im in his conjuring cap and robes--surrounded with
astrological, mathematical, and geographical instruments--with a
profusion of Chaldee characters inscribed upon vellum rolls--and with
his celebrated _Glass_ suspended by magical wires. Let us then follow
him into his study at midnight, and view him rummaging his books;
contemplating the heavens; making calculations; holding converse with
invisible spirits; writing down their responses: anon, looking into
his correspondence with _Count a Lasco_ and the emperors Adolphus and
Maximilian; and pronouncing himself, with the most heartfelt
complacency, the greatest genius of his age![332] In the midst of
these self-complacent reveries, let us imagine we see his wife and
little ones intruding; beseeching him to burn his books and
instruments; and reminding him that there was neither a silver spoon,
nor a loaf of bread, in the cupboard. Alas, poor DEE!--thou wert the
dupe of the people and of the Court: and, although Meric Casaubon has
enshrined thy conjurations in a pompous folio volume, thy name, I
fear, will only live in the memory of bibliomaniacs!

[Footnote 332: Those who are fond of copious biographical
details of astrologers and conjurers will read, with no
small pleasure and avidity, the long gossipping account of
DEE, which Hearne has subjoined to his edition of _John
Confrat. Monach. de rebus gestis Glaston._, vol. ii.; where
twelve chapters are devoted to the subject of our
philosopher's travels and hardships. Meric Casaubon--who put
forth a pompous folio volume of "_A true and faithful
relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee
and some spirits_:" 1659--gravely assures us, in an
elaborate, learned, and rather amusing preface, that the
volume contains what "he thinks is not to be paralleled in
that kind by any book that hath been set out in any age to
read:" sign A. This is true enough; for such a farago of
incongruous, risible, and horrible events, are no where else
recorded. "None but itself can be its parallel." Casaubon
wrote a professed dissertation (1652, 8vo.) upon witches,
and nothing seemed to be too unpalatable for his credulity
to swallow. A compressed and rather interesting account of
Dee, who was really the weakest as well as the ablest
scholar and philosopher of his day, will be found in
Ashmole's _Theatrum Chemicum_, p. 480.