much penury one year, and taught school one quarter of a year, until
God's providence provided better for me. For the last two years of my
being at school I was of the highest form of the school, and chiefest of
that form. I could then speak Latin as well as English; could make
extempore verses upon any theme.' 'If any scholars from remote schools
came to dispute, I was ringleader to dispute with them.' 'All and every
of those scholars, who were of my form and standing, went to Cambridge,
and proved excellent divines; only I, poor William Lilly, was not so
happy, fortune then frowning on my father's condition, he not in any
capacity to maintain me at the university.'

So this poor scholar, first of his class, bright visions of the
university, and of what might lie beyond, all fading into darkness, went
down to his father's house in the country, where his acquirements were
useless. He says: 'I could not work, drive plough, or endure any country
labor; my father oft would say, 'I was good for nothing,' and 'he was
willing to be rid of me.' A sorrowful time for the poor young fellow,
without any outlook toward a better. But at last, one Samuel Smatty, an
attorney, living in the neighborhood, took pity on the lad, and gave him
a letter to Gilbert Wright, of London, who wanted a youth who could read
and write, to attend him. Thereupon Lilly, in a suit of fustian, with
this letter in his pocket, and ten shillings, given him by his friends,
took leave of his father, who was then in Leicester jail for debt, and
set off for London with 'Bradshaw, the carrier.' He 'footed it all
along,' and was six days on the way; spending for food two shillings and
sixpence, and nothing for lodgings; but he was in good heart, I think,
for almost the only joyous expression in his autobiography is this one,
relating to this time: 'Hark, how the wagons crack with their rich
lading!'