loquitur. In the derivation of words, I found most of them defective, nor indeed were any of them good grammarians: all and every of those scholars who were of my form and standing, went to Cambridge and proved excellent divines, only poor I, William Lilly, was not so happy; fortune then frowning upon father's present condition, he not in any capacity to maintain me at the university.

OF THE MANNER HOW I CAME UNTO LONDON

Worthy sir, I take much delight to recount unto you, even all and every circumstance of my life, whether good, moderate, or evil; Deo gloria.

My father had one Samuel Smatty for his Attorney, unto whom I went sundry times with letters, who perceiving I was a scholar, and that I lived miserably in the country, losing my time, nor any ways likely to do better, if I continued there; pitying my condition, he sent word for me to come and speak with him, and told me that he had lately been at London, where there was a gentleman wanted a youth, to attend him and his wife, who could write, &c.

I acquainted my father with it, who was very willing to be rid of me, for I could not work, drive the plow, or endure any country labor; my father oft would say, I was good for nothing.

I had only twenty shillings, and no more, to buy me a new suit, hose, doublet, &c., my doublet was fustian: I repaired to Mr. Smatty, when I was accoutered, for a letter to my master, which he gave me.

Upon Monday, April 3, 1620, I departed from Diseworth, and came to Leicester: but I must acquaint you, that before I came away I visited my friends, amongst whom I had given me about ten shillings, which was a great comfort unto me. On Tuesday, April the 4th, I took leave of my father, then in Leicester jail for debt, and came along with Bradshaw the carrier, the same person with whom many of the Duke of Buckingham's kindred had come up with. Hark how the wagons crack with their rich lading! It was a very stormy week, cold and uncomfortable: I footed it all along; we could not reach London until Palm-Sunday, the 9th of April, about half an hour after three in the afternoon, at which time we

entered Smithfield. When I had gratified the carrier and his servants, I had seven shillings and sixpence left, and no more; one suit of clothes upon my back, two shirts, three bands, one pair of shoes, and as many stockings. Upon the delivery of my letter my master entertained me, and next day bought me a new cloak, of which you may imagine (good Esquire) whether I was not proud of; besides, I saw and ate good white bread, contrary to our diet in Leicestershire. My master's name was Gilbert Wright, born at Market Bosworth in Leicestershire; my mistress was born at Ashby de la Zouch, in the same county, and in the town where I had gone to school. This Gilbert Wright could neither write nor read: he lived upon his annual rents, was of no calling or profession; he had for many years been servant to the Lady Pawlet in Hertfordshire; and when Sergeant Puckering was made Lord keeper, he made him keeper of his lodgings at Whitehall. When Sir Thomas Egerton was made Lord Chancellor, he entertained him in the same place; and when he married a widow in Newgate Market, the Lord Chancellor recommended him to the company of Salters, London, to admit him into their company, and so they did, and my master in 1624, was master of that company; he was a man of excellent natural parts, and would speak publicly upon any occasion very rationally and to the purpose. I write this, that the world may know he was no tailor, or myself of that or any other calling or profession: my work was to go before my master to church; to attend my master when he went abroad; to make clean his shoes; sweep the street; help to drive bucks when he washed; fetch water in a tub from the Thames I have helped to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning; weed the garden; all manner of drudgeries I willingly performed; scrape trenchers, &c. If I had any profession, it was of this nature: I should never have denied being a tailor, had I been one; for there is no calling so base, which by God's mercy may not afford a livelihood; and had not my master entertained me, I would have been of a very mean profession ere I would have returned into the country again; so here ends the actions of eighteen years of my life.

My master married his second wife for her estate; she was competently rich; she married him for considerations he per

formed not, (nocturnal society) so that they lived very uncomfortably; she was about seventy years of age, he sixty-six or more; yet never was any woman more jealous of a husband than she; insomuch, that whensoever he went into London, she was confident of his going to women; by those means my life was the more uncomfortable, it being very difficult to please two such opposite natures: however, as to the things of this world I had enough, and endured their discontents with much sereneness. My mistress was very curious to know of such as were then called cunning or wise men, whether she should bury her husband? She frequently visited such persons, and this occasion begot in me a little desire to learn something that way, but wanting money to buy books, I laid aside these motions, and endeavored to please both master and mistress.

OF MY MISTRESS'S DEATH, AND OCCASION THEREOF BY MEANS OF

A CANCER IN HER BREAST

In 1622 she complained of a pain in her left breast, whereon there appeared at first a hard knob no bigger than a small pea; it increased in a little time very much, was very hard, and sometimes would look very red; she took advice of surgeons, had oils, sear-cloths, plates of lead, and what not: in 1623 it grew very big, and spread all over her breast; then for many weeks poultices were applied to it, which in continuance of time broke the skin, and then abundance of watery thin stuff came from it, but nothing else; at length the matter came to suppuration, but never any great store issued forth; it was exceeding noisome and painful; from the beginning of it until she died, she would permit no surgeon to dress. it but only myself; I applied everything unto it, and her pains were so great the winter before she died, that I have been called out of my bed two or three times in one night to dress it and change plasters. In 1624 by degrees, with scissors, I cut all the whole breast away, I mean the sinews, nerves, &c. In one fortnight, or little more, it appeared, as it were, mere flesh, all raw, so that she could scarce endure any unguent to be applied. I remember there was a great cleft through the middle of the breast, which when that fully appeared she died, which was in September 1624; my master being then

in the country, his kindred in London would willingly have had mourning for her; but by advice of an especial friend of his I contradicted them; nor would I permit them to look into any chest or trunk in the house. She was decently buried, and so fond of me in the time of her sickness, she would never permit me out of her chamber, gave me five pounds in old gold, and sent me unto a private trunk of hers at a friend's house, where she had one hundred pounds in gold; she bid me bring it away and take it, but when I opened the trunk I found nothing therein; for a kinsman of hers had been there a few days before, and carried all away: she was in a great passion at my relating thereof, because she could not gratify my pains in all her sickness, advised me to help myself, when she was gone, out of my master's goods, which I never did.

Courteous, Esquire, be not weary of reading hereof, or what followeth.

When my mistress died, she had under her arm-hole a small scarlet bag full of many things, which, one that was there delivered unto me. There was in this bag several sigils, some of Jupiter in Trine, others of the nature of Venus, some of iron, and one of gold, of pure angel-gold, of the bigness of a thirty-three shilling piece of King James's coin. In the circumference on one side was engraven, Vicit Leo de tribu Juda Tetragrammaton +, within the middle there was engraven a holy lamb. In the other circumference there was Amraphel and three +. In the middle, Sanctus Petrus, Alpha and Omega.

The occasion of framing this sigil was thus; her former husband traveling into Sussex, happened to lodge in an inn, and to lie in a chamber thereof; wherein, not many months before, a country grazier had lain, and in the night cut his own throat; after this night's lodging, he was perpetually, and for many years, followed by a spirit, which vocally and articulately provoked him to cut his throat: he was used frequently to say, "I defy thee, I defy thee," and to spit at the spirit; this spirit followed him many years, he not making anybody acquainted with it; at last he grew melancholy and discontented; which being carefully observed by his wife, she many times hearing him pronounce, "I defy thee," &c., she

desired him to acquaint her with the cause of his distemper, which he then did. Away she went to Dr. Simon Forman, who lived then in Lambeth, and acquaints him with it; who having framed this sigil, and hanged it about his neck, he wearing it continually until he died, was never more molested by the spirit: I sold the sigil for thirty-two shillings, but transcribed the words verbatim as I have related.

After my mistress was dead, I lived most comfortably, my master having a great affection for me.

The year 1625 now comes on, and the plague exceeding violent, I will relate what I observed the spring before it broke forth. Against our corner house every night there would come down, about five or six of the clock, sometime one hundred or more boys, some playing, others as if in serious discourse, and just as it grew dark would all be gone home; many succeeding years there was no such, or any concourse, usually no more than four or five in a company: In the spring of 1625, the boys and youths of several parishes in like number appeared again, which I beholding, called Thomas Sanders, my landlord, and told him, that the youth and young boys of several parishes did in that nature assemble and play, in the beginning of the year 1625. "God bless us," quoth I, "from a plague this year;" but then there succeeded one, and the greatest that ever was in London. In 1625, the visitation increasing, and my master having a great charge of money and plate, some of his own, some other men's, left me and a fellow-servant to keep the house, and himself in June went into Leicestershire. He was in that year feoffee collector for twelve poor alms-people living in Clement-Dane's Churchyard; whose pensions I in his absence paid weekly, to his and the parish's great satisfaction. My master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a bass-viol, and got a master to instruct me; the intervals of time I spent in bowling in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, with Wat the cobbler, Dick the blacksmith, and such like companions: We have sometimes been at our work at six in the morning, and so continued till three or four in the afternoon, many times without bread or drink all that while. Sometimes I went to church and heard funeral sermons, of which there was then great plenty. At other times I went early to St. Antholine's in London, where there was