have given him nothing, and he had a wife and family to provide for; upon this we never came together after.  Being now very meanly introduced, I applied myself to study those books I had obtained, many times twelve, or fifteen, or eighteen hours day and night; I was curious to discover, whether there was any verity in the art or not.  Astrology in this time, viz. in 1633, was very rare in London, few professing it that understood any thing thereof.  Let it not repent you (O noble Esquire) if now I make a short digression of such persons as then professed astrology, that posterity may understand in what condition I found it, and in whose hands that little that remained was lodged.

There lived then in Houndsditch one Alexander Hart, who had been a soldier formerly, a comely old man, of good aspect; he professed questionary astrology, and a little of physick; his greatest skill was to elect young gentlemen fit times to play at dice, that they might win or get money.  I went unto him for resolutions for three questions at several times, and he erred in every one.  To speak soberly of him, he was but a cheat, as appeared suddenly after; for a rustical fellow of the city, desirous of knowledge, contracted with Hart to assist for a conference with a spirit, and paid him twenty pounds of thirty pounds the contract.  At last, after many delays, and no spirit appearing, or money returned, the young man indicts him for a cheat at the Old Bailey in London; the Jury found the bill, and at the hearing of the cause this jest happened:  some of the bench enquired what Hart did?  ’He sat like an Alderman in his gown,’ quoth the fellow; at which the court fell into a great laughter, most of the court being Aldermen.  He was to have been set upon the pillory for this cheat; but John Taylour, the Water Poet, being his great friend, got the Lord Chief Justice Richardson to bail him, ere he stood upon the pillory, and so Hart fled presently into Holland, where he ended his days.  It was my fortune, upon the sale of his books in 1634, to buy Argoll’s Primum Mobile for fourteen shillings, which I only wanted.

In Lambeth Marsh at the same time lived one Captain Bubb, who resolved horary questions astrologically; a proper handsome man, well spoken, but withal covetous, and of no honesty, as will appear by this story, for which he stood upon the pillory.  A certain butcher was robbed, going to a fair, of forty pounds; he goes to Bubb, who for ten pounds in hand paid, would help him to the thief; appoints the butcher such a night precisely, to watch at such a place, and the thief should come thither; commanded him by any means to stop him; the butcher attends according to direction.  About twelve in the night there comes one riding very fiercely upon a full gallop, whom the butcher knocks down, and seized both upon man and horse:  the butcher brings the man and horse to the next town, but then the person whom the butcher attacked was John the servant of Dr. Bubb; for which the Captain was indicted and suffered upon the pillory, and afterwards ended his days in great disgrace.