In October, 1627, I was made free of the Salters' company in
London.
HOW I CAME TO STUDY ASTROLOGY.
It happened on one Sunday, 1632, as myself and a Justice of Peace's
clerk were, before service, discoursing of many things, he chanced to
say, that such a person was a great scholar, nay, so learned, that his
could make an Almanack, which to me then was strange: one speech begot
another, till, at last, he said, he could bring me acquainted with one
Evans in Gunpowder-Alley, who had formerly lived in Staffordshire, that
was an excellent wise man, and studied the Black Art. The same week
after we went to see Mr. Evans. When we came to his house, he, having
been drunk the night before, was upon his bed, if it be lawful to call
that a bed whereon he then lay; he roused up himself, and, after some
compliments, he was content to instruct me in astrology; I attended his
best opportunities for seven or eight weeks, in which time I could set a
figure perfectly: books he had not any, except _Haly de judiciis
Astrorum_, and _Orriganus's Ephemerides_; so that as often as I entered
his house, I thought I was in the wilderness.
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