, was a Welch conjuror, of whom Wood has extracted the following account
, was a Welch conjuror, of whom Wood has extracted the following account from a manuscript life of the famous William
Lilly, astrologer, written by himself, and preserved in
Ashmole’s museum. Evans is said to have applied his
mind to astrology, after he had continued some time in the
university of Oxford, where he was brought up. Then,
entering into orders, he obtained a cure in Staffordshire;
but was forced to fly from it some years after, not only on
account of debaucheries, for which he was infamous, but
for “giving judgment upon things lost, which,
” as Lilly
saith, “-is the only shame of astrology.
” He is described
as the most saturnine person that ever was beheld; of a
middle stature, broad forehead, beetle-browed, thickshouldered, flat-nosed, full-lipped, down-looked, of black
curling stiff hair, and splay-footed. But, says Wood, to
give him his due, he had a most piercing judgment, naturally, upon a figure of theft, and many other questions;
though for money he would at any time give contrary
judgment. He was addicted to drinking, we are told, as
well as to women; and in his liquor was so very quarrelsome and abusive, that he was seldom without a black eye,
or a bruise of some kind or other. He made a great many
antimonial cups, upon the sale of which he principally
subsisted. After he was forced from Enfield, he retired
with his family to London; where Lilly found him in 1632,
and received from him instructions in astrology. Wood relates, that he had done some acts above and beyond astrology,
having been well versed in the nature of spirits; and had
many times used the circular way of invocating, of which
he produces the following instance: In 1630 he was desired by lord Bothwell and sir Kenelm Digby to shew them
a spirit; which he promised to do. When they were all
in the body of the circle which he had made, Evans upon,
a sudden, after some time of invocation, was taken out of
the room, carried into the field, and flung down near Battersea Causey, close to the Thames. Next morning -a
countryman going by to his labour, and espying a man in
black clothes, came to him; and awakening him, for it
seems he was asleep, asked him how he came there. Evans
by this understood his condition; and, when Lilly inquired
afterwards of him upon what account the spirits carried him
away, he answered, that “he did not at the time of invocation
make any suffumigation; at which the spirits were vexed.
”
If the reader should be in pain about what became in the
mean time of lord Bothwell and sir Kenelm Digby, we are
able to make him easy upon that head. They both got
home without any harm. During the reigns of Elizabeth
and James I. these ridiculous impostures were the fashionable credulity of the times; and the greatest men were
often the dupes of these pretenders to occult science. Ben
Jonson, in his excellent comedy of the Alchemist, for a
time gave almost as fatal a blow to the black art, as Cervantes did in Spain to chivalry; but since avarice and
curiosity are passions most difficult to conquer, it rose
again with fresh vigour, and maintained its ground till the
restoration.