Identifier: traditionsoflanc01roby (find matches)
Title: Traditions of Lancashire
Year: 1829 (1820s)
Authors: Roby, John, 1793-1850
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Longman
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
GEORGE MARSH, THE MARTYR. 283

the sole may have rested is a small dent, as though a man
had stamped vehemently on the soft earth, and the weight
The of his body had borne principally on that place. The im-
pression is of a dark brown or rather reddish hue, and is
very perceptible when damp, or moistened by cleaning.
Marsh's subsequent history is soon told. From Lathom,
where he was examined before Lord Derby and his
council, and found guilty of heretical opinions, he was
committed to Lancaster, and from thence to the ecclesi-
astical court at Chester, where, after several examinations
before Dr. Cotes, then bishop of this diocese, he was ad-
judged to the stake, and burnt, in pursuance of his sen-
tence, at the place of public execution near that city, on
the 24th April, 1555.

DR. DEE, THE ASTROLOGER.

" Dark was the vaulted room of gramarye
To which the wizard led the gallant knight,
Save that before a mirror huge and high
A hallowd taper shed a glimmering light
On mystic implements of magic might;
On cross, and character, and talisman,
And almagest and altar, nothing bright;
For fitful was the lustre, pale and wan,
As watch-light by the bed of some departing man."
LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.
Text Appearing After Image:

Drawn by G.Pickering.
COLLEGIATE CHURCH, MANCESTER.

DR. DEE, THE ASTROLOGER.

THE character of DEE, our English " Faust," as he is
not inaptly called, has both been misrepresented and
misunderstood. An enthusiast he undoubtedly was, but
not the drivelling dotard that some of his biographers
imagine. A man of profound learning, distinguished for
attainments far beyond the general range of his contem-
poraries, he, like Faustus, and the wisest of human
kind, had found out how little he knew; had perceived
that the great ocean of truth yet lay unexplored before
him. Pursuing his enquiries to the bound and limit,
as he thought, of human knowledge, and finding it
altogether vanity, he had recourse to forbidden prac-
tices, to experiments through which the occult and hidden
qualities of nature and spirit should be unveiled and sub-
dued to his own will.
Evidently prompted to unhallowed intercourse by pride
and ambition, he deluded himself with the vain and wicked
hope, that the God, who spurned his impious requests,
would vouchsafe to him a new and peculiar revelation.

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