Dr. John Dee was a man who made a conspicuous figure in the 16th
century. He was born in London in 1527: he was an eminent scholar and an
indefatigable mathematician; when at Cambridge, he was mostly occupied
eighteen hours out of the twenty-four in study. While here he
superintended the exhibition of a Greek play of Aristophanes, among the
machinery of which he introduced an artificial scarabæus, or beetle,
which flew up to the palace of Jupiter with a man on his back, and a
basket of provisions. The astonished spectators ascribed this feat to
the arts of the magician; and Dee, annoyed by these suspicions, found it
convenient to withdraw to the Continent.
Dee's principal study in early life lay in astrology; and accordingly,
upon the accession of Elizabeth, Robert Dudley, her chief favourite, was
sent to consult the doctor as to the aspect of the stars, that they
might fix on an auspicious day for celebrating her coronation. Some
years after, we find him again on the Continent; and in 1571, being
taken ill at Louvaine, the queen sent over two physicians to attend him.
Elizabeth afterwards visited him at his house at Mortlake, to view his
collection of mathematical instruments and curiosities; and about this
time employed him to defend her title to countries discovered in
different parts of the globe. He says of himself, that he received the
most advantageous offers from Charles V., Ferdinand, Maximilian II., and
Rodolph, emperor of Germany; and from the czar of Muscovy an offer of
2000_l._ per annum, on condition that he would reside in his dominions.
Had Dee gone no further than this, all would have been well; but he was
ruined by his enthusiasm; he dreamed perpetually of the philosopher's
stone, and was haunted with the belief of intercourse with spirits.
One day in November, 1582, he tells us that as he was at prayer, there
appeared to him the angel Uriel at the west window of his museum, who
gave him a translucent stone, or crystal, of a convex form, that
presented apparitions, and even emitted sounds; so that the observer
could hold conversations, ask questions, and receive answers from the
figures he saw in this _mirror_.
With this speculum, black-stone, or show-stone, Dee used to "call his
spirits," and Kelly, his associate, "did all his feats upon." Kelly, who
acted as seer, reported what spirits he saw, and what they said; whilst
Dee, who sat at a table, recorded the spiritual intelligence. A folio
volume of their notes was published by Casaubon; and many more,
containing the most unintelligible jargon, remain in MS. in the British
Museum, together with the consecrated cakes of wax, marked with
mathematical figures and hieroglyphics, used in their mummeries.
At length, Dee fell into disrepute; his chemical apparatus, and other
stock in trade, were destroyed by the mob, who made an attack upon his
house; but the mirror is stated to have been saved. It subsequently
passed into the collection of the Mordaunts, Earls of Peterborough, in
whose catalogue it is called _the black stone, into which Dr. Dee used
to call his spirits_. From the Mordaunts it passed to Lady Elizabeth
Germaine, and from her to John, Duke of Argyle, whose son, Lord
Frederick Campbell, presented it to Horace Walpole; and on the breaking
up of the collection at Strawberry Hill in 1842, this precious relic was
sold: it was described in the catalogue as "a singularly interesting and
curious relic of the superstition of our ancestors on the celebrated
speculum of Kennel coal, highly polished, in a leathern case."
Bulwer, in his romance of _Zanoni_, introduces a mirror of this kind;
and every tale of superstition has its magic glass. It is worth while to
compare Dee's speculum with the celebrated ink mirror described in
Lane's work on the _Modern Egyptians_; it may, at least, illustrate the
curious inquiry upon coincident superstitions.
------------------