Wray, Mr. Denzil Hollis, Mr. Robert Reynolds, who, by great fortune, had the Starry Messenger sheet by sheet from me as it came from the press.  They presently fell a smiling at me; ’Miles Corbet, Lilly, will punish thee soundly; but fear nothing, we will dine, and make haste to be at the committee time enough to do the business;’ and so they most honourably performed; for they, as soon as they came, sat down, and put Mr. Reynolds purposely into the chair, and I was called in; but Corbet being not there, they bid me withdraw until he came; which when he did, I was commanded to appear, and Corbet desired to give the cause of my being in restraint, and of the committee’s order.  Mr. Reynolds was purposely put into the chair, and continued till my business was over.

Corbet produced my Anglicus of 1645, and said there were many scandalous passages therein against the Commissioners of Excise in London.  He produced one passage, which being openly read by himself, the whole committee adjudged it to signify the errors of sub-officers, but had no relation to the Commissioners themselves, which I affirmatively maintained to be the true meaning as the committee declared.

Then Corbet found out another dangerous place, as he thought, and the words were thus in the printed book—­’In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will not the Excise pay the soldiers?’

Corbet very ignorantly read, ‘will not the Eclipse pay soldiers?’ at which the Committee fell heartily to laugh at him, and so he became silent.

There was a great many Parliament men there; the chamber was full.  ’Have you any more against Mr. Lilly?’ cried the chairman.

‘Yes,’ saith the Sollicitor for the Excise, ’since his Starry Messenger came forth we had our house burnt, and the Commissioners pulled by their cloaks in the Exchange.’  ‘Pray, sir, when was this,’ asked old Sir Robert Pye, ’that the house was burnt, and the Aldermen abused?’ ‘It was in such a week,’ saith he.  ’Mr. Lilly, when came the book forth?’ ‘The very day of Naseby fight,’ answered Mr. Reynolds, ’nor needs he be ashamed of writing it:  I had it daily as it came forth of the press:  it was then found the house to be burnt, and the Aldermen abused, twelve days before the Starry Messenger came forth.’  ’What a lying fellow art thou,’ saith Sir Robert Pye, ‘to abuse us so!’ This he spoke to the Sollicitor.  Then stood up one Bassell, a merchant:  he inveighed bitterly against me, being a Presbyterian, and would have had my books burnt.  ‘You smell more of a citizen than a scholar,’ replied Mr. Francis Drake.  I was ordered to withdraw, and by and by was called in, and acquainted the committee did discharge me.  But I cried with a loud voice, ‘I was under a messenger;’ whereupon the committee ordered him or the Serjeant at Arms not to take any fees; Mr. Reynolds saying, ‘Literate men never pay any fees.’