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. Now something of the man:
he was by birth a Welshman, a Master of Arts, and in sacred orders; he
had formerly had a cure of souls in Staffordshire, but now was come to
try his fortunes at London, being in a manner enforced to fly for some
offences very scandalous, committed by him in these parts, where he had
lately lived; for he gave judgment upon things lost, the only shame of
astrology: he was the most saturnine person my eyes ever beheld, either
before I practised or since; of a middle stature; broad forehead,
beetle-browed, thick shoulders, flat nosed, full lips, down-looked,
black curling stiff hair, splay-footed; to give him his right, he had
the most piercing judgment naturally upon a figure of theft, and many
other questions, that I ever met withal; yet for money he would
willingly give contrary judgments, was much addicted to debauchery, and
then very abusive and quarrelsome, seldom without a black eye, or one
mischief of other: this is the same Evans who made so many antimornal