"
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.
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