"The slie inchanter, when to -work his will 

 And secret wrong on some forspoken wight, 

 Frames waxe, in form to represent aright 

 The poore unwitting wretch he meanes to kill ; 

 And prickes the image, fram'd by magick's skill, 

 Whereby to vex the partie day and night." 



The learned Doctor's profound studies of the Kabbala, 

 divinations and occult sciences seem to have disordered his 

 intellect; for one day while engaged in earnest prayer he 

 imagined that the angel Uriel appeared to him and promised 

 his friendship and his assistance in divining the future; at 

 the same time Uriel gave him a highly polished crystal by 

 means of which he would be able to hold communications 

 with celestial spirits. By gazing intently at this crystal, or 

 "shew-stone," as he called it, Dee saw on its surface floating 

 visions of unutterable things, and heard angelic voices ad- 

 dressing him. These visions were vague, mysterious and 

 usually inscrutable; a little maiden eight or nine years old, 

 who said her name was Madini, and conversed in Greek as 

 well as English, frequently appeared to him talking indescrib- 

 able nonsense. Galveh, Murifri, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael 

 were on a friendly footing with Dee, who wrote out their 

 spiritual messages; these were commonly ridiculous rhap- 

 sodies, and sometimes they were fanciful, unmeaning arrange- 

 ments of numbers, or arbitrary combinations of letters. 

 Besides personages, the crystal revealed scenes and objects of 

 enigmatical character; on the 13th November, 1583, Dee re- 

 corded the following: "At length appeared a sword, two- 

 edged, fiery, or rather bloody, and a bunch of rags hanging 

 at the top of it. The sword stood upright, and a voice an- 

 nounced: 'So be it O Lord, for Thou art mighty; be it SQ. 

 unto them,' and then the sword shook mightily." 



Unable to remember these apparitions and these celestial 

 communications, Dee decided to employ the services of a 



5 



