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Page 15
So this poor scholar, first of his class, bright visions of the
university, and of what might lie beyond, all fading into darkness, went
down to his father's house in the country, where his acquirements were
useless. He says: 'I could not work, drive plough, or endure any country
labor; my father oft would say, 'I was good for nothing,' and 'he was
willing to be rid of me.' A sorrowful time for the poor young fellow,
without any outlook toward a better. But at last, one Samuel Smatty, an
attorney, living in the neighborhood, took pity on the lad, and gave him
a letter to Gilbert Wright, of London, who wanted a youth who could read
and write, to attend him. Thereupon Lilly, in a suit of fustian, with
this letter in his pocket, and ten shillings, given him by his friends,
took leave of his father, who was then in Leicester jail for debt, and
set off for London with 'Bradshaw, the carrier.' He 'footed it all
along,' and was six days on the way; spending for food two shillings and
sixpence, and nothing for lodgings; but he was in good heart, I think,
for almost the only joyous expression in his autobiography is this one,
relating to this time: 'Hark, how the wagons crack with their rich
lading!'
Gilbert Wright, who had been 'servant to the Lady Pawlet in
Hertfordshire,' had married a widow with property, and lived afterward
'on his annual rents;' or on his wife's, and 'was of no calling or
profession.' This man had real need of a servant who could read and
write, for he himself could do neither; but he was, however, 'a man of
excellent natural parts, and would speak publicly upon any occasion very
rationally and to the purpose.' Lilly was kindly received by Master
Wright, who found, it seems, employment enough for him. 'My work was to
go before my master to church; to attend my master when he went abroad;
to make clean his shoes; sweep the street; help to drive bucks when he
washed; fetch water in a tub from the Thames--I have helped to carry
eighteen tubs of water in one morning;--weed the garden. All manner of
drudgery I willingly performed.'
Mrs. Wright, who brought money to her husband, brought also a jealous
disposition, and made his life uncomfortable. 'She was about seventy
years of age, he sixty-six,' 'yet was never any woman more jealous of a
husband than she!' She vexed more than one man, too, and her first
husband had temptations to cut his own throat and escape from trouble
so; but he, as we shall learn by and by, got some relief otherwise, and
lived till death came by better means.
Tally had difficulty in keeping on good terms 'with two such opposite
natures' as those of his master and mistress, that he managed it
somehow, and says: 'However, as to the things of this world, I had
enough, and endured their discontents with much sereneness. My mistress
was very curious to know of such as were then called cunning, or wise
men, whether she should bury her husband. She frequently visited such
persons, and this begot in me a little desire to learn something that
way; but wanting money to buy books, I laid aside these notions, and
endeavored to please both master and mistress.'
This mistress had a cancer in her left breast, and Lilly had much
noisome work to do for her; which he did faithfully and kindly. 'She was
so fond of me in the time of her sickness, she would never permit me out
of her chamber.' 'When my mistress died (1624) she had under her armhole
a small scarlet bag full of many things, which one that was there
delivered unto me. There were in this bag several sigils, some of
Jupiter in Trine; others of the nature of Venus; some of iron, and one
of gold, of pure virgin gold, of the bigness of a thirty-three shilling
piece of King James coin. In the circumference on one side was engraven,
_Vicit Leo de Tribu Jud� Tetragrammation_~+~: within the middle there
was engraven a holy lamb. In the other circumference there was
_Amraphel_, and three ~+ + +~. In the middle, _Sanctus Petrus_, _Alpha_
and _Omega_.'
This sigil the woman got many years before of Dr. Samuel Foreman, a
magician or astrologer; the same who 'wrote in a book left behind him,'
'This I made the devil write with his own hand, in Lambeth Fields, 1596,
in June or July, as I now remember.' This sigil the woman got from the
doctor, who was evidently a foreman among liars, for her first husband,
who had been 'followed by a spirit which vocally and articulately
provoked him to cut his own throat.' Her husband, wearing this sigil
'till he died, was never more troubled by spirits' of this kind of call;
but on the woman herself it seems to have failed of effect, for though
she too wore it till she died, she was continually tormented by an
authentic spirit of jealousy--a torment to herself and to her husband.
After this mistress had gone, Lilly lived very comfortably, his 'master
having a great affection' for him; and also a great confidence in him,
it seems; for when the plague (1625) began to rage in London, the master
went for safety into Leicestershire, leaving Lilly and a fellow servant
to keep the house, in which was much money and plate, belonging to his
master and others. Lilly was faithful to his charge in this fearful
time, and kept himself cheerful by amusements. 'I bought a bass viol,
and got a master to instruct me; the intervals of time I spent in
bowling in Lincoln's Inn Fields with Watt, the cobbler, Dick, the
blacksmith, and such-like companions.' Nor did he neglect more serious
business, but attended divine service at the church of St. Clement
Danes, where two ministers died in this time; but the third, Mr.
Whitacre, 'escaped not only then, but all contagion following,' though
he 'buried all manner of people, whether they died of the plague or
not,' and 'was given to drink, so that he seldom could preach more than
one quarter of an hour at a time.' This year of plague was indeed a
fearful one in London, and Lilly says elsewhere, 'I do well remember
this accident, that going in July, 1625, about half an hour after six in
the morning, to St. Antholine's church, I met only three persons on the
way, from my house over against Strand bridge, till I came there; so few
people were there alive and the streets so unfrequented.' 'About fifty
thousand people died that year;' but Lilly escaped death, though his
'conversation was daily with the infected.'[2]
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