ctise more openly and with good success;
and every Saturday rode to Kingston, where the poorer sort flocked to
him from several parts, and received much benefit by his advice and
prescriptions, which he gave them freely and without money. From those
that were more able he now and then received a shilling, and sometimes a
half crown, if they offered it to him; otherwise he received nothing;
and in truth his charity toward poor people was very great, no less than
the care and pains he took in considering and weighing their particular
cases, and applying proper remedies to their infirmities, which gained
him extraordinary credit and estimation.' So William Lilly lived at
Horsham, publishing his 'astronomical judgments' yearly, and helping as
he could the poor there and in the neighborhood, till the 9th day of
June, 1681, when he died. The 'great agony' of his diseases, which were
complicated, he bore 'without complaint.' 'Immediately before his breath
went from him, he sneezed three times;' which, we will hope, cleared his
head of some nonsense.

In the judgment of his contemporaries, this William Lilly, astrologer,
was, as we can see, 'a respectable man.' Such judgment, however, is
never conclusive; for the time clement is always a deceptive one; and,
as all navigators know, the land which looms high in the atmosphere of
to-day does often, in the clearer atmosphere of other days, prove to be
as flat as a panecake: but we must say of Lilly, that though
unfortunately an impostor, he was really rather above the common level
of mankind--a little hillock, if only of conglomerate or pudding stone:
for, in his pamphlet entitled 'Observations on the Life and Times of
Charles I,' where he, looking away from the stars and treating of the
past, is more level to our judgment, he is still worth reading; and does
therein give a more impartial and correct character of that unhappy king
than can be found in any other contemporary writing; agreeing well with
the best judgments of this present time, and showing Lilly to be a man
of ability above the common. On the whole, we will say of him, that he
was the product of a mother who was good for something, and of a father
who was good for nothing, or next to that; that with such parentage, and
under such circumstances as we have seen, he became an astrologer, the
best of his kind in that time.

It would be easy to institute other moral reflections, and to pass
positive judgment on the man: b