Solomon's Secret Arts (73 page)

80.
[Vaughan],
Anthroposophia Theomagica
, p. 54.

81.
Michael Sendivogius,
A New Light of Alchemy
(London, 1650); Newman,
Gehennical Fire
, pp. 215–27.

82.
West,
Henry Vaughan's “Silex Scintillans”
, ch. 2; E.C. Pettet,
Of Paradise and Light: A Study of Vaughan's “Silex Scintillans”
(Cambridge, 1960), ch. 4; Elizabeth Holmes,
Henry Vaughan and the Hermetic Philosophy
(New York, 1932, 1967).

83.
Rudrum, “Biographical Introduction,” pp. 18–21; “Eugenius Philalethes” [Thomas Vaughan],
The Second Wash: or The Moore Scour'd Once More
(London, 1651), in Rudrum, ed.,
Works
, pp. 429–31.

84.
“Alazonomastix Philalethes” [Henry More],
Observations upon “Antroposophia Theomagica” and “Anima Magica Abscondita”
(“Parrhesia” [London], 1650), pp. 26, 88–90. For More and Descartes, see A. Rupert Hall,
Henry More and the Scientific Revolution
(Cambridge, 1990), ch. 8.

85.
“Eugenius Philalethes” [Thomas Vaughan],
The Man-Mouse Taken in a Trap, and Tortur'd to Death
(London, 1650), p. 243.

86.
[Henry More],
The Second Lash of Alazonomastix, Laid On in Mercy against that Stubborn Youth Eugenius Philalethes
(Cambridge, 1651), pp. 4, 72, 109, 179.

87.
Ibid.
, p. 193.

88.
[More],
Enthusiasmus Triumphatus
, pp. 1, 5.

89.
The British Library contains copies of eighteen auction catalogues issued by Cooper between 1676 and 1688. The quotation is from his first catalogue,
Catalogus Variorum et Insignium Librorum Instructissimae Bibliothecae Clarissimi Doctissimiq; Viri Lazari Seaman, S.T.D.
(London, 1676), “To the Reader.” A satirical Latin dialogue, evidently aimed at a scholarly audience, was written on the last of his sales, held at Oxford: [George Smalridge?],
Auctio Davisiana Oxonii Habita
(London, 1689). For auctions in England during this period, see Iain Pears,
The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England, 1680–1768
(New Haven, Conn., 1988), pp. 57–67.

90.
[William Cooper, ed.],
Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chymistry Concerning the Liquor Alkahest, the Mercury of Philosophers, and Other Curiosities Worthy the Perusal
(London, 1684), “To the Reader,” p. [i]. This preface is signed “W.C.B.” for William Cooper,
Bibliopolam
, and was therefore written by Cooper himself.

91.
Newman,
Gehennical Fire
, pp. 262–70; B.J.T. Dobbs, “Newton's Copy of
Secrets Reveal'd
,”
Ambix
, 26, 3 (1979), pp. 145–69.

92.
The identity of “W.C., Esq.” as “William Chamberlain” was discovered by P.J. Ash and published in Josten, ed.,
Ashmole
, vol. 3, p. 1289, Addendum. Unfortunately, the information was not noticed by the compilers of the
ODNB
articles on William Cooper and William Chamberlayne. Josten did not connect the author of the
Philosophicall Epitaph
with the poet, but it is very likely that they were the same man, as no other person of that name was actively publishing during the period. William Chamberlayne of Shaftesbury was chiefly known for the heroic epic
Pharonnida
(London, 1659), in which a wonder-working alchemist appears in book 5, canto 3. Lauren Kassel, however, is cautious about the identity of William Chamberlayne in “Secrets Revealed,” p. 65.

93.
“Eirenaeus Philalethes” [George Starkey],
Secrets Reveal'd: or, An Open Entrance to the Shut-Palace of the King
, ed. W[illiam] C[hamberlayne] (London, 1669), Dedication, p. [ii]; W[illiam] C[hamberlayne],
A Philosophicall Epitaph in Hieroglyphicall Figures with Explanation
(London, 1673), Dedication to Elias Ashmole.

94.
William Jenkyn,
Exodus … A Sermon Preach't Sept. 12 1675 by Reason of the Much Lamented Death of that Learned and Reverend Minister of Christ, Dr. Lazarus Seaman
(London, 1675).

95.
Both Jenkyn and Manton are noted in
ODNB
. For Pinners’ Hall, see Michael R. Watts,
The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution
(Oxford, 1978), pp. 294, 296.

96.
Defensio Legis, or, The Whole State of England Inquisited and Defended for General Satisfaction
(London, 1674), p. 313.

97.
Frederick Helvetius,
A Brief of the Golden Calf, or The Worlds Idol
, ed. and trans. W[illiam] C[hamberlayne] (n.p., n.d.), “To the Reader,” p. [iv], printed in C[hamberlayne].,
Philosophicall Epitaph
.

98.
For illustrations of the pelican in alchemical works, see Alexander Roob,
The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy and Mysticism
(Cologne, 2001), pp. 138, 180, 415, 439. For its Christian significance, see Peter and Linda Murray,
The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture
(Oxford, 1996), p. 58.

99.
C[hamberlayne].,
Philosophicall Epitaph
, frontispiece and p. [11]. For the
anima mundi
, see Shumaker,
Occult Sciences
, ch. 3; Walker,
Spiritual and Demonic Magic
.

100.
C[hamberlayne].,
Philosophicall Epitaph
, p. [21].

101.
Shumaker,
Occult Sciences
, p. 127.

102.
The original is Paul Felgenhauer,
Das Buchlein Jehi Or, oder Morgenröhte der Weißheit
(Amsterdam, 1640). For Felgenhauer, see Alastair Hamilton,
The Apocryphal Apocalypse: The Reception of the 2nd Book of Esdras (4 Ezra) from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
(Oxford, 1999), pp. 178–83, 222–3.

103.
[Paul Felgenhauer],
Jehior or The Day Dawning; or Morning Light of Wisdom
, pp. 22, 36–7, 55–7, printed with C[hamberlayne].,
Philosophicall Epitaph
.

104.
Ibid.
, pp. 43–5, 58, 71–2.

105.
Pordage is discussed below in Chapter Four; for Erbery, see Hill,
The World Turned Upside Down
, pp. 92–7; Christopher Hill,
The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries
(New York, 1984), pp. 84–97.

106.
See William R. Newman and Lawrence Principe,
Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Van Helmontian Chymistry
(Chicago, 2001). Cooper published Sir Kenelm Digby,
A Choice Collection of Rare Secrets and Experiments in Philosophy
, ed. George Hartman (London, 1682); J.B. van Helmont,
Praecipiolum: or The Immature-Mineral-Electrum the First Metal: Which Is the Minera of Mercury
(London, 1683); and
The Works of Geber
(London, 1686).

107.
William Cooper, ed.,
A Catalogue of Chymicall Books
(London, 1675). The first edition was published along with the
Philosophicall Epitaph
in 1673, and a third edition appeared in 1688. See Kassell, “Secrets Revealed,” pp. 70–8. A list of magical books, possibly by Cooper, is in BL, Sloane 696.

Chapter Two: The Silver Age of the Astrologers

1.
Patrick Curry's classic work,
Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England
(Princeton, 1989), ch. 2, places the heyday of astrology in the period 1640 to 1660. Keith Thomas suggests a similar chronology in
Religion and the Decline of Magic
(New York, 1971), chs 10–12.

2.
Booker, Culpeper and Tanner were republicans; Wharton and Saunders were royalists; Wing accepted any regime in power. Lilly's complicated politics in this period, and the impact of astrological language on the times, are the subjects of Ann Geneva,
Astrology and the Seventeenth-Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars
(Manchester, 1995).

3.
Curry,
Prophecy and Power
, pp. 21, 40–3. The Astrologers’ Feast was revived by Elias Ashmole in 1682–3, in the wake of the Exclusion Crisis. By that point, most leading astrologers were Tories, which suggests that the renewed Feast may have had a political connotation.

4.
For astrology and medicine, see Louise Hill Curth,
English Almanacs, Astrology and Popular Medicine, 1550–1700
(Manchester, 2008).

5.
Lauren Kassell,
Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman, Astrologer, Alchemist and Physician
(Oxford, 2007), pp. 75–99; Michael Macdonald,
Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in 17th-Century England
(Chicago, 1983); Mordechai Feingold, “The Occult Tradition in the English Universities of the Renaissance: A Reassessment,” in Brian Vickers, ed.,
Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance
(Cambridge, 1986), pp. 73–94.

6.
Joshua Childrey,
Indago Astrologica: or, A Brief and Modest Enquiry into Some Principal Points of Astrology, As It Was Delivered by the Fathers of It, and Is Now Generally Received by the Sons of It
(London, 1653), p. 9.

7.
Henry Coley,
Nuncius Sydereus: or, The Starry Messenger for the Year of our Redemption 1687
(London, 1687), sig. C
₇
v. The title of Coley's almanac was also that of a celebrated tract by Galileo. Not all astrologers accepted Copernicus. For an anti-Copernican argument, see James Bowker,
Bowker, 1680: An Almanack for the Year of our Lord God 1680
(London, 1680), sigs C
₃
v–C
₈
. See Noriss S. Hetherington, “Almanacs and the Extent of Knowledge of the New Astronomy in Seventeenth-Century England,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
, 119, 4 (1975), pp. 275–9.

8.
One of the endearing peculiarities of the original
Dictionary of National Biography
was that virtually every major astrologer was noticed in it. They are also included in the new
ODNB
.

9.
Lilly was imprisoned in 1653 by Parliament, in 1661 by the royalist government. He complained in 1644 that his almanacs were censored by the Parliamentary licenser of the press, John Booker, a fellow astrologer. He was more quiescent in the 1660s and 1670s, when his almanacs were censored by the king's infamous licenser, Sir Roger L'Estrange. Booker himself complained of “obliterations” made in his predictions for 1665–6 concerning the Anglo-Dutch War: John Booker,
Telescopium Uranicum Repurgatum et Limatum: or, Physical, Astrological and Meteorological Observations for the Year of Christ's Incarnation MDCLXVII
(London, 1667), sig.C
₂
. Astrological books could also be suppressed for their political content: for example,
The Book of the Prodigies, or Book of Wonders
in 1662. See Curry,
Prophecy and Power
, pp. 46–8, where a different interpretation is placed on this evidence.

10.
Joseph Blagrave,
Blagrave's Introduction to Astrology
(London, 1682). The copy in the Huntington Library (shelfmark 325764) belonged to John Evelyn.

11.
John Goad,
Astro-Meteorologica, or Aphorisms and Discourses of the Bodies Celestial, their Natures and Influences
(London, 1686); John Goad,
Astro-meteorologia Sana: Sive Principia Physico-Mathematica
(London, 1690).

12.
Goad,
Astro-Meteorologica
, pp. 12, 530.

13.
John Flamsteed, “Hecker,” in Michael Hunter, “Science and Astrology in Seventeenth-Century England: An Unpublished Polemic by John Flamsteed,” in his
Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy: Intellectual Change in Late Seventeenth-Century Britain
(Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1995), pp. 245–85, quotation on p. 281; John Gadbury,
Cardines Coeli: or, An Appeal to the Learned and Experienced Observers of Sublunars and their Vicissitudes, Whether the Cardinal Signs of Heaven Are Not Most Influential upon Men and Things?
(London, 1685), sig. A
₂
v, p. 5.

14.
Flamsteed, “Hecker,” in Hunter, “Science and Astrology,” p. 273; and for Flamsteed and Goad,
ibid.
, pp. 249–50, 251.

15.
A good starting place for understanding the practice of astrology is J.C. Eade,
The Forgotten Sky: A Guide to Astrology in English Literature
(Oxford, 1984).

16.
Alice Culpeper, “To the Reader,” in [Nicholas Culpeper],
Mr. Culpepper's Treatise of Aurum Potabile … To Which Is Added: Mr. Culpepper's Ghost
(London, 1656), sig. A
₅
v.

17.
Lancelot Coelson,
Uranicum: or, An Almanack for the Year of our Redemption 1687
(London, 1687), sig. C
₃
v.

18.
[William Drage],
Daimonomageia: A Small Treatise of Sicknesses and Disease from Witchcraft, and Supernatural Causes
(London, 1665), p. 39.

19.
Josten, ed.,
Ashmole
, vol. 2, p. 538; vol. 4, pp. 1608–32, and notes in the index under “Sigils.” According to Keith Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic
, p. 635, Lilly sent Ashmole “a trunkload” of sigils in January 1667. Lilly describes them only as “the greatest Arcana's any privat person in Euroap hath,” which could denote a variety of occult objects or even texts. As they belonged to Sir Robert Holborne, a devotee of astrology, Thomas is probably right in assuming that they included sigils. Josten, ed.,
Ashmole
, vol. 3, p. 1076, citing B.L., Sloane Ms. 3822, f. 48. Henry Coley,
Lilly's successor, was accused of making sigils in the 1690s, as will be seen below, in Chapter five.

20.
Bodl. Lib., Ashmole Ms. 180 (Booker), 183 (Booker), 339, ff. 176–9 (Booker), 426 (Booker), 427 (Lilly); 428 (Booker), 430 (Lilly); Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic
, pp. 305–22. It is not clear how Thomas derived social information from these casebooks. Curiously, nobody since Thomas seems to have made a systematic study of them, and nobody has yet broken Booker's shorthand.

21.
Bodl. Lib., Ashmole Ms. 427 (Lilly), ff. 200, 260.

22.
Wellcome Lib., Ms. 4279; Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds,
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
(11 vols, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000), vol. 9: 1668–9, pp. 100–1; Historical Manuscripts Commission,
12th Report, Appendix, Part 7: The Manuscripts of S.H. Le Fleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall
(London, 1890), p. 55 n. 956.