had been withheld from him from the time of his going abroad. He
stated that, shortly after that period, his house had been broken
into and spoiled by a lawless mob, instigated by his ill fame as a
dealer in prohibited and unlawful arts. They destroyed or dispersed
his library, consisting of four thousand volumes, seven hundred of
which were manuscripts, and of inestimable rarity. They ravaged his
collection of curious implements and machines. He enumerated the
expences of his journey home by Elizabeth's command, for which he
seemed to consider the queen as his debtor. Elizabeth in consequence
ordered him at several times two or three small sums. But this being
insufficient, she was prevailed upon in 1592 to appoint two members
of her privy council to repair to his house at Mortlake to enquire
into particulars, to whom he made a Compendious Rehearsal of half
a hundred years of his life, accompanied with documents and vouchers.

It is remarkable that in this Rehearsal no mention occurs of the
miraculous stone brought down to him by an angel, or of his
pretensions respecting the transmutation of metals. He merely rests,
his claims to public support upon his literary labours, and the
acknowledged eminence of his intellectual faculties. He passes over
the years he had lately spent in foreign countries, in entire silence,
unless we except his account of the particulars of his journey home.
His representation to Elizabeth not being immediately productive of
all the effects he expected, he wrote a letter to archbishop Whitgift
two years after, lamenting the delay of the expected relief, and
complaining of the "untrue reports, opinions and fables, which had
for so many years been spread of his studies." He represents these
studies purely as literary, frank, and wholly divested of mystery.
If the "True Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. Dee
and certain Spirits" had not been preserved, and afterwards printed,