L1L 



LLM 



and, in short, plied his business so well, 

 that, in 1651 and 1652, he laid out two 

 thousand pounds for lands and a house at 

 Hersham. 



During- the siege of Colchester, he and 

 Booker were sent for thither to encour- 

 age the soldiers; which they did by as- 

 suring them that the town would soon be 

 taken ; which proved true in the event. 



Having, in 1650, written publicly that 

 the parliament should not continue, but a 

 new government arise ; agreeably to 

 which, in his almanack for 1653, he as- 

 serted that the parliament stood upon a 

 ticklish foundation, and that the common- 

 alty and soldiery would join together 

 against them. Upon which he was sum- 

 moned before the committee of plunder- 

 ed ministers; but receiving notice of it 

 before the arrival of the messenger, he 

 applied to his friend Lenthal, the Speak- 

 er, who pointed out the offensive pas- 

 sages. He immediately altered them, at- 

 tended the committee next morning, with 

 six copies printed, which six alone he ac- 

 knowledged to be his, and by that means 

 came off with only thirteen days custody 

 by the Serjeant at arms. This year he was 

 engaged in a dispute with Mr. Thomas 

 Gataker. 



In 1665, he was indicted at Hicks's 

 Hall for giving judgment upon stolen 

 goods, but was acquitted. In 1659, he 

 received from the King of Sweden a pre- 

 sent of a gold chain and medal, worth 

 about fifty pounds, on account of his 

 having mentioned that monarch with 

 great respect in his almanacks of 1657 

 and 1658. 



After the Restoration in 1660, being 

 taken into custody, and examined by a 

 committee of the House of Commons, 

 touching the execution of Charles I., he 

 declared that Robert Spavin, then secre- 

 tary to Cromwell, dining with him soon 

 after the fact, assured him it was done by 

 Cornet Joyce. The same year he sued 

 out his pardon, under the broad seal of 

 England, and afterwards continued in 

 London till 1665, when, upon the raging 

 of the plague there, he retired to his es- 

 tate at Hersham. Here he applied him- 

 self to the study of physic, having, by 

 means of his friend Elias Ashmole, pro- 

 cured from Archbishop Sheldon a licence 

 to practise it, which he did, as well as 

 astrology, from thence till the time of his 

 death. In October, 1666, he was examin- 

 ed before a committee of the House of 

 Commons, concerning the fire of London, 

 which happened in September that year. 

 A little before his death he adopted for 

 his son, by the name of Merlin Junior, 



one Henry Coley, a tailor by trade ; and 

 at the same time gave him the impres- 

 sion of his almanack, which had been 

 printed for thirty-six years successively. 

 This Coley became afterwards a cele- 

 brated astrologer, publishing in his own 

 name almanacks and books of astrology, 

 particularly one entitled " A Key to As- 

 trology." 



Lilly died of the palsy in 1681, at se- 

 venty-nine years of age; and his friend 

 Mr. Ashmole placed a monument over 

 his grave in the church of Walton upon 

 Thames. 



Lilly was the author of many works. 

 His " Observations on the Life and Death 

 of Charles, late King of England," if we 

 overlook the astrological nonsense, may 

 be read with as much satisfaction as more 

 celebrated histories, Lilly being not only 

 very well informed, but strictly impar- 

 tial. This work, with the lives of Lilly 

 and Ashmole, written by themselves, were 

 published in one volume 8vo. in 1774, by 

 Mr. Burman. His other works were prin- 

 cipally as follow : 



1. Merlinus Anglicus, junior. 2. Super- 

 natural Sight. 3. The White King's Pro- 

 phecy. 4. England's prophetical Merlin : 

 all printed in 1644. 5. The starry Mes- 

 senger, 1645. 6. Collection of Prophe- 

 cies, 1646. 7. A Comment on the White 

 King's Prophecy, 1646. 8. The Nativi- 

 ties of Archbishop Laud and Thomas 

 Earl of Stafford, 1646. 9. Christian As- 

 trology, 1647 : upon this piece he read 

 his lectures in 1648, mentioned above. 



10. The third Book of Nativities, 1647. 



11. The World's Catastrophe, 1647. 12. 

 The Prophecies of Ambrose Merlin, with 

 a Key, 1647. 13. Trithemius, or the Go- 

 vernment of the World by presiding An- 

 gels, 1647. 14. A Treatise of the Three 

 Suns seen in the Winter of 1647, printed 

 in 1648. 15. Monarchy or no Monarchy, 

 1651. 16. Observations on the Life and 

 Death of Charles, late King of England, 

 1651 ; and again in 1657, with the title of 

 Mr. William Lilly's true History of King 

 James and King Charles I., &c. 17. Annus 

 Tenebrosus, or the Black Year. This 

 drew him into the dispute with Gataker, 

 which Lilly carried on in his Almanack in 

 1654. 



LIMAX, in natural history, the slug. 

 Body oblong, creeping, with a fleshy 

 kind of shield above, and a longitudinal 

 flat dish beneatli ; aperture placed on the 

 right side, within the shield ; four feelers, 

 situate above the mouth, with an eye at 

 the tip of each of the larger ones. There 

 are sixteen species; L. Izevis : body black, 

 and almost without wrinkles, found r.nionjr 



