The History of Witchcraft in Europe. Брэм Стокер

16. Demogorgon, or Demiourgos—the creative principle of evil—figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, in the fourth century; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (‘Gierusalemme Liberata’), and Ariosto (‘Orlando Furioso’). Marlowe speaks, in ‘Tamburlaine,’ of ‘Gorgon, prince of Hell.’ Spenser, in ‘The Faery Queen,’ refers to—

      ‘Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night,

       At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.’

      Milton, in ‘Paradise Lost,’ alludes to ‘the dreaded name of Demogorgon.’ Dryden says: ‘When the moon arises, and Demogorgon walks his round.’ And he is one of the dramatis personæ of Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’: ‘Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom.... A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of power.’

17. Boasts. So in Peele’s ‘Edward I’: ‘As thou to England brought’st thy Scottish braves.’

18. This reiteration of the same final word, for the sake of emphasis, is found in Shakespeare.

19. A corner or college cap.

20. An allusion to the old legend that Brut, or Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, founded New Troy (Troynovant), or London.

21. Probably the reference is to the sunflower.

22. The classic writers usually identify the hyacinth with Apollo.

23. The rose, that is, of the Virgin Queen—an English Diana—Elizabeth. In Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Act iv., scene 1) we read of ‘Diana’s bud.’

      Chapter II.

       The Story of Dr. John Dee

       Table of Contents

      The world must always feel curious to know the exact moment when its great men first drew the breath of life; and it is satisfactory, therefore, to be able to state, on the weighty authority of Dr. Thomas Smith, that Dr. John Dee, the famous magician and ‘philosopher,’ was born at forty minutes past four o’clock on the morning of July 13, 1527. According to the picturesque practice of latter-day biographers, here I ought to describe a glorious summer sunrise, the golden light spreading over hill and pasture, the bland warm air stealing into the chamber where lay the mother and her infant; but I forbear, as, for all I know, this particular July morning may have been cloudy, cold, and wet; besides, John, the son of Rowland Dee, was born in London. From like want of information I refrain from comments on Master Dee’s early bringing-up and education. But it is reported that he gave proof of so exceptional a capacity, and of such a love of letters, that, at the early age of fifteen, he was sent to the University of Cambridge, to study the classics and the old scholastic philosophy. There, for three years, he was so vehemently bent, he says, on the acquisition of learning, that he spent eighteen hours a day on his books, reserving two only for his meals and recreation, and four for sleep—an unhealthy division of time, which probably over-stimulated his cerebral system and predisposed him to delusions and caprices of the imagination. Having taken his degree of B.A., he crossed the seas in 1547 ‘to speak and confer’ with certain learned men, chiefly mathematicians, such as Gemma Frisius, Gerardus Mercator, Gaspar a Morica, and Antonius Gogara; of whom the only one now remembered is Mercator, as the inventor of a method of laying down hydrographical charts, in which the parallels and meridians intersect each other at right angles. After spending some months in the Low Countries he returned home, bringing with him ‘the first astronomer’s staff of brass that was made of Gemma Frisius’ devising, the two great globes of Gerardus Mercator’s making, and the astronomer’s ring of brass (as Gemma Frisius had newly framed it).’

      Returning to the classic shades of Granta, he began to record his observations of ‘the heavenly influences in this elemental portion of the world;’ and I suppose it was in recognition of his scientific scholarship that Henry VIII. appointed him to a fellowship at Trinity College, and Greek under-reader. In the latter capacity he superintended, in 1548, the performance of the Ἐιρηνη of Aristophanes, introducing among ‘the effects’ an artificial scarabæus, which ascended, with a man and his wallet of provisions on its back, to Jupiter’s palace. This ingenious bit of mechanism delighted the spectators, but, after the manner of the time, was ascribed to Dee’s occultism, and he found it convenient to retire to the Continent (1548), residing for awhile at Louvain, and devoting himself to hermetic researches, and afterwards at Paris (1580), where he delivered scientific lectures to large and distinguished audiences. ‘My auditory in Rhemes Colledge,’ he says, ‘was so great, and the most part older than my selfe, that the mathematicall schooles could not hold them; for many were faine, without the schooles, at the windowes, to be auditors and spectators, as they best could help themselves thereto. I did also dictate upon every proposition, beside the first exposition. And by the first foure principall definitions representing to the eyes (which by imagination onely are exactly to be conceived), a greater wonder arose among the beholders, than of my Aristophanes Scarabæus mounting up to the top of Trinity-hall in Cambridge.’

      The accomplishments of this brilliant scientific mountebank being noised abroad over all Europe, the wonderful story reached the remote Court of the Muscovite, who offered him, if he would take up his residence at Moscow, a stipend of £2,000 per annum, his diet also to be allowed to him free out of ‘the Emperor’s own kitchen, and his place to be ranked amongst the highest sort of the nobility there, and of his privy councillors.’ Was ever scholar so tempted before or since? In those times, the Russian Court seems to have held savants and scholars in as much esteem as nowadays it holds prima-donnas and ballerines. Dee also received advantageous proposals from four successive Emperors of Germany (Charles V., Ferdinand, Maximilian II., and Rudolph II.), but the Muscovite’s outbade them all. A residence in the heart of Russia had no attraction, however, for the Oxford scholar, who, in 1551, returned to England with a halo of fame playing round his head (to speak figuratively, as Dee himself loved to do), which recommended him to the celebrated Greek professor at Cambridge, Sir John Cheke. Cheke introduced him to Mr. Secretary Cecil, as well as to Edward VI., who bestowed upon him a pension of 100 crowns per annum (speedily exchanged, in 1553, for the Rectory of Upton-upon-Severn). At first he met with favour from Queen Mary; but the close correspondence he maintained with the Princess Elizabeth, who appreciated his multifarious scholarship, exposed him to suspicion, and he was accused of practising against the Queen’s life by divers enchantments. Arrested and imprisoned (at Hampton Court), he was subjected to rigorous examinations, and as no charge of treason could be proved against him, was remitted to Bishop Bonner as a possible heretic. But his enemies failed again in their malicious intent, and in 1555 he received his liberty. Imprisonment and suffering had not quenched his activity of temper, and almost immediately upon his release he solicited the Queen’s assent to a plan for the restoration and preservation of certain precious manuscripts of classical antiquity. He solicited in vain.

      When Elizabeth came to the throne, Dee, as a proficient in the occult arts, was consulted by Dudley (afterwards Earl of Leicester) as to the most suitable and auspicious day for her coronation. She testified to her own belief in his skill by employing him, when her image in wax had been discovered in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, to counteract the evil charm. But he owed her favour, we may assume, much more to his learning, which was really extensive, than to his supposed magical powers. He tells us that, shortly before her coronation, she summoned him to Whitehall, remarking to his patrons, Dudley and the Earl of