LIL 
of his prison windows at Carisbrook Castle ; 
but still advising and writing for the other 
party at the same time. Meanwhile he read 
public lectures on astrology in 1648 and 
1649, for the improvement of young stu- 
dents in that art; and, in short, plied his 
business so well, that, in 1651 and 165^?, he 
laid out two thousand pounds for lands and 
a house at Hershara. 
During the siege of Colchester, he and 
Booker were sent for thither to encourage 
the soldiers ; which they did by assuring 
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 ari^e ; agreeably to which, 
in his almanack for 1653, he asserted that 
the parliament stood upon a ticklish founda- 
tion, and that the commonalty and sol- 
diery would join together against them. 
Upon which he was summoned before the 
committee of plundered ministers ; but re- 
ceiving notice of it before the arrival of the 
messenger, he applied to his friend Lenthal, 
the Speaker, who pointed out the offensive 
passages. He immediately altered them, 
attended 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 lie 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 present of a gold 
chain and medal, worth about fifty pounds, 
on account of his having mentioned that 
monarch with great respect in his alma- 
nacks of 1657 and 1658. 
After the Restoration in 1660, being 
taken into custody, and examined by a com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, touching 
the execution of Charles I., he declared 
that Robert Spavin, then secretary to 
Cromwell, dining with him soon after the 
fact, assured him, it was done by Cornet 
Joyce. The same year he sued out his par- 
don, 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 estate at Hersham. Here 
he applied himself to the study of physic, 
having, by means of his friend Elias Ash- 
mole, procured from Archbishop Sheldon 
a licence to practise it, which he did, as 
well as astrology, from thence till the time 
LIM 
of his death. In October, 1666, he was 
examined before a committee of the House 
of Commons, concerning the fire of Lon- 
don, 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 impression of 
his almanack, which had been printed for 
thirty-six years successively. This Coley 
became afterwards a celebrated astrologer, 
publishing in his own name almanaeks and 
books of astrology, particularly one enti- 
tled “ A Key to Astrology.” 
Lilly died ef the palsy in 1681, at seventy- 
nine years of age ; and his friend Mr. Asli- 
mole 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 over- 
look the astrological nonsense, may be read 
with as much satisfaction as more cele- 
brated histories, Lilly being not only very 
well informed, but strictly impartial. This 
work, with the lives of Lilly and Ashmole, 
written by themselves, were published in 
one volume 8vo. in 1774, by Mr. Bur- 
man. His other works w'ere principally as 
follow. 
1. Blerlinns Anglicus, junior. 2. Super- 
natural Sight. 3. The ALhite King’s Pro- 
phecy. 4. England’s prophetical Blerlin : 
all printed in 1644. 5. The starry Messen- 
ger, 1645. 6. Collection of Prophecies, 
1646. 7. A Comment.on the White King’s 
Prophecy, 1646. 8, The Nativities of Arch- 
bishop Laud and Thomas Earl of Strafford, 
1646. 9. Christian Astrology, 1647 : upon 
this piece he read his lectures in 1648, men- 
tioned above. 10. The third Book of Na- 
tivities, 1647. 11. The World’s Catastrophe, 
1647. 12. The Prophecies of Ambrose 
Merlin, with a Key, 1647. 13. Tritliemius, 
or the Government of the ALorld by presid- 
ing Angels, 1647. 14. A Treatise of the 
Three Suns seen in the Winter of 1647, 
printed in 1648. 15. Monarchy or no Mo- 
narchy, 1651. 16. Observations on the Life 
and Death of Charles, late King of Eng- 
land, 1651; and again in 1657, with the 
title of Mr. William Lilly’s true History of 
King James and King Charles I., See. 17. 
Annus Tenebrosus, or the Black Year. 
This drew him into the dispute with Gata- 
ker, which Lilly carried on in his Alma- 
nack in 1654. 
LIMAX, in natural history, the slug;. 
Body oblong, creeping, wdth a fleshy kind 
