William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 by William Lilly
page 38 of 128 (29%)
page 38 of 128 (29%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
he was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco,
he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them. I come now to continue the story of my own life, but thought it not inconvenient to commit unto memory something concerning those persons who practised when first I became a student in astrology; I have wrote nothing concerning any of them, which I myself do not either know, or believe to be true. In October 1633 my first wife died, and left me whatever was hers: it was considerable, very near to the value of one thousand pounds. One whole year and more I continued a widower, and followed my studies very hard; during which time a scholar pawned unto me, for forty shillings, _Ars Notoria_,[8] a large volume wrote in parchment, with the names of those angels, and their pictures, which are thought and believed by wise men, to teach and instruct in all the several liberal sciences, and is attained by observing elected times, and those prayers appropriated unto the several angels. [Footnote 8: Among Dr. Napier's MSS. I had an _Ars Notoria_, written by S. Forman in large vellum.] I do ingenuously acknowledge, I used those prayers according to the form and direction prescribed for some weeks, using the word _astrologia_ for _astronomia_; but of this no more: that _Ars Notoria_, inserted in the latter end of Cornelius Agrippa signifieth nothing; many of the prayers being not the same, nor is the direction to these prayers any thing considerable. |
|