and preserving." Passing over his more useful and valuable services to the State and to the world, as we are only noting here his doings as an astrologer, &c., we may remark that most of his proceedings and writings in this pseudo-science or art were accomplished after he had passed his fiftieth year. It was in 1581 that he took into his service, as an assistant in his alchemical and astrological labours, an apothecary of Worcester named Edward Kelly, born in 1555, and who was called "The Seer," because, looking into magic crystals or speculæ, it was said he saw many things which it was not permitted to Dee himself to behold. Kelly also acted as Dee's amanuensis, and together they held "conversations with spirits." They had a black speculum, it is said "a polished piece of cannel coal," in which the angels Gabriel and Raphael appeared at their invocation. Hence Butler says-- "Kelly did all his feats upon The devil's looking-glass--a stone." In 1583 a Polish noble, Albert Lasque, palatine of Siradia [? Sieradz] being in England, Dee and Kelly were introduced to him, and accompanied him to Poland. He persuaded them to pay a visit to Rodolph, king of Bohemia, who, though a weak and credulous man, is said to have become disgusted with their pretensions. They had no better success with the king of Poland, but were soon after invited by a rich Bohemian noble to his castle of Trebona, where they continued for some time in great affluence, owing, as they asserted, to their transmuting the baser metals into gold. Kelly is said to have been sordid and grasping, without honour or principle. Lilly asserts that the reason of many failures in the conferences with spirits was because Kelly was very vicious, "unto whom the angels were not obedient, or willingly did declare [answers to] the questions propounded." Dee and Kelly quarrelled and separated in Bohemia; Dee returning to England, while Kelly remained at Prague. He died in 1595. In 1595 the Queen appointed Dee warden of Manchester College, he being then sixty-eight years of age. He resided at Manchester nine years, quitting it in 1604 for his old abode at Mortlake, where he died in 1608, aged eighty-one, in great poverty, and leaving a numerous family and a great many printed works and forty unpublished writings behind him. The catalogue of Dee's library at Mortlake shows that it was rich in the works of preceding astrologers and alchemists, especially those of Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Albertus Magnus, Arnold de Villa Nova, &c.