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.? 
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 “ Cassiopeie ” 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 
“ Parallacticee commentationis praxeosque nucleum,” but not content 
with that, he printed in the same year a work entitled “de Stella 
admiranda in Cassiopeie 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.” 
