by Dr Meric Casaubon, an eminent scholar of that day, who appears to have believed that the revelations were really the work of spirits, though of doubtful character. From these notes it would appear that Dee was possessed of two, if not more, divining crystals of various sizes. After his death, a stone, said to be one of these, came into the possession of the Earl of Peterborough, and thence into that of Lady Elizabeth Germaine. It subsequently fell into the hands of the then head of the House of Argyll, by whose son, Lord Frederick Campbell, it was presented to Horace Walpole. For many years it formed part of the Strawberry Hill Collection, and there was appended to the leather case in which it was contained a manuscript note, in Walpole’s own handwriting, describing it as ‘the black stone into which Dr Dee used to call his spirits,’ and recording the above facts respecting it. On the dispersion of the Strawberry Hill Collection in 1842, the stone in question is said to have been purchased, at the price of thirteen pounds, by Mr Smythe Pigott; and at the sale of that gentleman’s library in 1853, to have passed into the hands of Lord Londesborough. As to the later history of this particular stone, we have no information; but it is clearly not identical with the one in the British Museum. Horace Walpole’s is described as being a ‘black stone.’ Others add that it was in shape a flat disk, with a loop or handle, and it is generally believed to have been a highly polished piece of cannel coal. The one in the British Museum more nearly resembles the descriptions given of Lady Blessington’s crystal, employed for a similar purpose by Lieutenant Morrison, the Zadkiel of ‘almanac’ celebrity. It is a ball, about two inches in diameter, of rather dark rock-crystal, and, as Mr Read informs us, has been in the possession of the British Museum for nearly a century. Assuming, however, that, as stated in Casaubon’s notes, Dr Dee used two or more magic specula, this may of course have been one of them. This mystic crystal is appropriately flanked by a collection of oriental talismans, some in metal, for suspension from the neck; others of agate or chalcedony, engraved with charms and cabalistic signs, for reproduction on wax or parchment. Here also are a couple of bezoar stones, formerly much esteemed as possessing occult medical virtues, particularly as an antidote to poison. The genuine bezoar stone is a calculus found in the stomach of the goat or antelope. The specimens here shown are artificial, being compounded from a recipe in the possession of Sir Hans Sloane. They claim, however, to have all the virtues of the genuine article, which we think extremely probable! They have a peculiar aromatic smell, which probably assisted the belief in their hygienic properties.