eacher than for that of the people.

CHAPTER IV.

Astrology in Antiquity--Modern Astrology and
Alchymy--Torralvo--Adventures of Dr. Dee and Edward
Kelly--Prospero and Comus Types respectively of the Theurgic
and Goetic Arts--Magicians on the Stage in the 16th
century--Occult Science in Southern Europe--Causes of the
inevitable mistakes of the pre-Scientific Ages.

The nobler arts of magic, astrology, alchymy, necromancy, &c.,
were equally in vogue in this age with that of the infernal art
proper. But they were more respected. Professors of those arts
were habitually sought for with great eagerness by the highest
personages, and often munificently rewarded. In antiquity
astrology had been peculiarly Oriental in its origin and
practice. The Egyptians, and especially the Chaldaeans, introduced
the foreign art to the West among the Greeks and Italians; the
Arabs revived it in Western Europe in the Middle Age. Under the
early Roman Empire the Chaldaic art exercised and enjoyed
considerable influence and reputation, if it was often subject to
sudden persecutions. Augustus was assisted to the throne, and
Severus selected his wife, by its means. After it had once
firmly established itself in the West,[105] the Oriental
astrology was soon developed and reduced to a more regular
system; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Dee and
Lilly enjoyed a greater reputation than even Figulus or
Thrasyllus had obtained in the first century. Queen Elizabeth and
Catherine di Medici (two of the astutest persons of their age)
patronised them. Dr. Dee in England, and Nostradamus in France,
were of this class. Dr. Caius, third founder of a college still
bearing his name in the university of Cambridge, Kelly, Ashmole,
and Lilly, are well-known names in the astrological history of
this period. Torralvo, whose fame as an aerial voyager is
immortalised by Cervantes in 'Don Quixote,' was as great a
magician in Spain and Italy as Dee in England, although not so
familiar to English readers as their countryman, the protege of
Elizabeth. Neither was his magical faculty so well rewarded. Dr.
Torralvo, a physician, had studied medicine and philosophy with
extraordinary success, and was high in the confidence of many
of the eminent personages of Spain and Italy, for whom he
fortunately predicted future success. A confirmed infidel or
freethinker, he was denounced to the Inquisition by the treachery
of a