, of the whole world. What wouldst thou know of him?'

'If his kingdom shall be of Poland,' answered Dee, 'in what land else?'

'Of two kingdoms,' answered Galerah.

'Which? I beseech you.'

'The one thou hast repeated, and the other he seeketh as his right.'

'G.o.d grant him,' exclaimed the pious doctor, 'sufficient direction to do all things so as may please the highest of his calling.'

'He shall want no direction,' replied Galerah, 'in anything he desireth.'

Whether Kelly's invention began to fail him, or whether it was a desire to increase his influence over his dupe, I will not decide; but at this time he revived his pretended conscientious scruples against dealing with spirits, whom he calumniously declared to be ministers of Satan, and intimated his intention of departing from the unhallowed precincts of Mortlake. But the doctor could not bear with equanimity the loss of a skryer who rendered such valuable service, and watched his movements with the vigilance of alarm. It was towards the end of June, the month made memorable by such important revelations, that Kelly announced, one day, his design of riding from Mortlake to Islington, on some private business. The doctor's fears were at once awakened, and he fell into a condition of nervous excitement, which, no doubt, was exactly what Kelly had hoped to provoke. 'I asked him,'

says Dee, 'why he so hasted to ride thither, and I said if it were to ride to Mr. Henry Lee, I would go thither also, to be acquainted with him, seeing now I had so good leisure, being eased of the book writing. Then he said, that one told him, the other day, that the Duke (Alasco) did but flatter him, and told him other things, both against the Duke and me. I answered for the Duke and myself, and also said that if the forty pounds' annuity which Mr. Lee did offer him was the chief cause of his minde setting that way (contrary to many of his former promises to me), that then I would a.s.sure him of fifty pounds yearly, and would do my best, by following of my suit, to bring it to pa.s.s as soon as I possibly could, and thereupon did make him promise upon the Bible. Then Edward Kelly again upon the same Bible did sweare unto me constant friends.h.i.+p, and never to forsake me; and, moreover, said that unless this had so fallen out, he would have gone beyond the seas, taking s.h.i.+p at Newcastle within eight days next. And so we plight our faith each to other, taking each other by the hand upon these points of brotherly and friendly fidelity during life, which covenant I beseech G.o.d to turn to His honour, glory, and service, and the comfort of our brethren (His children) here on earth.'

This concordat, however, was of brief duration. Kelly, who seems to have been in fear of arrest,[25] still threatened to quit Dee's service; and by adroit pressure of this kind, and by unlimited promises to Alasco, succeeded in persuading his two confederates to leave England clandestinely, and seek an asylum on Alasco's Polish estates. Dee took with him his second wife, Jane Fromond, to whom he had been married in February, 1578, his son Arthur (then about four years old), and his children by his first wife. Kelly was also accompanied by his wife and family.

On the night of September 21, 1583, in a storm of rain and wind, they left Mortlake by water, and dropped down the river to a point four or five miles below Gravesend, where they embarked on board a Danish s.h.i.+p, which they had hired to take them to Holland. But the violence of the gale was such that they were glad to transfer themselves, after a narrow escape from s.h.i.+pwreck, to some fis.h.i.+ng-smacks, which landed them at Queenborough, in the Isle of Sheppey, in safety. There they remained until the gale abated, and then crossed the Channel to Brill on the 30th. Proceeding through Holland and Friesland to Embden and Bremen, they thence made their way to Stettin, in Pomerania, arriving on Christmas Day, and remaining until the middle of January.

Meanwhile, Kelly was careful not to intermit those revelations from the crystal which kept alive the flame of credulous hope in the bosom of his two dupes, and he was especially careful to stimulate the ambition of Alasco, whose impoverished finances could ill bear the burden imposed upon them of supporting so considerable a company. They reached Siradia on February 3, 1584, and there the spirits suddenly changed the tone of their communications; for Kelly, having unexpectedly discovered that Alasco's resources were on the brink of exhaustion, was accordingly prepared to fling him aside without remorse. The first spiritual communication was to the effect that, on account of his sins, he would no longer be charged with the regeneration of the world, but he was promised possession of the Kingdom of Moldavia. The next was an order to Dee and his companions to leave Siradia, and repair to Cracow, where Kelly hoped, no doubt, to get rid of the Polish prince more easily. Then the spirits began to speak at shorter intervals, their messages varying greatly in tone and purport, according, I suppose, as Alasco's pecuniary supplies increased or diminished; but eventually, when all had suffered severely from want of money, for it would seem that their tinctures and powders never yielded them as much as an ounce of gold, the spirits summarily dismissed the unfortunate Alasco, ordered Dee and Kelly to repair to Prague, and entrusted Dee with a Divine communication to Rudolph II., the Emperor of Germany.

Quarrels often occurred between the two adepts during the Cracow period. In these Kelly was invariably the prime mover, and his object was always the same: to confirm his influence over the man he had so egregiously duped. At Prague, Dee was received by the Imperial Court with the distinction due to his well-known scholars.h.i.+p; but no credence was given to his mission from the spirits, and his pretensions as a magician were politely ignored. Nor was he a.s.sisted with any pecuniary benevolences; and the man who through his crystal and his skryer had apparently unlimited control over the inhabitants of the spiritual world could not count with any degree of certainty upon his daily bread. He failed, moreover, to obtain a second interview with the Emperor. On attending at the palace, he was informed that the Emperor had gone to his country seat, or else that he had just ridden forth to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, or that his imperfect acquaintance with the Latin tongue prevented him from conferring with Dee personally; and eventually, at the instigation of the Papal nuncio, Dee was ordered to depart from the Imperial territories (May, 1586).

The discredited magician then betook himself to Erfurt, and afterwards to Ca.s.sel. He would fain have visited Italy, where he antic.i.p.ated a cordial welcome at those Courts which patronized letters and the arts, but he was privately warned that at Rome an accusation of heresy and magic had been preferred against him, and he had no desire to fall into the fangs of the Inquisition. In the autumn of 1586, the Imperial prohibition having apparently been withdrawn, he followed Kelly into Bohemia; and in the following year we find both of them installed as guests of a wealthy n.o.bleman, named Rosenberg, at his castle of Trebona. Here they renewed their intercourse with the spirit world, and their operations in the trans.m.u.tation of metals. Dee records how, on December 9, he reached the point of projection!

Cutting a piece out of a bra.s.s warming-pan, he converted it--by merely heating it in the fire, and pouring on it a few drops of the magical elixir--a kind of red oil, according to some authorities--into solid, s.h.i.+ning silver. And there goes an idle story that he sent both the pan and the piece of silver to Queen Elizabeth, so that, with her own eyes, she might see how exactly they tallied, and that the piece had really been cut out of the pan! About the same time, it is said, the two magicians launched into a profuse expenditure,--Kelly, on one of his maid-servants getting married, giving away gold rings to the value of 4,000. Yet, meanwhile, Dee and Kelly were engaged in sharp contentions, because the spirits fulfilled none of the promises made by the latter, who, his invention (I suppose) being exhausted, resolved, in April, 1587, to resign his office of 'skryer,' and young Arthur Dee then made an attempt to act in his stead.

The conclusion I have arrived at, after studying the careers and characters of our two worthies, is that they were wholly unfitted for each other's society; a barrier of 'incompatibility' rose straitly between them. Dee was in earnest; Kelly was practising a sham. Dee pursued a shadow which he believed to be a substance; Kelly knew that the shadow was nothing more than a shadow. Dee was a man of rare scholars.h.i.+p and considerable intellectual power, though of a credulous and superst.i.tious temper; Kelly was superficial and ignorant, but clever, astute, and ingenious, and by no means p.r.o.ne to fall into delusions. The last experiment which he made on Dee's simple-mindedness stamps the man as the rogue and knave he was; while it ill.u.s.trates the truth of the preacher's complaint that there is nothing new under the sun. The doctrine of free marriage propounded by American enthusiasts was a _remanet_ from the ethical system of Mr. Edward Kelly.

Kelly had long been on bad terms with his wife, and had conceived a pa.s.sionate attachment towards Mrs. Dee, who was young and charming, graceful in person, and attractive in manner. To gratify his desires, he resorted to his old machinery of the crystal and the spirits, and soon obtained a revelation that it was the Divine pleasure he and Dr.

Dee should exchange partners. Demoralized and abased as Dee had become through his intercourse with Kelly, he shrank at first from a proposal so contrary to the teaching and tenor of the religion he professed, and suggested that the revelation could mean nothing more than that they ought to live on a footing of cordial friends.h.i.+p. But the spirits insisted on a literal interpretation of their command. Dee yielded, comparing himself with much unction to Abraham, who, in obedience to the Divine will, consented to the sacrifice of Isaac. The parallel, however, did not hold good, for Abraham saved his son, whereas Dr. Dee lost his wife!