had been robbed,
women in love, men in debt, all in trouble and doubt, from the King
downwards, sought his aid. He pretended to be a man of science, not a
man gifted with supernatural powers. Whether he succeeded in believing
in astrology and deceiving himself, it is impossible to say; he was
probably too clever for that, but he deceived others admirably, and was
one of the noted and most successful of the old astrologers.

How long this letter will be I cannot tell. You shall have all the time
that is allowed me, but upon condition that you shall not examine the
sense on't too strictly, for you must know I want sleep extremely. The
sun was up an hour before I went to bed to-day, and this is not the
first time I have done this since I came hither. 'Twill not be for your
advantage that I should stay here long; for, in earnest, I shall be good
for nothing if I do. We go abroad all day and play all night, and say
our prayers when we have time. Well, in sober earnest now, I would not
live thus a twelvemonth to gain all that the King has lost, unless it
were to give it him again. 'Tis a miracle to me how my brother endures
it. 'Tis as contrary to his humour as darkness is to light, and only
shows the power he lets his wife have over him. Will you be so
good-natured? He has certainly as great a kindness for her as can be,
and, to say truth, not without reason; but all the people that ever I
saw, I do not like his carriage towards her. He is perpetually wrangling
and finding fault, and to a person that did not know him would appear
the worst husband and the most imperious in the world. He is so amongst
his children too, though he loves them passionately. He has one son, and
'tis the finest boy that e'er you saw, and has a noble spirit, but yet
stands in that awe of his father that one word from him is as much as
twenty whippings.

You must give me leave to entertain you thus with discourses of the
family, for I can tell you nothing else from hence. Yet, now I remember.
I have another story for you. You little think I have been with Lilly,
and, in earnest, I was, the day before I came out of town; and what do
you think I went for? Not to know when you would come home, I can assure
you, nor for any other occasion of my own; but with a cousin of mine
that had long designed to make herself sport with him, and did not miss
of her aim. I confess I always thought him an impostor, but I could
never have imagined him so simple a one