238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



After I was Batchelor of Arts, I went beyond the seas (Anno 1547 — May) 

 to speak and confer with some learned men and chiefly Mathematicians. . . . 

 Anno 1548 I was made Master of Artes. I became a student at Lovain 1548 

 midsummer, and there I made abode, till the 15th of July 1550. . . . From 

 Lovaine I took my journey towards Paris Anno 1550, . . . where within a few 

 days (at the request of some English Gentlemen, made with me to do some- 

 what there for the honour of my Country) I did undertake to read freely and 

 publicly Euclid's Elements Geometrical ... a thing never done publicly in any 

 University of Christendome. My auditory in Rhemes College was so great . . . 

 that the Mathematical Schooles could not hold them; for many were fain, with- 

 out the schooles at the windows, to be auditors and spectators as they best 

 could help themselves thereto. I did also dictate upon every proposition, 

 besides the first exposition. 2 



John Dee was held in high esteem not only in Paris and Louvain, 

 but at almost all the courts of Europe. He relates (and there is no 

 reason to question the statement) that he might have served five Chris- 

 tian emperors, namely, " Charles V, Ferdinand, Maximilian, this 

 Rudolph and this present Moscovite," but Queen Elizabeth " very gra- 

 ciously " took him into her service. Just what the service was that is 

 referred to here is not evident, but the Queen called upon " Master 

 Dee " for a great variety of services. At one time he instructed her in 

 astrology, using the book which he had written for the Emperor Maxi- 

 milian. Once he was sent for post-haste to prevent mischief to her 

 majesty's person apprehended from a waxen image of her, found in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields with a pin stuck in its breast. In 1577 the queen 

 sent for Dee to come to Windsor on account of a comet, and for three 

 days she listened to his discourse and speculations on the subject. Five 

 years earlier there had appeared a brilliant star in " Cassiopeise " that 

 caused such consternation among the people that John Dee and Thomas 

 Digges united in an attempt to give an explanation and bring to an 

 end the terror of the people. As a result Dee printed in 1573 his 

 " Parallactics commentationis praxeosque nucleum," but not content 

 with that, he printed in the same year a work entitled " de Stella 

 admiranda in Cassiopeia? asterismo ccelitus demissa ab orbem usque 

 Veneris." Knowing the superstitions of the times, Dee frequently urges 

 the desirability of man's understanding nature. After enumerating 

 various natural phenomena, he asks : 



Is it not commodious for man to know the very true cause, and occasion 

 naturall ? Yea, rather, is it not greatly against the Souverainty of man's nature, 

 to be so overshot and abused, with thinges (at hand) before his eyes? 



In 1580 the queen desired to know her title to countries discovered 

 in different parts of the world and Dee drew up for her two large rolls 

 of description and maps which were approved by the queen and Lord 

 Burleigh. Not only the queen, but explorers, men of affairs and the 

 learned men of Europe sought him out. To him came Sir Humphry 

 Gilbert and John Davis to talk of the Northwest Passage (John Dee 



2 Dee's " Compendious Rehearsal." 



