Edward Heron-Allen

“ CASE, JOHN (fl. 1680–1700) , astrologer, was born about 1660 at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire. We first hear of him as the author of ‘The Wards of the Key to Helmont proved unfit for the Lock, or the Principles of Mr. Wm. Bacon examined and refuted’ (London, 1682) . In this he tells us that he has just attained his majority. The work is a protest against the theory in William Bacon's ‘Key to Helmont’ that water is the principle of all bodies, and prefixed thereto is a recommendatory epistle by John Partridge, the astrologer. ”

“ Henry Coley' (London, 1684, 8vo) . In 1644 he narrowly escaped death by the plague. In 1655 he married his first wife, by whom he had one child, and in 1660 he married again, and became the father of a second child. He lived in Baldwin's Gardens, Gray's Inn Lane, whence most of his works were published. He was the adopted son of the astrologer, William Lilly, who constantly makes reference in his works to Coley's merit as a man and as a professor of mathematics and occult science. ”

“ We are told by his almanack that he taught 'arithmetic, vulgar, decimal, and logarithmical, geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, navigation, the use of the celestial and terrestrial globes, dialling, surveying, gaging, measuring, and the art of astrology in all its branches,' at Baldwin's Gardens. ”

“ His father, an Englishman, was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Bilbao; his mother was Spanish. He commenced to learn the violin at the age of five, and at six he made his public début at a concert given in Bilbao by Andreossi, an Italian violinist. ”

“ COXE, FRANCIS (fl. 1560) , a quack physician, who attained some celebrity in the sixteenth century, is best known by a curious volume of receipts entitled ‘De oleis, unguentis, emplastris, etc. conficiendis,’ London, 1575, 8vo. His practices having attracted considerable attention, he was summoned before the privy council on a charge of sorcery, and, having been severely punished, made a public confession of his ‘employment of certayne sinistral and divelysh artes’ at the Pillory in Cheapside on 25 June 1561. ”

“ Other editions appeared in 1776 and 1785, but all editions are rare, owing, says M. Fetis, to the suppression of the work by the Burney and Bicknell (?) families. In 1818 Veal followed his previous effort by a scathing satire of Jean-Baptiste Logier's system of pianoforte instruction, entitled 'Joel Collier Redivivus, an entirely new edition of that celebrated author's Musical Travels, dedicated to that great musical luminary of the musical world, J. B. L-g-r' (London, 1818, 8vo) . ”

“ He became organist of the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on the retirement of his father in 1793. He was elected master of the choir-boys at Westminster in 1806, and appointed organist at the abbey on the death of Dr. ”

“ Notwithstanding Roger Cook, his unseamly dealing, I promised him, yf he used himself toward me now in his absens, one hundred pounds as sone as of my own clere liability I might spare so much; and moreover, if he used himself well in lif toward God and the world, I promised him some pretty alchemicall experiments, wheruppon he might honestly live.’ ‘Sept. ”