[Note 23: Dee’s magic crystal, or show stone, was preserved at Strawberry Hill until that famous collection was dispersed. A correspondent in _Notes and Queries_ (2nd S., No. 201) says that John Varley, the painter, well known to have been attached to astrology, used to relate a tradition that the Gunpowder Plot was discovered by Dr. Dee with his magic mirror; and he urged the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of interpreting Lord Mounteagle’s letter without some other clue or information than hitherto gained. In a Common Prayer Book, printed by Baskett in 1737, is an engraving of the following scene: In the centre is a circular mirror on a stand, in which is the reflection of the Houses of Parliament by night, and a person entering carrying a dark lantern. Next, on the left side are two men in the costume of James’s time, looking into the mirror—one evidently the King, the other evidently, from his secular habit, not the doctor (Dee), but probably Sir Kenelm Digby. On the right side, at the top, is the eye of Providence darting a ray on the mirror; and below are some legs and hoofs, as if evil spirits were flying out of the picture. The plate is inserted before the service for the 5th November, and would seem to represent the method by which, under Providence (as is evidenced by the eye), the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was at that time seriously believed to have been effected. The tradition must have been generally and seriously believed, or it never could have found its way into a Prayer Book printed by the King’s printer.] When an incantation was to take place, “The sacred crystal was placed on a sort of altar before a crucifix, with lighted candles on either side, and an open Psalter before it,” and prayers and ejaculations of the most fervid description were intermingled with the account taken down at Kelly’s dictation of the dress and hair, as well as the sayings and movements, of the angels. Dee was infatuated with his new acquaintance, and every experiment he suggested was tried, at whatever cost, and hence it was not long before Kelly’s weak and credulous dupe found himself in straitened circumstances. It was at this time that the Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s favourite, proposed dining with him at Mortlake and bringing Albert Lasque, the Palatine of Sieradz, who was then in England, with him, when Dee had to explain that he could not give them a suitable dinner without selling some of his plate or pewter to procure it. Leicester mentioned the circumstance to the Queen, who speedily helped her old favourite out of the difficulty by sending him “forty angells of gold.” He thus relates the circumstance:—