JOHN DEE 241 



Could John Dee have lived another century he might have found in 

 the work of Isaac Newton some answer to his prayer. The very in- 

 tensity of the longing to understand the mysteries of the universe was 

 in part the cause of the errors into which he fell. His belief in astrol- 

 ogy and in the value of the alchemical experiments on which he spent 

 so much of his energy and substance may be accounted an error of the 

 time rather than of the individual, but his long connection with Edward 

 Kelley — charlatan and magician — is not easily reconciled with his intel- 

 ligence. Kelley, at first an apothecary, became an avowed dealer in 

 magic and seems, for a time, to have made a complete dupe of Dee, who 

 in all good faith admitted him as a valued assistant in his researches 

 and travels. Between the years 1582 and 1589 they were making 

 alchemical experiments, peering into crystals, communing with spirits, 

 etc. — part of the time in England, part of the time on the continent — 

 chiefly at Prague. When in 1590 the real character of his masterful 

 assistant became apparent, Dee experienced the keenest sorrow over 

 misplaced confidence. 



But for the time of his wardenship of Manchester College, 1596- 

 1604, he spent the remaining years of his life at Mortlake in poverty 

 and sadness. Queen Elizabeth, in passing to and from Eichmond, often 

 stopped to question and console him and sent her own physicians when 

 he was ill. From the records of the time " Master " Dee seems to have 

 made a deep impression on the people round about, both because of his 

 learning and of his handsome presence. Aubrey speaks of him as a great 

 peacemaker among his neighbors, and adds " a mighty good man was 

 he." By some Dee was accounted a conjuror, and so oppressed was he 

 by the charge that he petitioned James I. in 1604 that he might be 

 tried and cleared of the horrible slander. After the king had inquired 

 into the nature of his studies the petition was refused as unnecessary. 

 Up to his death in 1608 Dee retained the profoundest interest in experi- 

 ments. His magic crystal and cakes are preserved in the British 

 Museum. 



Though his actual contribution to science was not great, John Dee 

 belonged to and had an important part in the transition from the com- 

 mentatorial period of the middle ages to that time of bold originality 

 and vivid reality — the time of Bacon, Kepler, Galileo and of their young 

 contemporary, Descartes. His eyes at least were above the plane on 

 which Francis Bacon stood. Forerunners such as Dee prepared the 

 way for the stupendous achievements of the seventeenth century — that 

 century made notable by the introduction of the most powerful mathe- 

 matical methods and by the use of these methods to obtain an under- 

 standing of the laws that govern the phenomena of nature. 



VOL. lxxvii.— 17. 



