The delusions imposed on him by Kelly, his seer and confederate, had so
impressed him with this belief, that he still purposed going abroad on a
divine mission, as he called it, and only awaited the auspicious time
when his spiritual instructors should point out another seer in Kelly's
room, from whom he had been long separated. Though now in his
seventy-first year, he was not deterred from making another attempt to
reach the goal of his ambition. Such is the folly and madness of these
enthusiasts, that, let them be never so often foiled in their inordinate
expectations, yet does it in no wise hinder, but, on the contrary, sets
them more fully on their desire. Casaubon, in his preface to the account
of Dee's intercourse with spirits, gives a strange instance of their
infatuation. He says:--
"In the days of Martin Luther, there lived one Michael Stifelius, who
applying to himself some place of the Apocalypse, took upon himself to
prophesy. He foretold that in the year of the Lord 1533, before the 29th
of September, the end of the world and Christ's coming to judgment would
be. He did show so much confidence that, some write, Luther himself was
somewhat startled at the first.
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