Notes

Note I. p. l4.--DAVID RAMSAY

David Ramsay, watchmaker and horologer to James I., was a real person,
though the author has taken the liberty of pressing him into the
service of fiction. Although his profession led him to cultivate the
exact sciences, like many at this period he mingled them with pursuits
which were mystical and fantastic. The truth was, that the boundaries
between truth and falsehood in mathematics, astronomy, and similar
pursuits, were not exactly known, and there existed a sort of _terra
incognita_ between them, in which the wisest men bewildered
themselves. David Ramsay risked his money on the success of the
vaticinations which his researches led him to form, since he sold
clocks and watches under condition, that their value should not become
payable till King James was crowned in the Pope's chair at Rome. Such
wagers were common in that day, as may be seen by looking at Jonson's
Every Man out of his Humour.

David Ramsay was also an actor in another singular scene, in which the
notorious astrologer Lilly was a performer, and had no small
expectation on the occasion, since he brought with him a half-quartern
sack to put the treasure in.

"David Ramsay, his Majesty's clock-maker, had been informed that there
was a great quantity of treasure buried in the cloister of Westminster
Abbey. He acquaints Dean Withnam therewith, who was also then Bishop
of Lincoln. The Dean gave him liberty to search after it, with this
proviso, that if any was discovered, his church should have a share of
it. Davy Ramsay finds out one John Scott, who pretended the use of the
Mosaical rods, to assist him herein. [Footnote: The same now called, I
believe, the Divining Rod, and applied to the discovery of water not
obvious to the eye.] I was desired to join with him, unto which I
consented. One winter's night, Davy Ramsay, with several gentlemen,
myself, and Scott, entered the cloisters. We played the hazel rods
round about the cloisters. Upon the west end of the cloisters the rods
turned one over another, an argument that the treasure was there. The
labourers digged at least six feet deep, and then we met with a
coffin; but which, in regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which
we afterwards much repented.

"From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a
sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so
blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west
end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move
at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or
burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale,
knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and