Among the multifarious absurdities and chicaneries, which at different epocha of society have clung to, and engaged the attention of man, absorbing, as it were, his more active intelligence, the marvellous and the ridiculous have alternately and conjointly had to contend for pre-eminence; that, whether it were a mountain in the moon or a bottle conjuror; a live lion stuffed with straw or a mermaid; a Cocklane ghost or a living skeleton; a giant or a pigmy; the delusive bait has invariably been swallowed with avidity, and credited with all the solemnity of absolute devotion.

If we look back towards what are called the dark ages of the worlds that is, at times when men were mere yokels, and when the reins of tyranny, superstition and idolatry, were controlled by a few knowing ones, we shall see the human mind at its lowest ebb of debasement, grovelling either under the lash xof despotism, or sunk beneath the scale of human nature by the influence of priestcraft,—a time, when the feelings of men were galloped over, rough shod, and the dignity of the creation trampled under foot with impunity and exultation, by a state of the most passive and degenerate servility: how much must it now excite our wonder and admiration of that supreme Providence, who, in his merciful consideration for the frailest of mortals, by a variety of ways and means best suited to his omnipotent ends, has dragged us gradually, and, as it were, reluctantly to ourselves, from darkness to daylight, by extinguishing the stench and vapour of the train oil of ignorance and superstition, lighting us up with the brilliant gas of reason and comparative understanding, while, under less despotic and more tolerant times, we are permitted the rational exercise of those faculties which formerly were rivetted to the floor of tyranny by the most humiliating oppression!

The pranks of popes and priests, conjurors and fire-eaters, have comparatively fled before the piercings of the intellectual ray. Witches no longer untie the winds to xicapsise church-steeples, and “topple” down castles,—they no longer dance round the enchanted cauldron, invoking the “ould one” to propitiate their cantrip vows:—Beelzebub himself with his cloven foot is seldom if ever seen above the “bottom of the bottomless pit;” ghosts and apparitions are “jammed hard and fast” in the Red sea; demons of every cast and colour are eternally spellbound; legends are consigned to the chimney-corner of long winter-nights; miracles to the “presto, quick, change and begone!” of the nimble-fingered conjuror; and holy relics to the rosary of the bigot. Amulets and charms have lost their influence; saints are uncanonized, and St. Patrick, St. Dennis, & Co. are flesh and blood like ourselves; monks and holy friars no longer revel in the debauches of the cloister; the hermit returns unsolicited from the solitude of the desert, to encounter with his fellow-men; the pilgrim lays by his staff, leaves the Holy Land to its legitimate possessors, and the tomb of St. Thomas-à-Becket, to enjoy, unmolested, the sombre tranquillity of the grave. Quacks and mountebanks begin also to caper within a narrower sphere; to be brief, the word of command, to use a nautical phrase, xiihas long been given, “every man to his station, and the cook to the fore-sheet,”—worldly occupations have superseded ultramundane speculations. Astrologers themselves, who once ruled the physical world, have long ago been virtually consigned to the grave of the Partridges; and floods and storms are found to be phenomena perfectly consistent with the natural world. We also know that the sun is stationary, that the moon is not made of green cheese, and that there are stars yet in the firmament which the centifold powers of the telescope of a Herschell will never be able to explore.

The Reformation, which originated in the trammels of vice itself, gave the Devil in hell and his agents on earth, such a “belly-go-fister,” that they have never since been able to come to the scratch, but in such a petty larceny-like manner, as to set all their demonological efforts at defiance. This is the first time “old Nick” was ever completely floored; though, it would appear, from the recent number of new churches, built no doubt with the pious intention of keeping him in abeyance, that he has latterly been making a little head-way;—these, however, with the “Holy alliance,” like stern-chasers on a new xiiiconstruction, should the “ould one” attempt to board us again in the smoke of superstition, will, without much injury to the hull of the church, pitch him back to Pandemonium, there to exhaust his demonological rage in the sulphuretted hydrogen of his own hell; while the lights of revealed religion, emanating from these soul-saving foundations, like Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety-lamp, will give us timely warning of the choke-damp of damnation before it have time to explode about our ears.

It behoves us, nevertheless, to pray that we may merit this protection, and to watch, for we know not at what hour the cracksman may pay us an unwelcome visit; for, whatever pampered hypocrites and mercenary prayer-mongers may pretend to the contrary, our worldly goods, although but of a temporary and perishable nature, are as essential to our existence and respectability here below, as our spiritual faith is necessary to our heavenly and eternal happiness above, however unequal the comparison.

Among the creatures of the Devil, no one has a more decent claim to his clemency, than the caterwauling canting hypocrite. The hypocrite is a genus to which a variety of species belong, the subdivisions of which are too numerous xivfor our present purpose; we shall only therefore offer a few remarks on one kind of these vampyres, drawn from daily observation. If not absolutely gluttons, although many of them are gourmands in excess, hypocrites are invariably fond of their ungodly guts, for which they are at all times ready to sacrifice their God, their King, their country and their friends. They have a stomach like a horse, and a reservoir like a brewer’s vat. The hypocrite of circumstances prays, or pretends to pray, in adversity, and swears in good earnest, like a trooper, in prosperity,—he is either a roaring bedlamite or a whining calf, a peevish idiot, a buffoon, or a disgusting bacchanal;—in short, he is capable of such derogatory pranks and extremes, that, as the occasion serves, he with equal facility rises from the bended knee of supplication to extend the hand of venality, aye, and of sensuality too, to the object of his latent and ungovernable concupiscence. His bloated chops, at one time, resemble a passive pair of bagpipes, while, at another, they are inflated with all the arrogance of beggarly pride and momentary superfluity. He is never ashamed to beg, and only afraid to steal—although equally adapted for the one as the other. xvA consummate, a brawling, and a suspicious egotist—he will hear no one but himself, no opinion but his own. In his own house he is a bear; in the house of another, a nuisance; and every where a nil desideratum. Self-eulogy is his most constant theme; and his loathsome flattery, either applied to himself or others, is invariably bespattered with the most impious invocations of the Deity, to witness his rebellious professions of patience, submission, abstinence, and every other exotic virtue, which he knows only by name. His cant is of the basest and most servile description; and for the attainment of some object, however pitiful or paltry, important or consequential, he is the same venal wretch all over. Where his expectations are defeated, and the yearnings of his bowels unappeased, his sycophancy is succeeded by slander, impertinence, insult, and the most unfounded suspicion. The cringing, wriggling wretch, at length, having wormed himself through a world of unpitied degradation, filth, and obscenity, attempts, at the end of his career, to offer up to his God, what has been indignantly rejected by the Devil—he dies as he lived, a xvipauper, equally to fortune and fame—without one redeeming qualification to keep alive even his name, which is never mentioned unless mingled with that kindred contempt and insignificance to which it was by nature and existence so closely allied.

Popular traditions are always worth recording; they illustrate traditions and exemplify manners: they tend to throw off the thraldom of the intellect of man, and stimulate him to exertions compatible with the intentions of his existence. It is with this view that the materials of which the following pages are composed, have been collected. Priestcraft, the foster-mother of superstition, is now sunk too far below the horizon ever to set again in our illumined hemisphere. The history of their former influence may, nevertheless, enlighten and amuse, as well as guard the tender ideas from receiving impressions calculated to stupify the reason and riper judgment; thus withdrawing the flimsy veil of error and credulity, by an exposure of those fallacies too often credited, because frequently passed over without the aid of investigation through the more refined medium of moral and physical research.

MODERN SUPERSTITIONS, &c.

The mind of man is naturally so addicted to the marvellous, that, notwithstanding the brilliant eructations of knowledge that have been elicited and diffused out of chaotic darkness since the establishment of the Christian religion, and the revival of learning and the arts, the influence still of ancient superstition is by no means entirely annihilated. At the present period, however, it is principally confined to the uneducated portion of the community; although, at a more remote period, its limits were by no means so circumscribed. A belief in the existence of apparitions, witches, sorcerers, and magicians, is still credulously supported in many parts of the world, though less so in civilized Europe than in other countries, Lapland and some parts of Sweden and Norway excepted. But how much must it astonish us when we look back to the distant ages of Greece and Rome, the nurseries of the sciences and the arts, to find the greatest heroes and statesmen imbibing and fostering the same ridiculous prejudices, and strenuously cultivating the same belief, paying obedience to augurs, oracles, and soothsayers, 2on whose contradictory and equivocal inferences their prosperity or adversity was made to depend. In fact, little more than a century ago, do we not behold things still more extravagantly credulous and ferocious; namely, the burning of women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, incidents of which we have given in the body of this work, a crime much more innocent than that of priestcraft, which triumphantly prevailed at the very same period, and which still holds the minds of thousands in subjection?

A belief in judicial astrology was supported and cultivated by men remarkable for their extraordinary genius and talents.

Legends, miracles, prophecies, &c. are relics of superstitious ages. What also is extraordinary, is, that few species of superstition, if any, originated with the populace. They were the inventions of barbarous ages before the dawn of reason—afterwards the fabrications of men actuated by ambition, and a desire to servilize the human mind.

As regards the Romans only, a people whom we are taught from our infancy to respect, and who, indeed, in their better days, were truly venerable for their virtue and valour, what is there in their history more astonishing than their implicit belief in augury^[1]? Their belief in omens or preternatural 3appearances of the heavenly bodies, in eclipses, comets, and dreadful thunder-storms, may be forgiven. They had made small progress in astronomy; they had not learnt that an eclipse is a matter of common calculation; and that storms are, in most cases, highly beneficial to the earth, and nowise connected with past or future events. But when we find them giving implicit credit to their priests, who thought proper to predict good or evil, merely from the appearance of the entrails of sacrificed animals, from the flight of birds, from chickens, foxes, &c. we are at a loss to conceive how a deception of this kind could have prevailed, without being detected and exposed by the good sense of the people. The mob alone, or the common soldiers and sailors, were not merely influenced by the reports of the augurs^[2]; their kings or commanders undertook no expedition without consulting these oracles, and were always unsuccessful, if they confided so much in themselves as to disregard their opinions. In some cases, it is easy to suppose that they might have been in concert with the augurs, to promote some favourite point, to raise an enthusiasm in the people in their favour, or to inspire the soldiers with fortitude in some dangerous enterprise. But it is not so easy to suppose that this was always the case, because, upon the evidence of their historians, it appears that there was generally but little connexion between 4them; and that, although the people looked to the commander for orders, they regarded the augurs as superior beings who were to grant success.

The art of augury the Romans had from the Tuscans, and the Tuscans from the Greeks, who probably derived it from the Chaldeans; but the progress of the art is as absurd as the origin of it is obscure. The only wonder is, that it had so much influence upon a people, in the whole of whose history we find so many brilliant examples of solid sense, of learning, and of eloquence. Their historians, who rank among the most learned of their writers, and of whose abilities we can even now be judges, gravely relate the process of consulting augury, and the success of it. Yet the augurs were men following one another in regular succession. Was there none to betray the secret? Was the art of juggling an hereditary secret without one interruption? Tyranny first broke the chain. When Rome was governed by tyrants, these despised augury, and prosecuted their wicked purposes, whatever might be the appearance of the entrails of an ox; and as they, no doubt, often succeeded in their enterprises, augury would naturally fall into disrepute. These circumstances, in the great chain of causes and events, would naturally pave the way for a more rational religion. We are indebted to Henry VIII. for the commencement of the reformation; but, if the pope would have sanctioned his lust and his extortion, that advantage would have probably been derived from a better sovereign.

5It is a circumstance no less remarkable, that, notwithstanding we read of the superstitions of the Greeks and Romans with wonder and some degree of contempt, we cannot acquit ourselves of having yet retained a very considerable portion Of the same superstitious spirit. We are even indebted to them for almost all our popular whims. A hare crossing the way—a person sneezing—stumbling—hearing strange voices—and the falling of salt upon the table, were all with them omens of good or evil, according to circumstances, and remain so with thousands at the present time, and in this enlightened country. Persons of otherwise no mean understanding have been greatly perplexed, and have even turned pale at such occurrences. To the above may be added, a coal starting from the fire^[3]—the death-watch—the sediment of the sugar rising to the top of the tea-cup, and many others. We may also mention the success of those impostors, who pretend to calculate nativities (see Astrology) and predict events; and the many foolish instances for belief in the success of lottery-tickets.

Ignorant as the Romans were of a superintending 6Providence, and of the revealed will of the Divine Majesty, their trust in such omens was pardonable, and deceived as they were by the artifices of their soothsayers, who could contrive to time their prophecies, and express them in such a manner that they should appear to be punctually fulfilled, we cannot wonder if the wisest among them were induced to place confidence in imposture. But that we should be as much attached to this species of divination is a weakness, than which there is none we ought more to blush at. Although we boast of our superior understanding, improved as it is by the knowledge of eighteen centuries, we are guilty of a weakness which is excusable only in an unenlightened heathen. This subject might, perhaps, be treated with the ridicule of satire, or the silence of contempt, but the more we consider it, the more we should be inclined to doubt the fact, that there can exist a human and reasonable being so weak, as to believe that futurity can be revealed by trifling events, or by the lowest of mankind, under the name of conjurors. But the fact cannot be doubted: cases of the kind occur every day; and the happiness of individuals and families often lies at the mercy of such impostors.

Those who are addicted to this species of superstitious credulity are no doubt of that class of people who are called well-meaning, and would be greatly incensed were we to ask them whether they believed in the superintendence of a Divine Providence. They would answer, “Surely—God forbid we did not!” And yet, is it consistent with 7our received ideas, or with the revealed wisdom and perfections of the Deity, to suppose that he should declare that futurity is locked up from the penetration of mankind, and yet should reveal the events of it by the sediments of a cup of coffee, the flame of a candle, or the starting of a sulphureous coal? Is not this offering the greatest insult to him? A step farther, we have, indeed, gone, and but a step towards the very highest insult; we have supposed that he makes known the secrets of futurity to the meanest vagrants and impostors, to the men and women whom the magistrate very properly punishes as much against their foreknowledge as against their inclination. The impossibility of our acquiring by any means a knowledge of future events, and the miserable condition of human life if we had that knowledge, might be here insisted on; but they must be obvious to every thinking man. A better dissuasive from the credulity which is the subject of this discourse, would be to insist upon the gross and insulting impiety of endeavouring to pry into what the Deity has pronounced hidden and concealed, and that by agents the most mean and contemptible. Let those who are still credulous in the appearance of their coffee grounds, their spilling of salt, their passing under a ladder or scaffolding^[4], and all the paraphernalia 8of the impostures of pretended divines, consider with what propriety, decency and respect, they can hereafter appeal to the Deity by the epithets of all-seeing and omniscient; and when they have done that, let them reflect upon the dignity and importance of those agents, in whose revelations they confide, in preference to his decrees.

Under the head of superstition may be ranked fatalism; for it follows from this dogma of faith, that all means of averting predestined events, that is, all future events whatever, are not only unavailing, but impious. It is manifest, that if this were consistently adhered to, every effort conducive to self-preservation, or even the common comforts and accommodations of life, would be paralysed; there would be no end to all the duties of social life; nay, to the very existence of the human species. Though this speculative principle, however, has never been able entirely to overpower and extinguish the feelings and dictates of nature to this extent, except among a few fantastical maniacs, there are proofs enough in the history of mankind of its pernicious practical effects. One of the most conspicuous examples of this, is found among the professors of the Mahomedan faith, in their abstaining from the means of stopping the progress 9of the plague. Among Christian sects, professing this doctrine, the like evils have arisen in an inferior degree, as exemplified in the opposition which the inoculation of the small-pox met with from this religious prejudice. See Sir Gilbert Blane’s Elements of Medical Logic, page 208.

It were well, perhaps, did the cruelties practised in former ages lay generally at the door of superstition. The extraordinary trials to which those suspected of any guilty action were conducted with many devout ceremonies, by the ministers of religion, were declared to be the judgments of God. The kinds of ordeal were various, e. g. holding in the hand a red hot bar; plunging the arm into boiling water; walking blindfold amidst burning ploughshares; passing through fires; challenging the accuser to single combat, when frequently the ablest champion was permitted to supply his place; swallowing a morsel of consecrated bread; swimming or sinking in a river for witchcraft, or, as it was called, weighing a witch; stretching out the arms before the cross, till the soonest wearied dropped his arms, and lost his estate, which was decided by this very short process, called juidcium crucis, &c.

A dispute occurred between the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Denis, about the patronage of a monastery, and Pepin, surnamed the Short, not being able to pronounce upon their confused claims, 10decreed that it should be settled by one of these judgments of God: viz. The judgment of the cross. Each of the disputants chose a man, and both of the men appeared in the chapel, where they extended their arms in the form of a cross. The spectators, more orderly than those of the present day; still, although they watched every motion of the combatants with the most pious attention, the old English spirit, which rules so prevalently at the present period, was proof against every other consideration—they betted on the feat, first on one side, then on the other, according as the odds seemed to run in favour or against. The Bishop’s man was first tried; he let his arms drop and ruined his patron for ever. Though these trials might sometimes be evaded by the artifice of the priest, numerous, nevertheless, were the innocent victims who suffered from these superstitious practices.

They were very frequent between the tenth and twelfth century. William Rufus, having accused Hildebert, the Bishop of Mans, of high treason, was on the verge of submitting to one of these trials, when he was convinced by Ives, Bishop of Chartres, that they were against the canons of the constitution of the church, and adds, that in this manner “Innocentiam defendere, est innocentiam perdere.” In 1066 an abbot of St. Aubin of Angers, having refused to present a horse to the viscount of Tours, which the viscount claimed in right of his lordship, whenever an abbot first took possession of that abbey; the ecclesiastic offered to justify himself by the trial of the ordeal, or by duel, for which purpose he proposed to find a substitute. 11The duel was first agreed to by the viscount; but, reflecting that these combatants, though sanctioned by the church, depended solely on the address or vigour of the adversary, and consequently could afford no substantial proof of the equity of his claim, he proposed to compromise the matter in a manner which strongly characterised these times: he surrendered his claim, on condition that the abbot should not forget to mention him, his wife, and his brothers, in his prayers! As the orisons appeared to the abbot of comparatively little value with the horse, the proposal was accepted.

In the tenth century the right of representation was not settled: it was a question whether a son’s sons ought to be accounted among the children of the family, and succeed equally with their uncles, if their fathers happened to die while their grandfathers survived. This point was decided by one of these combats. The champion in behalf of the right of children to represent their deceased father, proved victorious. It was then established by a perpetual decree, that they should from that time forward share in the inheritance along with their uncles.

In the eleventh century, the same mode was adopted, to decide between two rival liturgies! A couple of knights, clad in complete armour, were the tests to decide which was the true and authentic liturgy.

The capitularies of Dagobert say, that if two neighbours dispute respecting the boundaries of their possessions, let a piece of turf of the contested 12land be dug up by the judge, and brought by him into the court, and the two parties shall touch it with the points of their swords, calling on God to witness their claims: after this, let them combat, and let victory prove who is right or who is wrong. In these combats in Germany, a solemn circumstance was practised in these judicial combats. In the midst of the lists they placed a bier; by the side of which stood the accuser and the accused, one at the head and the other at the foot, where they leaned in profound silence for some time before the combat commenced. In his preface to Way’s Fableaux, Mr. Ellis shews how faithfully the manners of the age are painted in these ancient tales, by observing the judicial combat introduced by a writer of the 14th century, who, in his poem, represents Pilate as challenging Jesus Christ to single combat; and another, who describes the person who pierced the side of Christ as a knight who jousted with Jesus.

It appears that judicial combat was practised by the Jews. Whenever the Rabbins had to decide on a dispute about property between two parties, neither of which could produce evidence to substantiate the claim, it was terminated by single combat. The Rabbins were impressed with a notion that consciousness of right would give additional confidence and strength to the rightful possessor. It may, however, be more philosophical to observe, that such judicial combats were more frequently favourable to the criminal than to the innocent, because the bold wicked man is usually 13more ferocious and hardy than he whom he singles out as his victim, and who only wishes to preserve his own quiet enjoyments: in this case the assailant is the most terrific opponent.

Those who were accused of robbery in these times were put to trial by a piece of barley bread, on which the mass had been performed; and if the accused could not swallow it, they were declared guilty. This mode of trial was improved by adding to the bread a slice of cheese; and such was their credulity and dependance on heaven in these ridiculous trials, that they were very particular in this holy bread and cheese, called the corsned. The bread was to be of unleavened barley, and the cheese made of ewes milk in the month of May^[5].

The bleeding of a corpse was another proof of guilt in superstitious ages; nor is the custom yet entirely abolished. If a person were murdered, it was believed, that at the touch or approach of the murderer, the blood gushed out from various parts of the body. By the side of the bier, if the smallest change was perceptible in the eyes, mouth, feet or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and many innocent persons doubtless must have suffered death from this idle chimera; for when a body is full of blood, warmed by a sudden external heat and symptoms of ensuing putrefaction, some of the blood vessels will 14burst, as they will all in time. This practice was once allowed in England, and is still looked on in some of the uncivilized parts of these kingdoms as a means of detecting the criminal. It forms a rich picture in the imagination of our old writers; and their histories and ballads are laboured into pathos by dwelling on the suppositious phenomenon.

All these absurd institutions, Robertson observes, cherished and inculcated, form the superstitions of the age believing the legendary histories of those saints who crowd and disgrace the Roman calendar. These fabulous miracles had been declared authentic by the bulls of the Popes, and the decrees of Councils—they were greedily swallowed by the populace; and whoever believed that the Supreme Being had interposed miraculously on those trivial occasions mentioned in legends, could not but expect his intervention in matters of greater importance when solemnly referred to his decision. Besides this ingenious remark, the fact is, that these customs were a substitute for written laws, which that barbarous period had not; and as it is impossible for any society to exist without laws, the ignorance of the people had recourse to these customs, which bad and absurd as they were, served to terminate controversies which might have given birth to more destructive practices. Ordeals are, in fact, the rude laws of a barbarous people, who have not obtained a written code, and not advanced enough in civilization, to embrace the refined investigations, the subtle distinctions, and elaborate inquiries, which are exacted by a Court of Law.

It may be presumed, that these ordeals owe their 15origin to that one of Moses, called the “Waters of Jealousy.” The Greeks also had ordeals, for we read in the Antigonus of Sophocles, that the soldiers offer to prove their innocence by handling red hot iron, and walking between fires.

One cannot but smile at the whimsical ordeals of the Siamese. Among other practices to discover the justice of a cause, civil or criminal, they are particularly attached to the use of certain consecrated purgative pills, which the contending parties are made to swallow. He who retains them longest, gains his cause! The practice of giving Indians a consecrated grain of rice to swallow, is known to discover the thief in any company, by the contortions and dismay evident on the countenance of the real thief.

In the middle ages they were acquainted with secrets to pass unhurt these secret trials: one is mentioned by Voltaire for undergoing the ordeal of boiling water; and this statement is confirmed by some of our late travellers in the East. The Mevleheh dervises can hold red hot iron between their teeth. Such artifices have been often publicly exhibited at Paris and London. On the ordeal of the Anglo-Saxons, Mr. Sharon Turner observes, that the hand was not to be immediately inspected, and was left to the chance of a good constitution to be so far healed during three days (the time they required to be bound up and sealed, before it was examined) as to discover those appearances when inspected, which were allowed to be satisfactory. There was also much preparatory training, suggested by the more experienced: 16besides, the accused had an opportunity of going alone into the church, and making terms with the priest. The few spectators were always at a distance; and cold iron or any other inoffensive substance might be substituted, and the fire diminished at the moment. There can be no doubt they possessed these secrets and medicaments, which they always took care to have ready at hand, that they might pass through these trials in perfect security.

There is an anecdote of these times given by Camerarius, in his “Horæ Subscecivæ,” which may serve to show the readiness of this apparatus. A rivalship existed between the Austin Friars and the Jesuits. The Father-general of the Austin Friars was dining with the Jesuits; and on the table being removed, he entered into a formal discourse of the superiority of the monastic order, and charged the Jesuits, in unqualified terms, with assuming the title of “Fratres,” while they held not the three vows, which other monks were obliged to consider as sacred and binding. The general of the Austin Friars was very eloquent and very authoritative: and the superior of the Jesuits was very unlearned, but not quite half a fool. He was rather careless about entering the list of controversy with the Austin Friar, but arrested his triumph by asking him if he would see one of his Friars who pretended to be nothing more than a Jesuit, and one of the Austin Friar’s who religiously performed the above-mentioned three vows, show instantly which of them would be the readiest to obey his superiors? The Austin 17Friar consented. The Jesuit then turning to one of his brothers, the Holy Friar Mark, who was waiting on them, said, “Brother Mark, our companions are cold; I command you, in virtue of the holy obedience you have sworn to me, to bring here instantly out of the kitchen fire, and in your hands, some burning coals, that they may warm themselves over your hands.” Father Mark instantly obeys, and to the astonishment of the Austin Friars, brought in his hands a supply of red burning coals, and held them to whoever thought proper to warm himself; and at the command of his superior, returned them to the kitchen hearth. The general of the Austin Friars, with the rest of his brethren, stood amazed; he looked wistfully on one of his monks, as if he wished to command him to do the like; but the Austin Monk, who perfectly understood him, and saw this was not a time to hesitate, observed,—“Reverend Father, forbear, and do not command me to tempt God! I am ready to fetch you fire in a chafing dish, but not in my bare hands.” The triumph of the Jesuits was complete; and it is not necessary to add, that the miracle was noised about, and that the Austin Friars could never account for it, notwithstanding their strict performance of the three vows.

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilt of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers (traitors), by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a Divine thrusting on; an admirable evasion of whoremaster to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa Major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.—Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled at my bastardizing.”—Shakspeare.

It is a singular fact, that men the most eminent for their learning were those who indulged most in the favourite superstition of judicial Astrology; and as the ingenious Tenhove observes, whenever an idea germinates in a learned head, it shoots with additional luxuriance. At the present time, however, a belief in judicial Astrology can only exist in the people, who may be said to have no belief at all; for mere traditional sentiments can hardly be said to amount to a belief.

It is said that Dr. Fludd^[6] was in possession of 19the MSS. of Simon Forman, the Astrologer. We have seen that the studies of Mathematics, Astronomy, and Medicine, were early united in several persons connected with the faculty of medicine. Real Astronomy gave birth to judicial Astrology; which offering an ample field to enthusiasm and imposture, was eagerly pursued by many who had no scientific purpose in view. It was connected with various juggling tricks and deceptions, affected an obscure jargon of language, and insinuated itself into every thing in which the hopes and fears of mankind were concerned. The professors of this pretended science were at first generally persons of mean education, in whom low cunning supplied the place of knowledge. Most of them engaged in the empirical practice of physic, and some, through the credulity of the times, even arrived at a degree of eminence in it; yet since the whole foundation of their art was folly and deceit, they nevertheless gained many proselytes and dupes, both among the well-informed and the ignorant.

When Charles the First was confined, Lilly, the famous Astrologer, was consulted for the hour that should favour his escape.

A story, which strongly proves how much Charles II. was bigoted to judicial astrology, and whose mind was certainly not unenlightened, is recorded in Burnet’s History of his own times. The most respectable characters of the age, Sir William Dugdale, Elias Ashmole, Dr. Grew, and others, were members of an astrological club^[7]. 20Congreve’s character of Foresight, in Love for Love, was then no uncommon person, though the humour now is scarcely intelligible. Dryden cast the nativities of his sons; and, what is remarkable, his prediction relating to his son Charles, was accomplished. This incident is of so late a date, one might hope it would have been cleared up; but, if it be a fact, it must be allowed that it forms a rational exultation for its irrational adepts.

In 1670, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars, prevailed in France among the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Medicis brought Henry IV. then a child, to old Nostradamus, whom antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the reverend seer, with a beard which “streamed like a meteor in the air,” terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage. Will it be credited, that one of these magicians, having assured Charles IX. that he would live as many days as he should turn about on his heels in an hour, standing on one leg, that his Majesty every morning performed that solemn exercise for an hour; the principal officers of the court, the judges, 21the chancellors, and generals, likewise, in compliment, standing on one leg, and turning round!

It has been reported of several famous for their astrological skill, that they have suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions: this has been said of Cardan, and Burton the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.

It is curious to observe the shifts to which astrologers are put when their predictions are not verified. Great winds were predicted, by a famous adept, about the year 1586. No unusual storms, however, happened. Bodin, to save the reputation of the art, applied it as a figure to some revolutions in the state, and of which there were instances enough at that moment. Among their lucky and unlucky days, they pretend to give those of various illustrious persons and of families. One is very striking:—Thursday was the unlucky day of our Henry VIII. He, his son Edward VI. Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, all died on a Thursday! This fact had, no doubt, great weight in this controversy of the astrologers with their adversaries.

The life of Lilly, the astrologer, written by himself, is a curious work. He is the Sidrophel of Butler. It contains so much artless narrative, and at the same time so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the truth. In a sketch of the state of astrology in his day, those adepts, whose characters he has drawn, were the lowest miscreants of the town. They all speak of each other as rogues and impostors. Such were Booker, George Wharton, Gadbury, who gained a livelihood 22by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as in 1650, to the 18th century. In Ashmole’s life an account of these artful impostors may be found. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. This seems a true statement of facts. But Lilly informs us, that in his various conferences with angels, their voice resembled that of the Irish! The work is certainly curious for the anecdotes of the times it contains. The amours of Lilly with his mistress are characteristic. By his own accounts, he was a very artful man; and managed matters admirably which required deception and invention.

In the time of the civil wars, astrology was in high repute. The royalists and the rebels had their astrologers as well as their soldiers! and the predictions of the former had a great influence over the latter. On this subject, it may gratify curiosity to notice three or four works which bear an excessive price; a circumstance which cannot entirely be occasioned by their rarity; and we are induced to suppose, that we still have adepts in this science, whose faith must be strong, or whose scepticism weak.

The Chaldean sages were nearly put to the route by a quarto park of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber, in 1691. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race, and his personalities made them feel more sore. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this 23pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with “A defence of Judiciall Astrologye, in answer to a treatise lately published by Mr. John Chamber. By Christopher Knight. Printed at Cambridge, 1603.” This is a handsome quarto of about 500 pages. Sir Christopher is a learned and lively writer, and a knight worthy to defend a better cause. But his Dulcinea had wrought most wonderfully on his imagination. This defence of this fanciful science, if science it may be called, demonstrates nothing, while it defends every thing. It confutes, according to the Knight’s own ideas: it alleges a few scattered facts in favour of astrological predictions, which may be picked up in that immensity of fabling which disgraces history. He strenuously denies, or ridicules, what the greatest writers have said against this fanciful art, while he lays great stress on some passages from obscure authors, or what is worse, from authors of no authority. The most pleasant part is at the close, where he defends the art from the objections of Mr. Chamber, by recrimination. Chamber had enriched himself by medical practice, and when he charges the astrologers by merely aiming to gain a few beggarly pence, Sir Christopher catches fire, and shews by his quotations, that if we are to despise an art by its professors attempting to subsist on it, or for the objections which may be raised against its vital principles, we ought by this argument most heartily to despise the medical science and medical men! He gives here all he can collect against physic and physicians, and from the confessions of Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna 24and Agrippa, medicine appears to be a vainer science than even astrology! Sir Christopher is a shrewd and ingenious adversary; but when he says he only means to give Mr. Chamber oil for his vinegar, he has totally mistaken its quality.

The defence was answered by Thomas Vicars, in his “Madnesse of Astrologers.”

But the great work is by Lilly; and entirely devoted to the adepts. He defends nothing; for this oracle delivers his dictum, and details every event as matters not questionable. He sits on the tripod; and every page is embellished by a horoscope, which he explains with the utmost facility. This voluminous monument of the folly of the age, is a quarto, valued at some guineas! It is entitled, “Christian Astrology, modestly treated of in three Books, by William Lilly, student in Astrology, 2nd edition, 1659.” There is also a portrait of this arch rogue, and astrologer! an admirable illustration for Lavater!

Lilly’s opinions, and his pretended science, were such favourites of the age, that the learned Gataker wrote professedly against this popular delusion. Lilly, at the head of his star-expounding friends, not only formally replied to, but persecuted Gataker annually in his predictions, and even struck at his ghost, when beyond the grave. Gataker died in July 1654, and Lilly having written in his Almanack of that year, for the month of August, this barbarous Latin verse:—

He had the impudence to assert, that he had predicted 25Gataker’s death! But the truth is, it was an epitaph to the “lodgings to let:” it stood empty, ready for the first passenger to inhabit. Had any other of that party of any eminence died in that month, it would have been as appositely applied to him. But Lilly was an exquisite rogue, and never at a fault. Having prophesied, in his Almanack for 1650, that the parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, when taken up by a messenger during the night, he contrived to cancel the page, printed off another, and shewed his copies before the committee, assuring them that the others were none of his own, but forged by his enemies.

By the word Astrology (derived from the Greek αστηρ, a star, and λογος, a discourse,) is meant the art of prognosticating or foretelling events^[8] by the Aspects, Positions, and Influence of the HEAVENLY BODIES.

By Aspect is to be understood an angle formed by the rays of two planets meeting on earth, able to execute some natural power or influence; which may be better explained by the following table.

This art, or rather this conjectural science, is principally divided into Natural and Judiciary.

Is confined to the study of exploring natural effects, as CHANGE OF WEATHER, WINDS, STORMS, HURRICANES, THUNDER, FLOODS, EARTHQUAKES, and the like. In this sense it is admitted to be a part of natural philosophy. It was under this view that Mr. Goad, Mr. Boyle, and Dr. Mead, pleaded for its use. The first endeavours to account for the diversity of seasons from the situations, habitudes, and motions of the planets; and to explain an infinity of phenomena by the contemplation of the stars. The Honourable Mr. Boyle admitted, that all physical bodies are influenced by the heavenly bodies; and the 27Doctor’s opinion, in his treatise concerning the Power of the Sun and Moon, &c. is in favour of the doctrine. But these predictions and influences are ridiculed and entirely exploded by the most esteemed modern philosophers, of which the reader may have a learned specimen in Rohault’s Tract. Physic. pt. ii. c. 27.

Is a further pretence to discover or foretel MORAL EVENTS, or such as have a dependence on the FREEDOM OF THE WILL. In this department of astrology we meet with all the idle conceits about the HORARY REIGN of planets, the DOCTRINE OF HOROSCOPES, the DISTRIBUTION OF THE HOUSES, the CALCULATION OF NATIVITIES, FORTUNES, LUCKY and UNLUCKY HOURS, and other ominous fatalities.

The professors of this conjectural science maintain “that the Heavens are one great book, wherein God has written the history of the world; and in which every man may read his own fortune and the transactions of his time. This art, say they, had its rise from the same hands as Astronomy itself: while the ancient Assyrians, whose serene unclouded sky favoured their celestial observations, were intent on tracing the paths and periods of the heavenly bodies; they discovered a constant settled relation or analogy between them and things below; and hence were led to conclude these to be the parcæ, or fates or destinies, so much talked of, which preside at our birth, and dispose of our future fate.”

28The study of Astrology, so flattering to human curiosity, got early admission into the favour of mankind, especially of the weak, ignorant, and effeminate, whose follies induced the avaricious, crafty, and designing knaves, to recommend and promote it for their own private interest and advantage.

Origin of Astrology.

We meet with the first accounts of Astrology in Chaldea; and at Rome it was known by the name of the Babylonish calculation; against which Horace very wisely cautioned his readers—

that is, consult not the tables or planetary calculations used by Astrologers of Babylonish origin. This therefore was the opinion of the Romans on the subject of Astrology. Others have ascribed the invention of this deception to the Arabs: be this as it may, judicial Astrology has been too much used by the priests of all nations to increase their own power and emoluments.

The Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks and Romans, furnish us with innumerable instances of the extent to which Astrology was carried for interested purposes. Brahmins in India, who take upon themselves to be the arbiters of good and evil hours, and who set an extravagant price upon their pretended knowledge of planetary influence and predictions, maintain their authority at the present day by similar means. Nor among the Christians, notwithstanding the enlightened 29era in which we live, are we without our Astrologers, as well as its admirers and advocates; for though they may not have all pursued and adopted the same technical method, still it is certain, that whoever pretends to discover future events by other means than through the light of Divine revelation, may be properly classed under the species of judicial Astrologers.

Astrological Schemes, &c.

Those who pretend to reduce the practice of Astrology to a system, present the world with certain schemes formed upon the Aspects of the planets, and attribute certain qualities or powers to each sign. Thus, to discover the influence of the heavens over the life of a person, they erect a THEME, at the given time of the moment the person was born, by which the Astrologers pretend to discover the star that presided, or in what part of the hemisphere it was placed, when the individual came into the world. The erection of this THEME they perform, or at least pretend to reform, with the assistance of the celestial globe, or planisphere, with regard to the fixed stars; but with respect to the planets, they do it with Astronomical tables. To accomplish these, they have recourse to a semi-circle, which they call POSITION, by which they represent the six great circles passing through the intersection of the Meridian and Horizon, and dividing the Equator into twelve equal parts. The spaces included between these circles, are what they call the twelve HOUSES; which they refer to the twelve triangles marked in their 30theme; placing six of those HOUSES above and six underneath the horizon.

The first of the HOUSES under the horizon toward the East, they call the Horoscope, or House of Life; the second, the House of Wealth; the third, the House of Brothers; the fourth, the House of Parents, &c.; as is clearly expressed in the following lines:

Which, translated by some English students in Astrology, runs thus:

Table of the Twelve Houses.

Astrologers draw their table of the TWELVE HOUSES into a triple quadrangle prepared for the purpose, of which there are four principal angles, two of them falling equally upon the horizon, and the other two upon the meridian, which angles are sudivided into 12 triangles for the 12 houses, in which they place the 12 signs of the Zodiac, to each of which is attributed a particular quality,—viz.

1.—

Aries, denoted by the sign ♈︎, is, in their extravagant opinion, a masculine, diurnal, cardinal, equinoctial, easterly sign, hot and dry,—the day house of Mars.

31

2.—

Taurus, ♉︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, melancholy, bestial, furious sign—cold and dry.

3.—

Gemini, ♊︎, is a masculine sign, hot and moist, diurnal, aërial, human, double-bodied, &c.

4.—

Cancer, ♋︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, phlegmatic sign, by nature cold and moist, the only house of Luna.

5.—

Leo, ♌︎, is a sign, masculine, diurnal, bestial, choleric and barren; a commanding, kingly sign—hot and dry, the only house of the sun.

6.—

Virgo, ♍︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, melancholy, and barren sign.

7.—

Libra, ♎︎, is a sign masculine, cardinal, equinoctial, diurnal, sanguine and human, hot and moist.

8.—

Scorpio, ♏︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, cold and phlegmatic northern sign.

9.—

Sagittarius, ♐︎, is a sign masculine, choleric, and diurnal, by nature hot and dry.

10.—

Capricorn, ♑︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, melancholy, solstitial, moveable, cardinal, and southern sign.

11.—

Aquarius, ♒︎, is a masculine, diurnal, fixed, sanguine, and human sign.

12.—

Pisces, ♓︎, is a feminine, nocturnal, phlegmatic, northerly double-bodied sign, the last of the twelve.

32Having thus housed their signs and directed them in their operations, they afterwards come to enquire of their tenants, what planet and fixed stars they have for LODGERS, at the moment of the nativity of such person; from whence they draw conclusions with regard to the future incident of that person’s life. For if at the time of that person’s nativity they find Mercury in 27° 52 min. of Aquarius, and in the sextile aspect of the horoscope, they pretend to foretel that that infant will be a person of great sagacity, genius, and understanding; and therefore capable of learning the most sublime sciences.

Astrologers have also imagined, for the same ridiculous purpose, to be in the same houses different positions of the signs and planets, and from their different aspects, opposition and conjunction, and according to the rules and axioms they have prescribed to themselves and invented, have the sacrilegious presumption to judge, in dernier resort, of the fate of mankind, though their pretended art or science is quite barren either of proofs or demonstrations.

Signs to the Houses of the Planets.

The planets have allowed themselves each, except Sol and Luna, two signs for their houses; to Saturn, Capricorn and Aquarius; to Jupiter, Sagittarius and Pisces; to Mars, Aries and Scorpio; to Sol, Leo; to Venus, Taurus and Libra; to Mercury, Gemini and Virgo; and to Luna, Cancer.

By their continual mutations among the twelve signs, the planets make several angles or aspects; the most remarkable of which are the five following, viz.—

☌ Conjunction.—Δ Trine.—☐ Quadrate.—⚹ Sextile.—☍ Opposition.

A Conjunction is when two planets are in one and the same degree and minute of a sign; and this, according to Astrological cant, either good or bad, as the planets are either friends or enemies.

A Trine is when two planets are four signs, or 120 degrees distant, as Mars in twelve degrees of Aries, and Sol in twelve degrees of Leo. Here Sol and Mars are said to be in Trine Aspect. And this is an aspect of perfect love and friendship.

A Quadrate Aspect is when two planets are three signs, or 90 degrees distant, as Mars in 10 degrees, and Venus in 10 degrees of Leo. This particular aspect is of imperfect enmity, and Astrologers say, that persons thereby signified, may have jars at sometime, but of such a nature as may be perfectly reconciled.

A Sextile Aspect, is when two planets are two signs, or 60 degrees distant, as Jupiter in 15 degrees of Aries; and Saturn in 15 degrees of Gemini; here Jupiter is in a sextile aspect to Saturn. This is an aspect of friendship.

An Opposition is, when two planets are diametrically opposite, which happens when they are 346 signs, or 180 degrees (which is one half of the circle) asunder; and this is an aspect of perfect hatred.

A Partile Aspect, is when two planets are in a perfect aspect to the very same degree and minute.

Dexter Aspects, are those which are contrary to the succession of signs; as a planet, for instance, in Aries, casts its sextile dexter to Aquarius.

Sinister Aspect, is with the succession of signs, as a planet in Aries, for example, casts its sextile sinister in Gemini.

In addition to these, Astrologers play a number of other diverting tricks; hence we read of the Application—Prohibition—Translation—Refrenation—Combustion—Exception—Retrogradation, &c. of planets.

The Application of Planets.

Application of the planets is performed by Astrologers in three different ways.

1. When a light planet, direct and swift in its motion, applies to a planet more ponderous and slow in motion; as Mercury in 8° of Aries, and Jupiter in 12° of Gemini, and both direct; here Mercury applies to a sextile of Jupiter, by direct application.

2. When they are both retrograde, as Mercury in 20° of Aries, and Jupiter in 15° of Gemini; here Mercury, the lighter planet, applies to the sextile aspect of Jupiter; and this is by retrogradation.

3. When one of the planets is direct, and 35the other retrograde; for example, if Mercury were retrograde in 18° of Aries, and Jupiter direct in 14° of Gemini; in this case Mercury applies to a sextile of Jupiter, by a retrograde motion.

Prohibition,

is when two planets are applying either by body or aspect; and before they come to their partile aspect, another planet meets with the aspect of the former and prohibits it.

Separation,

is when two planets have been lately in conjunction, or aspect, and are separated from it.

Translation of Light and Virtue,

is when a lighter planet separates from the body or aspect of a heavier one, and immediately applies to another superior planet, and so translates the light and virtue of the first planet to that which it applies to.

Refrenation,

is when a planet is applied to the body or aspect of another; and, before it comes to it, falls retrograde, and so refrains by its retrograde motion.

Combustion.

A planet is said to be combust of Sol, when it is within 8° 30″ of his body, either before or after his conjunction: but Astrologers complain, that a planet is more afflicted when it is applying to the body of Sol, than when it is separating from combustion.

is when two planets are in each other’s dignities, and it may either be by house, exultation, triplicity, or term.

Retrogradation,

is when a planet moves backward from 20° to 9°, 8°, 7°, and so out of Taurus into Aries.

Frustration,

is when a swift planet applies to the body or aspect of a superior planet; and before it comes to it, the superior planet meets with the body or aspect of some other planet.

The Dragon’s Head and Tail.

To the seven planets, viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, and Luna; Astrologers add, two certain nodes or points, called the Dragon’s head, distinguished by this sign ☋, and the Dragon’s tail by ☊. In those two extremities of the beast, our students in Astrology place such virtues, that they can draw from thence wealth, honour, preferments, &c. enough to flatter the avarice, ambition, vanity, &c. of the fools who follow them. Sensible, however, that the admirers of this art support their principles and defend their doctrines by examples founded on their own experience and on the authority of history; there is no necessity for us here to expose the weakness and futility of their arguments. 37Tully’s proof will suffice; who, amidst the darkest clouds of superstition and ignorance, and in the very heyday of paganism and idolatry, and whilst religion itself seemed to countenance Astrology, inveighs severely against it in Lib. 2, de devinat. “Quam multa ego Pompeis, quam multa Crasso, quam multa huic ipsi Cæsari a Chaldæis dicta memini, neminem eorum nisi senectute, nisi domi, nisi cum clantate esse moriturum? ut mihi per Mirum videatur quem quam extare, qui etiam nunc credastis, quorum predicta quotidie videat re et eventis refelli^[9].”

Climacteric.

Astrologers have used their best artifices, and employed all the rules of their art, to render those years of our age, which they call climacterics, dangerous and formidable.

Climacterick from the Greek, κλιμακτης, which means by a scale or ladder, is a critical year, or a period in a man’s age, wherein, according to Astrological juggling, there is some notable alteration to arise in the body; and a person stands in great danger of death. The first climacterick, say they, is the seventh year of a man’s life; the rest are multiples of the first, as 21, 49, 56, 63, and 84; which two last are called the grand climactericks, and the danger more certain.

Marc Ficinus accounts for the foundation of 38this opinion: he tells us there is a year assigned for each planet to rule over the body of a man, each in his turn; now Saturn being the most maleficent (malignant) planet of all, every seventh year, which falls to its lot, becomes very dangerous; especially those of 63 and 84, when the person is already advanced in years. According to this doctrine, some hold every seventh year an established climacteric; but others only allow the title to those produced by the multiplication of the climacterical space by an odd number, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c. Others observe every ninth year as a climacterick.

There is a work extant, though rather scarce, by Hevelius, under the title of Annus Climactericus, wherein he describes the loss he sustained by his observatory, &c. being burnt; which, it would appear, happened in his grand climacterick. Suetonius says, that Augustus congratulated his nephew upon his having passed his first grand climacterick, of which he was very apprehensive.

Some pretend that the climacterick years are fatal to political bodies, which perhaps may be granted, when they are proved to be so to natural ones; for it must be obvious that the reason of such danger can by no means be discovered, nor what relation it can have with any of the numbers above-mentioned. Though this opinion has a great deal of antiquity on its side; Aulus Gellius says, it was borrowed from the Chaldeans, who, possibly, might receive it from Pythagoras, whose philosophy turned much on numbers, and who imagined an extraordinary virtue in the number 7.

39The principal authors on the subject of climactericks, are Plato, Cicero, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius, among the ancients; Argol, Magirus, and Salmatius, among the moderns. St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Beda, and Bœtius, all countenance the opinion.

Lucky and Unlucky Days.

Astrologers have also brought under their inspection and controul the days of the year, which they have presumed to divide into lucky and unlucky days; calling even the sacred scriptures, and the common belief of Christians, in former ages, to their assistance for this purpose. They pretend that the 14th day of the first month was a blessed day among the Israelites, authorised therein, as they pretend, by the several following passages out of Exodus, c. xii. v. 18, 40, 41, 42, 51. Leviticus, c. xxiii. v. 5. Numbers, c. xxviii. v. 16. “Four hundred and thirty years being expired of their dwelling in Egypt, even in the self same day departed they thence.”

With regard to evil days and times, Astrologers refer to Amos, c. 5, v. 13, and c. vi. v. 3. Ecclesiasticus, c. ix. v. 12. Psalm, xxxvii. v. 19. Obadiah, c. xii. Jeremiah, c. xlvi. v. 21, and to Job cursing his birth day, chap. iii. v. 1 to 11. In confirmation of which they also quote a calendar, extracted out of several ancient Roman catholic prayer books, written on vellum, before printing was invented, in which were inserted the unfortunate 40days of each month, as in the following verses;—

This poetry is a specimen of the rusticity and ignorance at least of the times; and is a convincing proof that Christianity had yet a very strong tincture of the Pagan superstitions attached to it, and which all the purity of the gospel itself, to this very day, has not been able entirely to obliterate.

That the notion of lucky and unlucky days owes its origin to paganism, may be proved from Roman history, where it is mentioned that that very day four years, the civil wars were begun by Pompey the father; Cæsar made an end of them with his son, Cneius Pompeius being then slain; and that the Romans accounted the 13th of February an unlucky day, because on that day they were overthrown by the Gauls at Allia; and the Fabii attacking the city of the Recii, were all slain with the exception of one man: from the calendar of Ovid’s “Fastorum,” Aprilis erat mensis Græcis auspicatissimus; and from Horace, lib. 2, ode 13, cursing the tree that had nearly fallen upon it; ille nefasto posuit die.

41The number of remarkable events that happened on some particular days have been the principal means of confirming both Pagans and Christians in their opinion on this subject. For example, Alexander the Great, who was born on the 6th of April, conquered Darius and died on the same day. The Emperor Bassianus Caracalla was born and died on a sixth day of April. Augustus was adopted on the 19th of August, began his Consulate, conquered the Triumviri, and died the same day.

The Christians have observed that the 24th of February was four times fortunate to Charles the Fifth. That Wednesday was a fortunate day to Pope Sixtus V. for on a Wednesday he was born, on that day made a Monk, on the same day made a General of his order, on that day created a Cardinal, on that day elected Pope, and also on that day inaugurated. That Thursday was a fatal day to Henry VIII. King of England, and his posterity, for he died on a Thursday; King Edward VI. on a Thursday; Queen Mary on a Thursday; and Queen Elizabeth on a Thursday. The French have observed that the feast of Pentecost had been lucky to Henry III. King of France, for on that day he was born, on that day elected king of Poland, and on that day he succeeded his brother Charles IX. on the throne of France.

Genethliaci.

These, so called in Astrology, are persons who erect Horoscopes; or pretend what shall befal a 42man, by means of the stars which presided at his nativity^[10]. The ancients called them Chaldæi, and by the general name mathematici: accordingly the several civil and canon laws, which we find made against the mathematicians, only respect the Genethliaci, or Astrologers; who were expelled Rome by a formal decree of the senate, and yet found so much protection from the credulity of the people, that they remained unmolested. Hence an ancient author speaks of them as hominum genus, quod in civitate nostra sempe et vetabitur, et retinebitur.

Is a composition in verse, on the birth of some prince, or other illustrious person; in which the poet promises him great honours, advantages, successes, victories, &c. by a kind of prophecy or prediction. Such, for instance, is the eclogue of Virgil to Pollio, beginning

There are also Genethliac speeches or orations, made to celebrate a person’s birth day.

Barclay’s Refutation of Astrology.

Astrological superstition, it is said, transcended from the Chaldeans, who transmitted it to the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks derived it, whence it passed to the Romans, who, doubtless, 43were the first to disseminate it over Europe, though some will have it to be of Egyptian origin, and ascribe the invention to Cham; but it is to the Arabs that we owe it. At Rome, the people were so infatuated with it, the Astrologers, or, as they are called, the mathematicians, maintained their ground in spite of all the edicts to expel them out of the city^[11].

The Brahmins introduced and practised this art among the Indians, and thereby constituted themselves the arbiters of good and evil hours, which gives them vast authority, and in consequence of this supererogation, they are consulted as Oracles, and take good care they never sell their answers but at a good price.

The same superstition, as we have already shewn, has prevailed in more modern ages and nations. The French historians remark, that, in the time of Queen Catherine of Medicis, Astrology was in so great repute, that the most inconsiderable thing was not undertaken or done without consulting the stars. And in the reigns of king Henry III. and IV. of France, the predictions of Astrologers were the common theme of the court conversation.

This predominant humour in the French court was well rallied by Barclay in his Argenis, lib. ii, on account of an Astrologer who had undertaken to instruct king Henry in the event of a war then threatened by the faction of the Guises.

“You maintain,” says Barclay, “that the circumstances 44of life and death depend on the place and influence of the celestial bodies, at the time when the child first comes to light; and yet you own, that the heavens revolve with such vast rapidity that the situation of the stars is considerably changed in the least moment of time. What certainty then can be in your art, unless you suppose the midwives constantly careful to observe the clock, that the minute of time may be conveyed to the infant, as we do his patrimony? How often does the mother’s danger prevent this care? And how many are there who are not touched with this superstition? But suppose them watchful to your wish; if the child be long in delivery; if, as is often the case, a hand or the head come first, and be not immediately followed by the rest of the body; which state of the stars is to determine for him; that, when the head made its appearance, or when the whole body was disengaged? I say nothing of the common errors of clocks, and other time-keepers, sufficient to elude all your cares.

“Again, why are we to regard only the stars at his nativity, and not those rather which shone when the fœtus was animated in the womb? and why must those others be excluded, which presided while the body remained tender, and susceptible of the weakest impression, during gestation?

“But setting this aside, and supposing, withal, the face of the heavens accurately known, whence arises this dominion of the stars over our bodies and minds, that they must be the arbiters of our happiness, our manner of life, and death? Were all those who went to battle, and died together, 45born under the same position of the heavens? and when a ship is to be cast away, shall it admit no passengers but those doomed by the stars to suffer shipwreck? or rather, do not persons born under every planet go into the combat, or aboard the vessel; and thus, notwithstanding the disparity of their birth, perish alike? Again, all who were born under the same configuration of the stars do not live or die in the same manner. All, who were born at the same time with the king, monarchs? Or are all even alive at this day? I saw M. Villeroy here; nay, I saw yourself: were all that came into the world with him as wise and virtuous as he; or all born under your own stars, astrologers like you? If a man meet a robber, you will say he was doomed to perish by a robber’s hand; but did the same stars, which, when the traveller was born, subjected him to the robber’s sword, did they likewise give the robber, who perhaps was born long before, a power and inclination to kill him? For you will allow that it is as much owing to the stars that the one kills, as that the other is killed. And when a man is overwhelmed by the fall of a house, did the walls become faulty, because the stars had doomed him to perish thereby; or rather, was his death not owing to this, that the walls were faulty? The same may be said with regard to honours or employ: because the stars which shone at a man’s nativity, promised him preferment; could those have an influence over other persons not born under them, by whose suffrages he was to rise? or how do the stars at one man’s birth annul, or set aside, the contrary 46influences of other stars, which shone at the birth of another?

“The truth is, supposing the reality of all the planetary powers; as the sun which visits an infinity of bodies with the same rays, has not the same effect on all, as some things are hardened thereby, as clay; others softened, as wax; some seeds cherished, others destroyed; the tender herbs scorched up, others secured by their coarser juice: so, where so many children are born together, like a field tilled so many different ways, according to the various health, habitude, and temperament of the parents, the same celestial influx must operate differently. If the genius be suitable and towardly, it must predominate therein: if contrary, it will only correct it. So that to foretel the life and manners of a child, you are not only to look into the heavens, but into the parents, into the fortune which attended the pregnant mother, and a thousand other circumstances utterly inaccessible.

“Further, does the power that portends the new-born infant a life, for instance of forty years; or perhaps a violent death at thirty; does that power I say, endure and reside still in the heavens, waiting the destined time, when, descending upon earth, it may produce such an effect? Or is it infused into the infant himself; so that being cherished, and gradually growing up together with him, it bursts forth at the appointed time, and fulfils what the stars had given it in charge? Exist in the heavens it cannot; in that depending immediately on a certain configuration of the stars; when that is changed the effect connected with it 47must cease, and a new, perhaps a contrary one, takes place. What repository have you for the former power to remain in, till the time comes for its delivery? If you say it inherits or resides in the infant, not to operate on him till he be grown to manhood; the answer is more preposterous than the former; for this, in the instance of a shipwreck, you must suppose the cause why the winds arise, and the ship is leaky, or the pilot, through ignorance of the place, runs on a shoal or a rock. So the farmer is the cause of the war that impoverishes him; or of the favourable season, which brings him a plenteous harvest.

“You boast much of the event of a few predictions, which, considering the multitude of those your art has produced, plainly confess its impertinency. A million of deceptions are industriously hidden and forgot, in favour of some eight or ten things which have succeeded^[12]. Out of so many conjectures, it must be preternatural if some do not hit; and it is certain, that, by considering you only as guessers, there is no room to boast you have been successful therein. Do you know what fate awaits France in this war; and yet are not apprehensive what shall befal yourself? Did you not foresee the opposition I was this day to make you? If you can say whether the king will vanquish 48his enemies, find out first whether he will believe you.

Des Cartes and Agrippa, as they inveigh much against some other sciences, especially Agrippa, so the latter of them does not favour or spare astronomy, but particularly astrology, which he says, is an art altogether fallacious, and that all vanities and superstitions flow out of the bosom of astrology, their whole foundation being upon conjectures, and comparing future occurrences by past events, which they have no pretence for, since they allow that the heavens never have been, nor ever will be, in one exact position since the world commenced, and yet they borrow the effects and influence of the stars from the most remote ages in the world, beyond the memory of things, pretending themselves able to display the hidden natures, qualities, &c. of all sorts of animals, stones, metals, and plants, and to shew how the same does depend on the skies, and flow from the stars. Still Eudoxus, Archelaus, Cassandrus, Halicarnassus, and others, confess it is impossible, that any thing of certainty should be discovered by the art of judicial astrology, in consequence of the innumerable co-operating causes that attend the heavenly influences; and Ptolemy is also of this opinion. In like manner those who have prescribed the rules of judgments, set down their maxims so various and contradictory, that it is impossible for a prognosticator out of so many various and disagreeable opinions, to be able to pronounce any thing certain, unless he is inwardly inspired with some hidden instinct and sense of 49future things, or unless by some occult and latent communication with the devil. And antiquity witnesseth that Zoroaster, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cæsar, Crassus, Pompey, Diatharus, Nero, Julian the Apostate, and several others most addicted to astrologers’ predictions, perished unfortunately, though they were promised all things favourable and auspicious. And who can believe that any person happily placed under Mars, being in the ninth, shall be able to cast out devils by his presence only; or he who hath Saturn happily constituted with Leo at his nativity, shall, when he departs this life, immediately return to heaven, yet are the heresies maintained by Petrus Aponensis, Roger Bacon, Guido, Bonatus, Arnoldus de Villanova, philosophers; Aliacensis, cardinal and divine, and many other famous Christian doctors, against which astrologers the most learned Picus Mirandola wrote twelve books, so fully as scarcely one argument is omitted against it, and gave the death blow to astrology! Amongst the ancient Romans it was prohibited, and most of the holy fathers condemned, and utterly banished it out of the territories of Christianity, and in the synod of Martinus it was anathematized. As to the predictions of Thales, who is said to have foretold a scarcity of olives and a dearth of oil, so commonly avouched by astrologers to maintain the glory of their science, Des Cartes answers with an easy reason and probable truth, that Thales being a great natural philosopher, and thereby well acquainted with the virtue of water, (which he maintained was the principle of all things,) he 50could not be ignorant of the fruits that stood the most in need of moisture, and how much they were beholden to rain for their growth, which then being wanting, he might easily know there would be a scarcity without the help of astrology; yet if they will have it that Thales foreknew it only by the science of this art, why are not others who pretend to be so well skilled in its precepts, as able to have the same opportunities of enriching themselves? As for the foretelling the deaths of emperors and others, it was but conjectures, knowing most of them to be tyrants, and hated, and thereupon would they pretend to promise to others the empires and dignities, which sometimes spurring up ambitious minds, they neglected no attempts to gain the crown, the astrologers thereby occasioning murders, add advancements by secret instructions, rather than by any rules of art, which they publicly pretended to, to gloss their actions and advance the honour of their conjecturing science: by the same manner might Ascletarion have foretold the death of Domitian, and as for himself being torn to pieces by dogs, it was but a mere guess, for astrologers do not extend their predictions beyond death, and therefore he did not suppose his body would be torn to pieces after his death, as it proved, but alive as a punishment for his boldness in foretelling the death of the emperor, which being a common punishment, had it proved so, it had been by probability from custom, but not of the rules of astrology.—See Blome’s Body of Philosophy, pt. iii. chap. 14, in the history of Nature.

Amulets are certain substances to which the peculiar virtue of curing, removing, or preventing diseases, was attached by the superstitious and credulous; for which purpose they were usually worn about the neck or other parts of the body. The council of Laodicea prohibited ecclesiastics from wearing amulets and phylacteries, under pain of degradation. St. Chrysostome and Jerome were likewise zealous against the same practice. “Hoc apud nos,” says the latter, “superstitiosæ mulierculæ in parvulis evangeliis, et in crucis ligno, et istiusmodi rebus, quæ habent quidam zelum Dei, sed non juxta scientiam usque hodie factitant.”—Vide Kirch. Oedip. Egypt.

At the present day, although by no means entirely extinct, amulets have fallen into disrepute; the learned Boyle nevertheless considered them as an instance of the ingress of external effluvia into the habit, in order to shew the great porosity of the human body. He moreover adds, that he is persuaded “some of these external medicaments do answer;” for that he was himself subject to a bleeding from the nose; and being obliged to use several remedies to check this discharge, he found the moss of a dead man’s skull, though only applied so as to touch the skin until the moss became warm from being in contact with it, to be the most 52efficacious remedy. A remarkable instance of this nature was communicated to Zwelfer, by the chief physician to the states of Moravia, who, having prepared some troches, or lozenges of toads, after the manner of Van Helmont, not only found that being worn, as amulets, they preserved him, his domestics, and friends, from the plague, but when applied to the carbuncles or buboes, a consequence of this disease, in others, they found themselves greatly relieved, and many even saved by them. Mr. Boyle also shews how the effluvia, even of cold amulets, may, in the course of time, pervade the pores of the living animal, by supposing an agreement between the pores of the skin and the figure of the corpuscules. Bellini has demonstrated the possibility of this occurrence, in his last proposition de febribus; the same has also been shewn by Dr. Wainwright, Dr. Keil, and others. There were also verbal or lettered charms, which were frequently sung or chaunted, and to which a greater degree of efficacy was ascribed; and a belief in the curative powers of music has even extended to later times. In the last century, Orazio Benevoli composed a mass for the cessation of the plague at Rome. It was performed in St. Peter’s church, of which he was maestro di capella, and the singers, amounting to more than two hundred, were arranged in different circles of the dome; the sixth choir occupying the summit of the cupola.

The origin of amulets may be traced to the most remote ages of mankind. In our researches to discover and fix the period when remedies were 53first employed for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost in conjecture, or involved in fable; we are unable to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, and we find among the most uncultivated tribes, that medicine is cherished as a blessing, and practised as an art, as by the inhabitants of New Holland and New Zealand, by those of Lapland and Greenland, of North America and the interior of Africa. The personal feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and research to procure alleviation, the modification of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness; and the regulation and change of diet and habit, must intuitively have suggested themselves for the relief of pain, and when these resources failed, charms, amulets, and incantations, were the natural expedients of the barbarians, ever more inclined to indulge the delusive hope of superstition than to listen to the voice of sober reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history. The learned Dr. Warburton is evidently wrong, when he assigns the origin of these magical instruments to the age of the Ptolemies, which was not more than 300 years before Christ; this is at once refuted by the testimony of Galen, who tells us that the Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who lived 630 years before the Christian era, had written, that a green jasper cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied externally, would strengthen the stomach and organs of digestion. We have moreover the 54authority of the Scriptures in support of this opinion: for what were the ear-rings which Jacob buried under the oak of Sechem, as related in Genesis, but amulets? and we are informed by Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, (lib. viii. c. 2, 5,) that Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting its virtues; the root of the herb was concealed in a ring^[13], which was applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself remarks, that he himself saw a Jewish priest practise the art of Solomon with complete success in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribunes of the Roman army. Nor were such means confined to dark and barbarous ages; Theophrastus pronounced Pericles to be insane, because he discovered that he wore an amulet about his neck; and in the declining era of the Roman empire, we find that this superstitious custom was so general, that the Emperor Caracalla was induced to make a public edict, ordaining, that no man should wear any superstitious amulets about his person.

In the progress of civilization, various fortuitous incidents^[14], and even errors in the choice and preparation 55of aliments, must gradually have unfolded the remedial powers of many natural substances: these were recorded, and the authentic history of medicine may date its commencement from the period when such records began.

We are told by Herodotus, that the Chaldeans and Babylonians carried their sick to the public roads and markets, that travellers might converse with them, and communicate any remedies which had been successfully used in similar cases; this custom continued during many ages in Assyria: Strabo states that it also prevailed among the ancient Lusitanians, or Portuguese: in this manner, however, the results of experience descended only by oral tradition. It was in the temple of Æsculapius in Greece, that medical information was first recorded; diseases and cures were then registered on durable tablets of marble; the priests and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their application; and as these persons were ambitious to pass for the descendants of Æsculapius, they assumed the name of the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanias, Philostratus, and Plutarch, abound with the artifices of those early physicians. Aristophanes describes in a truly comic manner, the craft and pious avarice of these godly men, and mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they collected and put into bags the offerings on the altar. The patients, during this period, reposed on the skins of sacrificed rams, in order 56that they might procure celestial visions. As soon as they were believed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Æsculapius, imitating his manners, and accompanied by the daughters of the God, that is, by young actresses, thoroughly instructed in their parts, entered and delivered a medical opinion.

Definition of Amulets, &c.

All remedies working as it were sympathetically, and plainly unequal to the effect, may be termed Amulets; whether used at a distance by another person, or immediately about the patient: of these various are related. By the Jews, they were called Kamea; by the Greeks, Phylacteries, as already mentioned; and by the Latins, Amuleta or Ligatura; by the Catholics, Agnus Dei, or consecrated relicts, and by the natives of Guinea, where they are still held in great veneration, Fetishes. Different kinds of materials by these different people, have been venerated and supposed capable of preserving from danger and infection, as well as to remove diseases when actually present.

Plutarch relates of Pericles, an Athenian general, that when a friend came to see him, and inquiring after his health, he reached out his hand and shewed him his Amulet; by which he meant to intimate the truth of his illness, and, at the same time, the confidence he placed in these ordinary remedies.

Amulets still continue among us to the present day, indeed there are few instances of ancient superstition some parcel of which has not been preserved, and not unfrequently they have been adapted by men of otherwise good understanding, who 57plead in excuse, that they are not nauseous, cost little, and if they can do no good they can do no harm. Lord Bacon, whom no one can suspect of being an ignorant man, says, that if a man wear a bone ring or a planet seal, strongly believing, by that means, that he might obtain his mistress, or that it would preserve him unhurt at sea, or in battle, it would probably make him more active and less timid; as the audacity they might inspire would conquer and bind weaker minds in the execution of a perilous duty.

There are a variety of Amulets used by the common people for the cure of ague; and however this may be accounted for, whether by the imagination or the disease subsiding of its own accord, many have been apparently cured by them, when the Peruvian bark had previously failed. Agues, says Dr. Willis, resisting Amulets have often been applied to the wrist with success. Abracadabra written in a conical form, i. e. in the shape of an Isoceles triangle, beginning with A, then A B, A B R, and so on, and placed under each other, will have a good effect. The herb Lunaria, gathered by moonlight, we are assured by very respectable authorities, has performed some surprising cures. Naaman, we are told (numero deus impare gaudet) was cured by dipping seven times in the river Jordan. An old gentleman, of eighty years of age, who had nearly exhausted his substance upon physicians, was cured of a strangury, by a new glass bottle that had never been wet inside, only by making water in it, and burying it in the earth. There were also certain formalities 58performed at the pool of Bethseda for the cure of diseases. Dr. Chamberlayne’s Anodyne necklace for a long time was the sina qua non of mothers and nurses, until its virtue was lost by its reverence being destroyed; and those which have succeeded it have nearly run their race. The Grey Liverwort was at one time thought not only to have cured hydrophobia, but, by having it about the person, to have prevented mad dogs from biting them. Calvert paid devotions to St. Hubert for the recovery of his son, who was cured by this means. The son also performed the necessary rites at the shrine, and was cured not only of the hydrophobia, “but of the worser phrensy with which his father had instilled him.” Cramp rings were also used, and eel skins tied round the limbs, to prevent this spasmodic affection; and also by laying the sticks across on the floor in going to bed, have also performed cures this way. Numerous are the charms, amulets, and incantations, used even in the present day for the removal of warts. We are told by Lord Verulam (vol. iii. p. 234,) that when he was at Paris he had above an hundred warts on his hands; and that the English Ambassador’s lady, then at court, and a woman far above all superstition, removed them all only by rubbing them with the fat side of the rind of a piece of bacon, which they afterwards nailed to a post, with the fat side towards the south. In five weeks, says my Lord, they were all removed.

As Lord Verulam is allowed to have been as great a genius as this country ever produced, it may not be irrelevant to the present subject, to 59give, in his own words, what he has observed relative to the power of Amulets. After deep metaphysical observations in nature, and arguing in mitigation of sorcery, witchcraft, and divination, effects that far outstrip the belief in Amulets, he observes “we should not reject all of this kind, because it is not known how far those contributing to superstition depend on natural causes. Charms have not their power from contracts with evil spirits, but proceed wholly from strengthening the imagination; in the same manner that images and their influence, have prevailed in religion; being called from a different way of use and application, sigils, incantations, and spells.

Effect of the Imagination on the Mind, &c.

Imagination, indubitably, has a powerful effect on the mind, and in all these miraculous cures is by far the strongest ingredient. Dr. Strother says, the influence of the mind and passions works upon the body in sensible operations like a medicine, and is of far the greater force upon the juices than exercise. The countenance, he observes, betrays a good or wicked intention; and that good or wicked intention will produce in different persons a strength to encounter, or a weakness to yield to the preponderating side. “Our looks discover our passions; there being mystically in our faces, says Dr. Brown, certain characters, which carry in them the motto of our souls, and therefore probably work secret effects in other parts,” or, as Garth, in his “Dispensatory,” so beautifully illustrates the idea:

Addison, on the power and pleasure of the imagination (Spect. vol. vi.) concludes, from the pleasure and pain it administers here below, that God, who knows all the ways of afflicting us, may so transport us hereafter with such beautiful and glorious visions, or torment us with such hideous and ghastly spectres, as might even of themselves suffice to make up the entire of Heaven or Hell of any future being.

St. Vitus’ dance was cured by visiting the tomb of the saint, near Ulm, every May. Indeed, there is some reason in this assertion; for exercise and change of scene and air will cure many obstinate diseases. The bite of the Tarantula is cured by music; and what is more wonderful still, persons bitten by this noxious animal are only to be cured by certain tunes; thus, for instance, one might be cured with “Nancy Dawson,” while another could only reap a similar benefit from “Moll in the wood,” or “Off she goes.”

The learned Dr. Willis, whom we have already mentioned, in his treatise on Nervous diseases, does not hesitate to recommend Amulets in epileptic disorders. “Take,” says he, “some fresh Pæony roots, cut them into square bits, and hang them round the neck, changing them as often as they dry. In all probability the hint from this circumstance 61was taken for the Anodyne necklaces, which was in such strong requisition some time ago, and which produced so much benefit to the proprietors; as the doctor, a little further on, prescribes the same root for the looseness, fevers, and convulsions of children during the time of dentition, mixed, to make it appear more miraculous, with some elk’s hoof.

Turner, whose ideas on hydrophobia are so absurd, where he asserts, that the symptoms may not appear for forty years after the bite; and who asserts, “that the slaver or breath of such a dog is infectious; and that men bit, will bite like dogs again, and die mad; although he laughs at the Anodyne necklace, argues much in the same manner. It is not so very strange that the effluvia from external medicines entering our bodies, should effect such considerable changes, when we see the efficient cause of apoplexy, epilepsy, hysterics, plague, and a number of other disorders, consists, as it were in imperceptible vapours.

Lapis Ætites (blood stone) hung about the arm, by some similar secret means is said to prevent abortion, and to facilitate delivery, when worn round the thigh. Dr. Sydenham, in the iliac passion, orders a live kitten to be laid constantly on the abdomen; others have used pigeons split alive, and applied to the soles of the feet with success, in pestilential fevers and convulsions. The court of king David thought that relief might be obtained by external agents; otherwise they would not have advised him to seek a young virgin; doubtless thereby imagining that the virgin of youth would impart a portion of its warmth and 62strength to the decay of age. “Take the heart and liver of the fish and make a smoke, and the devil shall smell it and flee away.” (Tobit, c. vi.)

During the plague of London, arsenic was worn as an amulet against infection. During this melancholy period, Bradley says, that Bucklersbury was not visited with this scourge, which was attributed to the number of druggists and apothecaries living there.

During the plague at Marseilles, which Belort attributed to the larvæ of worms infecting the saliva, food, and chyle; and which, he says, were hatched by the stomach, took their passage into the blood, at a certain size, hindering the circulation, affecting the juices and solid parts, advised amulets of mercury to be worn in bags suspended at the chest and nostrils, either as a safeguard or as a means of cure; by which method, through the admissiveness of the pores, effluvia specially destructive of all venemous insects, were received into the blood. “An illustrious prince,” continues Belort, “by wearing such an amulet, escaped the small-pox.”

An Italian physician (Clognini) ordered two or three drachms of crude mercury to be worn as a defensive against the jaundice; and also as a preservative against the noxious vapours of inclement seasons: “it breaks,” he observes, “and conquers the different figured seeds of pestilential distempers floating in the air; or else, mixing with the air, kills them where hatched.”

Other philosophers have ascribed the power of mercury in these cases, to an elective faculty given out by the warmth of the body; which attracts the 63infectious particles outwards. For, say they, all bodies are continually emitting effluvia more or less around them, and some whether they be external or internal. The Bath waters change the colour of silver in the pockets of those who use them; mercury the same; cantharides applied externally (or taken inwardly) affects the urinary organ; and camphor, in the same manner, is said to be an antiphrodesiac. Quincey informs us, that by only walking in a newly-painted room, a whole company had the smell of turpentine in their urine. Yawning and laughing are infectious; so is fear and shame. The sight of sour things, or even the idea of them, will set the teeth on edge. Small-pox, itch, and other diseases, are infectious; if so, mercurial amulets bid fair to destroy the germ of some complaints when used only as an external application, either by manual attrition or worn as an amulet, or inhaled by the nose. One word for all; amulets, medicated or not, are precarious and uncertain; and, now a-day, are seldom resorted to, much less confided in.

Baglivi refines on the doctrine of effluvia, by ascribing his cures of the bite of the tarantula to the peculiar undulation any instrument or tune makes by its strokes in the air; which, vibrating upon the external parts of the patient, is communicated to the whole nervous system, and produces that happy alteration in the solids and fluids which so effectually contributes to the cure. The contraction of the solids, he says, impresses new mathematical motions and directions to the fluids; in one or both of which, is seated all distempers, 64and without any other help than a continuance of faith, will alter their quality, a philosophy as wonderful and intricate as the nature of the poison it is intended to expel; but which, however, supplies this observation, that, if the particles of sound can do so much, the effluvia of amulets may do more.

The Moors of Barbary, and generally throughout the Mahomedan dominions, the people are remarkably attached to charms, to which and nature they leave the cure of almost every distemper; and this is the more strongly impressed on them from the belief in predestination; which, according to this sect, stipulates the evils a man is to suffer, as well as the length of time it is ordained he should live upon the land of his forefathers: consequently, they conceive that the interference of secondary means would avail them nothing, an opinion said to have been entertained by King William, but by no means calculated for nations, liberty, and commerce; upon the principle, that when the one was entrenched upon, men would probably be more sudden in their revenge and dislike physic and its occupation, and when actuated with religious enthusiasm, nothing could stand them in any service.

“A long and intense passion on one object,” observes an old navy surgeon^[15], “whether of pride, love, anger, fear, or envy, we see have brought on some universal tremors; on others, convulsions, madness, melancholy, consumption, hecticks, or such a chronical disorder, 65as has wasted their flesh or their strength, as certainly as the taking in of any poisonous drugs would have done. Any thing frightful, sudden, and surprising, upon soft, timorous natures, not only shews itself in the countenance, but produces sometimes very troublesome consequences; for instance, a parliamentary fright will make even grown men sh-t themselves, scare them out of their wits, turn the hair grey. Surprise removes the hooping-cough; looking from precipices, or seeing wheels turn swiftly, gives giddiness, &c. Shall then these little accidents or the passions, (from caprice or humour perhaps,) produce those effects, and not be able to do any thing by amulets? No, as the spirits in many cases resort in plenty, we find where the fancy determines, giving joy and gladness to the heart, strength and fleetness to the limbs, lust a flagrancy to the eyes, palpitation, and priapism; so amulets, under strong imagination, is carried with more force to a distempered part; and, under these circumstances, its natural powers exert better to a discussion.

“The cures compassed in this manner are not more admirable than many of the distempers themselves. Who can apprehend by what impenetrable method the bite of a mad dog^[16] or tarantula should produce their symptoms? The 66touch of a torpedo, numbness? or a woman impress the marks of her longings and her frights on her fœtus? If they are allowed to do these, doubtless they may the other; and not by miracles, which Spinoza denies the possibility of, but by natural and regular causes, though inscrutable to us.

“The best way, therefore, in using amulets, must be in squaring them to the imagination of patients: let the newness and the surprise exceed the invention, and keep up the humour by a long roll of cures and vouchers: by these and such means many distempers, especially of women, that are ill all over, or know not what they ail, have been cured, I am apt to think, more by a fancy to the physician than his prescription; which hangs on the file like an amulet. Quacks again, according to their boldness and way of addressing (velvet and infallibility particularly) command success by striking the fancies of an audience. If a few, more sensible than the rest, see the doctor’s miscarriages, and are not easily gulled at first sight, yet when they see a man is never ashamed, in time jump in to his assistance.”

Our inability upon all occasions to appreciate the efforts of nature in the cure of disease, must always render our notions, with respect to the powers of art, liable to numerous errors and multiplied deceptions. Nothing is more natural, and at the same time more erroneous, than to attribute the cure of a disease to the last medicine that had 67been employed; the advocates of amulets and charms^[17] have ever been thus enabled to appeal to the testimony of what they are pleased to call experience, in justification of their superstitions; and cases which in truth ought to have been considered lucky escapes, have been triumphantly puffed off as skilful cures; and thus have medicines and practitioners alike acquired unmerited praise or unjust censure.

Devotion to authority and established routine has always been the means of opposing the progress of reason, the advancement of natural truths, and the prosecution of new discoveries; whilst, with effects no less baneful, has it perpetuated many of the stupendous errors which have been already enumerated, as well as others no less weighty, and which are reserved for future discussion.

To give currency to some inactive substance as 68possessing extraordinary, nay wonderful medicinal properties, requires only the sanction of a few great names; and when established upon such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their impotent batteries. In this manner have all the nostra and patent medicines got into repute that ever were held in any estimation. And the same devotion to authority which induces us to retain an accustomed remedy upon the bare assertion and presumption either of ignorance or partiality, will, in like manner, oppose the introduction of a novel practice with asperity, unless indeed it be supported by authorities of still greater weight and consideration.

The history of various articles of diet and medicine, will amply prove how much their reputation and fate have depended upon authority. For instance, it was not until many years after ipecacuanha had been imported into England, that Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV. succeeded in introducing it into practice: and to the praise of Katherine, queen of Charles II. we are indebted for the general introduction of tea into England. Tobacco, notwithstanding its fascinating powers, has suffered romantic vicissitudes in its fame and character; it has been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and eulogized by priests and kings^[18], and proscribed and 69protected by governments, whilst, at length, this once insignificant production of a little island, or an obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself through every climate, and in subjecting the inhabitants of every country to its dominion. The Arab cultivates it in the burning desert;—the Laplander and Esquimaux risk their lives to procure a refreshment so delicious in their wintry solitude;—the seaman, grant him but this luxury, and he will endure with cheerfulness every other privation, and defy the fury of the raging elements;—and, in the higher walk of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the palace and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this singular plant, commands an equal tribute of devotion and attachment. Nor is the history of the potatoe less extraordinary or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious influence of authority. In fact, the introduction of this valuable plant received, for more than two centuries, an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe in the midst of his court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation.

The history of the warm bath furnishes us with another curious instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable resources are 70so uniformly exposed. That, in short, which for so many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health, and the most efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had cured the emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath. The coldest water, therefore, was recommended on every occasion. This practice, however, was but of short duration. The popularity of the warm bath soon lost all its premature and precocious popularity; for, though it had restored the emperor to health, it shortly afterwards killed his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus; an event which at once deprived the remedy of its credit, and the physician of his popularity.^[19]

An illustration of the overbearing influence of authority, in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it, might be furnished in the history of the Peruvian bark. This heroic remedy was first brought to Spain in the year 1632, where it remained seven years before any trial was made of its powers. An ecclesiastic of Alcala was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639; but even at this period, its use was limited, and it would have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the Roman church, by whose protecting auspices it was enabled to gain a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Innocent the Tenth, at 71the intercession of Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish jesuit, ordered that its nature and effects should be duly examined, and on its being reported both innocent and salutary, it immediately rose into public notice. Its career, however, was suddenly arrested by its having unfortunately failed in the autumn 1652 to cure Leopold, Archduke of Austria, of a quartan intermittent: from this circumstance it had nearly fallen into disrepute.

As years and fashion revolve, so have these neglected remedies, each in its turn, risen again into favour and notice; whilst old receipts, like old almanacks, are abandoned, until the period may arrive that will once more adapt them to the spirit and fashion of the times. Thus it happens, that most of the new discoveries in medicine have turned out to be no more than the revival and readoption of ancient practices.

During the last century, the root of the male fern was retailed as a secret nostrum, by Madame Nouffleur, a French empiric, for the cure of the tapeworm: the secret was purchased for a considerable sum of money by Lewis XV. The physicians then discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in that complaint by Galen.

The history of popular remedies for the cure of gout, also furnishes ample matter for the elucidation of this subject.

The celebrated powder of the Duke of Portland, was no other than the diacentaureon of Cœlius Aurelianus, or the antidotos ex duobus centaureæ 72generibus of Ætius, the receipt for which a friend of his Grace brought with him from Switzerland; into which country, in all probability, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western parts of Europe.

The active ingredient of a no less celebrated remedy for the same disease, the eau médicinale, a medicine brought into fashion by M. Husson, whose name it bears, a military officer in the service of the King of France, about fifty years ago, has been discovered to be the colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron. Upon investigating the virtues of this medicine, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called Hermodactyllus, by Oribasius^[20] and Ætius^[21], but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose prescription consisted of hermodactyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin-seed, aniseed, and scammony, which, he says, will enable those who take it, to walk immediately. An inquiry was immediately instituted after this unknown plant, and upon procuring a specimen of it from Constantinople, it was actually found to be a species of colchicum.

The use of Prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately proposed by Dr. Majendie, a French physiologist, is little else than the revival 73of the Dutch practice in this complaint; for we are informed by Lumæus, in the fourth volume of his “Amenitates Acadamicæ,” that distilled laurel water was frequently used in Holland in the cure of pulmonary consumption. The celebrated Dr. James’s fever powder was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle, a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne’s complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The various secret preparations of opium which have been lauded as the discovery of modern times, may be recognised in the works of ancient authors.

The science, if it deserves to be distinguished by the name of Alchymy, or the transmutation of metals into gold, has doubtless been an imposition, which, striking on the feeblest part of the human mind, has so frequently been successful in carrying on its delusions.

The Corrina of Dryden (Mrs. Thomas) during her life, has recorded one of these delusions of 74Alchymy. From the circumstances, it is very probable the sage was not less deceived than his patroness. An infatuated lover of this delusive art met one who pretended to have the power of transmuting lead to gold; that is, in their language, the imperfect metals to the perfect one. This Hermetic philosopher required only the materials and time, to perform his golden operations. He was taken to the country residence of his patroness, a long laboratory was built, and that his labours might not be impeded by any disturbance, no one was permitted to enter into it. His door was contrived to turn on a pivot; so that, unseen and unseeing, his meals were conveyed to him without distracting the sublime contemplations of the sage.

During a residence of two years he never condescended to speak but two or three times in the year to his infatuated patroness. When she was admitted into the laboratory, she saw with pleasing astonishment, stills, immense cauldrons, long flues, and three or four Vulcanian fires, blazing at different corners of this magical mine: nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable figure of the dusty philosopher. Pale and emaciated with daily operations and nightly vigils, he revealed to her, in unintelligible jargon, his progress; and having sometimes condescended to explain the mysteries of the Arcana, she beheld or seemed to behold, streams of fluid, and heaps of solid ore, scattered around the laboratory. Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of lead. She began now to lower her imagination to the 75standard of reason. Two years had now elapsed, vast quantities of lead had gone in, and nothing but lead had come out. She disclosed her sentiments to the philosopher; he candidly confessed he was himself surprised at his tardy processes; but that now he would exert himself to the utmost, and that he would venture to perform a laborious operation, which hitherto he had hoped not to have been necessitated to employ. His patroness retired, and the golden visions of expectation resumed all their lustre.

One day as they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack followed by another loud as the report of cannon, assailed their ears. They hastened to the laboratory; two of the greatest stills had burst, and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are told that after another adventure of this kind, this victim to Alchymy, after ruining another patron, in despair swallowed poison.

Even more recently we have a history of an Alchymist in the life of Romney, the painter. This Alchymist, after bestowing much time and money on preparations for the grand projection, and being near the decisive hour, was induced, by the too earnest request of his wife, to quit his furnace one evening, to attend some of her company at the tea-table. While the projector was attending the ladies, his furnace blew up! In consequence of this event, he conceived such an antipathy against his wife, that he could not endure the idea of living with her again.

76Henry IV. was so reduced by his extravagancies, that Evelyn observes in his Numismata, he endeavoured to recruit his empty coffers by an Alchymical speculation. The record of this singular proposition, contains “the most solemn and serious account of the feasibility and virtues of the philosopher’s stone, encouraging the search after it, and dispensing with all statutes and prohibitions to the contrary.” This record was very probably communicated (says an ingenious antiquary) by Mr. Selden to his beloved friend Ben Jonson, when he was writing his comedy of the Alchymist.

After this patent was published, many promised to answer the King’s expectations so effectually (adds the same writer) that the next year he published another patent; wherein he tells his subjects, that the happy hour was drawing nigh, and by means of the STONE, which he should be master of, he would pay all the debts of the nation in real gold and silver. The persons picked out for his new operations were as remarkable as the patent itself, being a most “miscellaneous rabble” of friars, grocers, mercers, and fishmongers!

This patent was likewise granted authoritate parliamenti.

Prynne, who has given this patent in his Aurum Reginæ, p. 135, concludes with this sarcastic observation:—“A project never so seasonable and necessary as now!” And this we repeat, and our successors will no doubt imitate us!

Alchymists were formerly called multipliers; as appears from a statute of Henry IV. repealed 77in the preceding record. The statute being extremely short, we shall give it for the reader’s satisfaction.

“None from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, he shall incur the pain of felony.”

Every philosophical mind must be convinced that Alchymy is not an art, which some have fancifully traced to the remotest times; it may rather be regarded, when opposed to such a distance of time, as a modern imposture. Cæsar commanded the treatises of Alchymy to be burnt throughout the Roman dominions—Cæsar, who is not less to be admired as a philosopher than as a monarch.

Mr. Gibbon has the following succinct passage relative to Alchymy: “The ancient books of Alchymy, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of Dioclesian is the first authentic event in the history of Alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe, with equal eagerness and equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder; and the revival of learning gave new 78vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts to deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of Alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.”

Elias Ashmole writes in his diary—“May 13, 1653. My father Backhouse (an Astrologer who had adopted him for his son—a common practice with these men) lying sick in Fleet Ditch, over against St. Dunstan’s church, and not knowing whether he should live or die, about eleven of the clock told me in Syllables the true matter of the Philosopher’s Stone, which he bequeathed to me as a legacy.” By this we learn that a miserable wretch knew the art of making gold, yet always lived a beggar; and that Ashmole really imagined he was in possession of the Syllables of a secret! he has however built a curious monument of the learned follies of the last century, in his “Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum.” Though Ashmole is rather the historian of this vain science than an adept, it may amuse literary leisure to turn over his quarto volume, in which he has collected the works of several English Alchymists, to which he has subjoined his Commentary. It affords a curious specimen of Rosicrucian Mysteries; and Ashmole relates stories, which vie for the miraculous, with the wildest fancies of Arabian invention. Of the Philosopher’s Stone, he says, he knows enough to hold his tongue, but not enough to speak. This Stone has not only the power of transmuting any imperfect earthy matter into its 79utmost degree of perfection, and can convert the basest metals into gold, flints into stones, &c. but it has still more occult virtues, when the arcana have been entered into, by the choice fathers of hermetic mysteries. The vegetable stone has power over the natures of man, beast, fowls, fishes, and all kinds of trees and plants, to make them flourish and bear fruit at any time. The magical stone discovers any person wherever he is concealed; while the angelical stone gives the apparitions of angels, and a power of conversing with them. These great mysteries are supported by occasional facts, and illustrated by prints of the most divine and incomprehensible designs, which we would hope were intelligible to the initiated. It may be worth shewing, however, how liable even the latter were to blunder on these Mysterious Hieroglyphics. Ashmole, in one of his chemical works, prefixed a frontispiece, which, in several compartments, exhibited Phœbus on a lion, and opposite to him a lady, who represented Diana, with the moon in one hand and an arrow in the other, sitting on a crab; Mercury on a tripod, with the scheme of the heavens in one hand, and his caduceus in the other. They were intended to express the materials of the Stone, and the season for the process. Upon the altar is the bust of a man, his head covered by an astrological scheme dropped from the clouds; and on the altar are these words, Mercuriophilus Anglicus, i. e. the English lover of hermetic philosophy. There is a tree and a little creature gnawing the root, a pillar adorned with musical and mathematical instruments, 80and another with military ensigns. This strange composition created great inquiry among the chemical sages. Deep mysteries were conjectured to be veiled by it. Verses were written in the highest strain of the Rosicrucian language. Ashmole confessed he meant nothing more than a kind of pun on his own name, for the tree was the ash, and the creature was a mole. One pillar tells his love of music and freemasonry, and the other his military preferment and astrological studies! He afterwards regretted that no one added a second volume to his work, from which he himself had been hindered, for the honour of the family of Hermes, and “to shew the world what excellent men we had once of our nation, famous for this kind of philosophy, and masters of so transcendant a secret.”

Modern chemistry is not without a hope, not to say a certainty, of verifying the golden visions of the Alchymists. Dr. Gertänner, of Gottingen, has lately adventured the following prophecy: “In the nineteenth century the transmutation of metals will be generally known and practised. Every chemist and every artist will make gold; kitchen materials will be of silver, and even gold, which will contribute more than any thing else to prolong life, poisoned at present by the oxyds of copper, lead, and iron, which we daily swallow with our food^[23].” This sublime chemist, though he does not venture to predict that universal Elixir^[24], which is to prolong 81life at pleasure, yet approximates to it. A chemical friend observed, that “the metals seem to be composite bodies, which nature is perpetually preparing; and it may be reserved for the future researches of Science to trace, and perhaps to imitate, some of these curious operations.”

Origin, Objects, and Practice of Alchymy, &c.

We find the word Alchymy occurring, for the first time, in Julius Firmicus Maternus, an author who lived under Constantine the Great, who in his Mathesis, iii. 35, speaking of the influence of the heavenly bodies, affirms, “that if the Moon be in the house of Saturn, at the time a child is born, he shall be skilled in Alchymy.”

The great objects or ends pursued by Alchymy, are, 1st, To make gold; which is attempted by separation, maturation; and by transmutation, which is to be effected by means of the Philosopher’s stone. With a view to this end, Alchymy, in some writers, is also called ποιητκη, poetice, and χρυσοποιητικη, chryso poetice, i. e. the art of making gold; and hence also, by a similar derivation, the artists themselves are called gold-makers.

2d. An universal medicine, adequate to all diseases.

3d. An universal dissolvent or alkahest. (See Alkahest.)

4. An universal ferment, or a matter, which being applied to any seed, shall increase its fecundity to infinity. If, for example, it be applied 82to gold, it shall change the gold into the philosopher’s stone of gold,—if to silver, into the philosopher’s stone of silver,—and if to a tree, the result is, the philosopher’s stone of the tree; which transmutes every thing it is applied to, into trees.

The origin and antiquity of Alchymy have been much controverted. If we may credit legend and tradition, it must be as old as the flood; nay, Adam himself, is represented by the Alchymist, as an adept. A great part, not only of the heathen mythology, but of the Jewish and Christian Revelations, are supposed to refer to it. Thus Suidas will have the fable of the Philosopher’s Stone, to be alluded to in the fable of the Argonauts; and others find it in the book of Moses, &c. But if the æra of the art be examined by the monument of history, it will lose much of this fancied antiquity. The learned Dane, Borrichius, has taken immense pains to prove that it was not unknown to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Crounguis, on the contrary, with equal address, undertakes to show its novelty. Still not one of the ancient poets, philosophers, or physicians, from the time of Homer till four hundred years after the birth of Christ, mention any thing about it.

The first author who speaks of making gold, is Zosimus the Pomopolite, who lived about the beginning of the fifth century, and who has a treatise express upon it, called, “the divine art of making gold and silver,” in manuscript, and is, as formerly, in the King of France’s library. The next is Æneas Gazeus, another Greek writer, towards the close of the same century, in whom 83we find the following passage:—“Such as are skilled in the ways of nature, can take silver and tin, and changing their nature, can turn them into gold.” The same writer tells us, that he was “wont to call himself χρυσοχοος, gold melter, and χημευτης, chemist.” Hence we may conclude, that a notion of some such art as Alchymy was in being at that age; but as neither of these artists inform us how long it had been previously known, their testimony will not carry us back beyond the age in which they lived.

In fact, we find no earlier or plainer traces of the universal medicine mentioned any where else; nor among the physicians and naturalists, from Moses to Geber the Arab, who is supposed to have lived in the seventh century. In that author’s work, entitled the “Philosopher’s Stone,” mention is made of a medicine that cures all leprous diseases. This passage, some authors suppose, to have given the first hint of the matter; though Geber himself, perhaps, meant no such thing; for by attending to the Arabic style and diction of this author, which abounds in allegory, it is highly probable, that by man he means gold; and by leprous, or other diseases, the other metals; which, with relation to gold, are all impure.

The manner in which Suidas accounts for this total silence of old authors with regard to Alchymy, is, that Dioclesian procured all the books of the ancient Egyptians to be burnt; and that it was in these that the great mysteries of chymistry were contained. Corringius calls this statement in question, and asks how Suidas, who lived but 84five hundred years before us, should know what happened eight hundred years before him? To which Borrichius answers, that he had learnt it of Eudemus, Helladius, Zosimus, Pamphilius, &c. as Suidas himself relates.

Kercher asserts, that the theory of the Philosopher’s Stone, is delivered at large in the table of Hermes, and that the ancient Egyptians were not ignorant of the art, but declined to prosecute it. They did not appear to transmute gold; they had ways of separating it from all kinds of bodies, from the very mud of the Nile, and stones of all kinds: but, he adds, these secrets were never written down, or made public, but confined to the royal family, and handed down traditionally from father to son.

The chief point advanced by Borrichius, and in which he seems to lay the principal stress, is, the attempt of Caligula, mentioned by Pliny, for procuring gold from Orpiment, (Hist. Nat. 1. xxxiii. c. 4.) But this, it may be observed, makes very little for that author’s pretensions; there being no transmutations, no hint of any Philosopher’s Stone, but only a little gold was extracted or separated from the mineral.

The principal authors on Alchymy are, Geber, Friar Bacon, Sully, John and Isaac Hallandus, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Van Zuchter, and Sendirogius.

In Chemistry, means a most pure and universal menstruum or dissolvent, with which some chemists have pretended to resolve all bodies into their first matter, and perform other extraordinary and unaccountable operations.

Paracelsus and Van Helmont, expressly declare, that there is a certain fluid in nature, capable of reducing all sublunary bodies, as well hemogeneous as mixed, into their ens primum, or original matter of which they are composed; or into an uniform equable and potable liquor, that will unite with water, and the juices of our bodies, yet will retain its radical virtues; and if mixed with itself again, will thereby be converted into pure elementary water. This declaration, seconded by the asseveration of Van Helmont, who solemnly declared himself possessed of the secret, excited succeeding Chemists and Alchymists to the pursuit of so noble a menstruum. Mr. Boyle was so much attracted with it, that he frankly acknowledged he had rather been master of it, than of the Philosopher’s Stone. In short, it is not difficult to conceive, that bodies might originally arise from some first matter, which was once in a fluid form. Thus, the primitive matter of gold is, perhaps, nothing more than a ponderous fluid, which, from its own nature, or a strong cohesion or attraction between its particles, acquires afterwards a solid form. And hence there does not appear 86any absurdity in the notion of an universal ens, that resolves all bodies into their Ens Genitate.

The Alcahest is a subject that has been embraced by many anthers; e. g. Pantatem, Philalettes, Tachenius, Ludovicus, &c. Boerhaave says, a library of them might be collected; and Werdenfelt, in his treatise de Secretis Adeptorum, has given all the opinions that have been entertained concerning it.

The term Alcahest is not peculiarly found in any language: Helmont declares, he first observed it in Paracelsus, as a word that was unknown before the time of that author, who in his second book, De Viribus Membrorum, treating of the liver, has these rather remarkable words: Est etiam alkahest liquor, magnam sepates conservandi et confortandi, &c. “There is also the liquor Alkerhest, of great efficacy in preserving the liver; as also in curing hydropsical and all other diseases arising from disorders of that part. If it have once conquered its like, it becomes superior to all other hepatic medicines; and though the liver itself was broken and dissolved, this medicine should supply its place.”

It was this passage alone, quoted from Paracelsus, that stimulated succeeding chemists to an enquiry after the Alkahest; there being only another indirect expression, in all his work, relating to it.

As it was a frequent practice with Paracelsus to transpose the letters of his words, and to abbreviate or otherwise conceal them; e. g. for tartar, he would write Sutratur; for Nitrum, Mutrin, 87&c. it is supposed that Alcahest must be a word disguised in the same manner. Hence some imagine it, and with much probability, to be formed of alkali est; consequently that it was the Alkaline salt of tartar salatilized. This appears to have been Glauber’s opinion; who, in fact, performed surprising things with such a menstruum, upon subjects of all the three kingdoms. Others will have it derived from the German word algeist, that is, wholly spirituous or volatile; others are of opinion, that the word Alcahest is taken from saltz-geist, which signifies spirit of salt; for the universal menstruum, it is said, is to be wrought from water: and Paracelsus himself calls salt the centre of water, wherein metals ought to die, &c. In fact, spirit of salt was the great menstruum he used on most occasions.

The Commentator on Paracelsus, who gave a Latin edition of his works at Delft, assures us that the alcahest was mercury, converted into a spirit. Zwelfer judged it to be a spirit of vinegar rectified from verdigris, and Starkey thought he discovered it in his soap.

There have nevertheless been some synonimous and more significant words used for the Alkahest. Van Helmont, the elder, mentions it by the compound name of ignis-aqua, fire-water: but he here seems to allude to the circulated liquor of Paracelsus, which he terms fire, from its property of consuming all things; and water, on account of its liquid form. The same author calls it liqoer Gehennæ, infernal fire; a word also used by Paracelsus. He also entitles it, “Summun et felicismum 88omnium salium,” “the highest and most successful of all salts; which having obtained the supreme degree of simplicity, purity, and subtilty, enjoys alone the faculty of remaining unchanged and unimpaired by the subjects it works upon, and of dissolving the most stubborn and untractable bodies; as stones, gems, glass, earth, sulphur, metals, &c. into real salt, equal in weight to the matter dissolved; and this with as much ease as hot water melts down snow.”—“This salt,” continues he, “by being several times cohabited with Paracelsus’, Sal circulatum, loses all its fixedness, and at length becomes an insipid water, equal in quantity to the salt it was made from.”

Van Helmont positively expresses that this salt is the product of art and not of nature. “Though, says he, a homogeneal part of elementary earth may be artfully converted into water, yet I deny that the same can be done by nature alone; for no natural agent is able to transmute one element into another.” And this he offers as a reason why the Elements always remain the same.

It may throw some light into this affair, to observe, that Van Helmont, as well as Paracelsus, took water for the universal instrument of chymistry and natural philosophy; and earth for the unchangeable basis of all things—that fire was assigned as the sufficient cause of all things—that seminal impressions were lodged in the mechanism of the earth—that water, by dissolving and fermenting with this earth, as it does by means of fire, brings forth every thing; whence originally proceeded 89the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms: even man himself, according to Moses, was thus at first created.

The great characteristic or property of the Alkahest, as has already been observed, is to dissolve and change all sublunary bodies—water alone excepted.——The changes it induces proceed in the following manner, viz.

1. The subject exposed to its operation, is converted into its three principles, salt, sulphur, and mercury; and afterwards into salt alone, which then becomes volatile; and, at length, is wholly turned into insipid water.—The manner in which it is applied, is by touching the body proposed to be dissolved; e. g. gold, mercury, sand, glass, or the like, once or twice with the pretended alkahest; and if the liquor be genuine, the body will on this application be converted into its own quality of salt.

2. It does not destroy the seminal virtues of the bodies thereby dissolved.—For instance,—gold, by its action, is reduced to a salt of gold; antimony, to a salt of antimony; saffron, to a salt of saffron, &c. of the same seminal virtues, or characters with the original concrete. By seminal virtues, Van Helmont means those virtues which depend upon the structure or mechanism of a body, and which constitutes it what it actually is. Hence an actual and general aurum potabile might readily be gained by the alkahest, as converting the whole body of gold into salt, retaining its seminal virtues, and being withal soluble in water.

3. Whatever it dissolves may be rendered volatile 90by a sand-heat; and if, after volatilizing the solvent, it be distilled therefrom, the body is left pure insipid water, equal in quantity to its original self, but deprived of its seminal virtues. Then, if gold be dissolved by the Alkahest, the metal first becomes salt, which is potable gold; but when the menstruum, by a further application of fire, is distilled therefrom, it is left mere elementary water. Whence it appears, that pure water is the last production or effect of the alkahest.

4. It suffers no change or diminution of force by dissolving the bodies it works in; consequently sustains no reaction from them; being the only immutable menstruum in nature.

5. It is incapable of mixture, and therefore remains free from fermentation and putrefaction; coming off as pure from the body it has dissolved, as when first applied to it; without leaving the least foulness behind.

One who practises the art of Magic. (Vide Divination, Sorcery, and Magic.)

The ancient magicians pretended to extraordinary powers of interpreting dreams, foretelling future events, and accomplishing many wonderful things, by their superior knowledge of the secret powers of nature, of the virtues of plants and minerals, and of the motions and influences of the stars. And as the art of magic among Pagan nations was founded on their system of theology, and the magi who first exercised it were the priests of the gods, they pretended to derive these extraordinary powers from the assistance of the gods, which assistance they sought by a variety of rites and sacrifices, adapted to their respective natures, by the use of charms and superstitious words, and also by ceremonies and supplications: they pretended, likewise, in the proper use of their art, to a power of compelling the gods to execute their desires and commands. An excellent writer has shewn, that the Scripture brands all these powers as a shameless imposture, and reproaches those who assumed them with an utter inability of discovering, or accomplishing, any thing supernatural. (See Isaiah, xlvii. 11, 12, 13. chap. xli. 23, 24. chap. xliv. 25. Jeremiah, x. 2, 3, 8, 14. chap xiv. 14. chap, xxvii. 9, 10. chap. i. 36. Ps. xxi. 6. Jonah, ii. 8.) Nevertheless, many of the Christian fathers, as 92well as some of the heathen philosophers, ascribed the efficacy of magic to evil dæmons; and it was a very prevailing opinion in the primitive, that magicians and necromancers, both among the Gentiles and heretical Christians, had each their particular dæmons perpetually attending on their persons, and obsequious to their commands, by whose help they could call up the souls of the dead, foretel future events, and perform miracles. In support of this opinion, it has been alleged that the names by which the several sorts of diviners are described in scripture, imply a communication with spiritual beings; that the laws of Moses (Exod. xxii. 18. Lev. xix. 26, 31. chap. xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 10, 11.) against divination and witchcraft, prove the efficacy of these arts, though in reality they prove nothing more than their execrable wickedness and impiety; and that pretensions to divination could not have supported their credit in all the heathen nations, and through all ages, if some instances of true divination had not occurred. But the strongest argument is derived from the scripture history of the Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses. With regard to the works performed by these magicians, some have supposed that God himself empowered them to perform true miracles, and gave them an unexpected success; but the history expressly ascribes the effects they produced, not to God, but to their own enchantments. Others imagine, that the devil assisted the magicians, not in performing true miracles, but in deceiving the senses of the spectators, or in presenting before them delusive appearances of true 93miracles: against which opinion it has been urged, that it tends to disparage the credit of the works of Moses. The most common opinion, since the time of St. Austin, has been, that they were not only performed by the power of the devil, but were genuine miracles, and real imitations of those of Moses. In a late elaborate enquiry into the true sense and design of this part of scripture history, it has been shewn that the names given to magicians seem to express their profession, their affectation of superior knowledge, and their pretensions both to explain and effect signs and wonders, by observing the rules of their art; and therefore, that they are the persons, whose ability of discovering or effecting any thing supernatural, the scripture expressly denies. The learned author farther investigates the design for which Pharaoh employed them on this occasion: which, he apprehends, was to learn from them, whether the sign given by Moses was truly supernatural, or only such as their art was able to accomplish. Accordingly it is observed, that they did not undertake to outdo Moses, or to controul him, by superior or opposite arts of power, but merely to imitate him, or to do the same works with his, with a view of invalidating the argument which he drew from his miracles, in support of the sole divinity of Jehovah, and of his own mission. The question on this was not, are the gods of Egypt superior to the gods of Israel, or can any evil spirits perform greater miracles than those which Moses performed by the assistance of Jehovah? but the question is, are the works of Moses proper proofs, that the god of Israel is 94Jehovah, the only sovereign of nature, and consequently that Moses acts by his commission; or, are they merely the wonders of nature, and the effects of magic? In this light Philo, (de Vita Mosis, lib. i. p. 616.) and Josephus, (Antiq. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 13.) place the subject. Moreover, it appears from the principles and conduct of Moses, that he could not have allowed the magicians to have performed real miracles; because the scripture represents the whole body of magicians as impostors; the sacred writers, Moses in particular, describe all the heathen deities, in the belief of whose existence and influence the magic art was founded, as unsupported by any invisible spirit, and utterly impotent and senseless: the religion of Moses was built on the unity and sole dominion of God, and the sole divinity of Jehovah was the point which Moses was now about to establish, in direct opposition to the principles of idolatry; so that if he had allowed that the heathen idols, or any evil spirit supporting their cause, enabled the magicians to turn rods into serpents, and water into blood, and to create frogs, he would have contradicted the great design of his mission, and overthrown the whole fabric of his religion; besides, Moses appropriates all Miracles to God, and urges his own, both in general and separately, as an absolute and authentic proof, both of the sole divinity of Jehovah, and of his own mission; which he could not justly have done, if his opposers performed miracles, and even the same with his. On the other hand, it has been urged, that Moses describes the works of the magicians in the very 95same language as he does his own, (Exod. vii. 11, 12. chap. v. 22. chap. viii. 7.) and hence it is concluded, that they were equally miraculous. To this objection it is replied, that it is common to speak of professed Jugglers, as doing what they pretend and appear to do; but that Moses does not affirm that there was a perfect conformity between his works and those of the magicians, but they did so, or in like manner, using a word which expresses merely a general similitude; and he expressly refers all they did, or attempted in imitation of himself, not to the invocation of the power of dæmons, or of any superior beings, but to human artifice and imposture. The original words, translated enchantments, (Exod. vii. 11, 22. and chap. viii. 7, 18.) import deception and concealment, and ought to have been rendered, secret slights or jugglings. Our learned writer farther shews, that the works performed by the magicians did not exceed the cause, or human artifice, to which they are ascribed. Farmer’s Diss. on Miracles, 1771, chap. 3. § 3. chap. 4. § 1. (See Magii.)

A title which the ancient Persians gave to their wise men or philosophers.

The learned are in great perplexity about the word magus, μαγ ος. Plato, Xenophon, Herodotus, Strabo, &c. derive it from the Persian language, in which it signifies a priest, or person appointed to officiate in holy things; as druid among the Gauls; gymnosophist among the Indians; and Levite, among the Hebrews. Others derive it from the Greek μεγας, great; which they say, being borrowed of the Greeks, by the Persians, was returned in the form μαγος; but Vossius, with more probability, brings it from the Hebrew הגה haga, to meditate; whence מהגים, maaghim, in Latin, meditabundi, q. d. people addicted to meditation.

Magi, among the Persians, answers to σοφοι, or φιλοσοφοι, among the Greeks; sapientes, among the Latins; druids, among the Gauls; gymnosophists, among the Indians; and prophets or priests among the Egyptians.

The ancient magi, according to Aristotle and Laertius, were the sole authors and conservators of the Persian philosophy; and the philosophy principally cultivated by them, was theology and politics; they being always esteemed as the interpreters of all law, both divine and human; on which account they were wonderfully revered by the people. Hence, Cicero observes, that none 97were admitted to the crown of Persia, but such as were well instructed in the discipline of the magi; who taught τα βασιλικα, and showed princes how to govern.

Plato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others, agree, that the philosophy of the magi related principally to the worship of the gods: they were the persons who were to offer prayers, supplications, and sacrifices, as if the gods would be heard by them alone. But according to Lucian, Suidas, &c. this theology, or worship of the gods, as it was called, about which the magi were employed, was little more than the diabolical art of divination; for that μαγεια, strictly taken, was the art of divination.

Porphyry defines the magi well; Cicero calls them divina sapientes, &c. in iisdem ministrantes; adding, that the word magus implied as much in the Persian tongue. These people, he says, are held in such veneration among the Persians, that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, among other things, had it engraved on his monument, that he was master of the magi.

Philo Judas describe the magi to be diligent enquirers into nature, out of the love they bear to truth; and who, setting themselves apart from other things, contemplate the divine virtues the more clearly, and initiate others in the same mysteries.

Their descendants, the modern magi, or fire worshippers, are divided into three classes; whereof the first and most learned, neither ate nor kill animals; but adhere to the old institution 98of abstaining from living creatures. The magi of the second class, refrain only from tame animals; nor do the last kill all indifferently, it being the firm distinguishing dogma of them all, τκν μετεμχυωσιυ ειναι, that there is a transmigration of souls.

To intimate the similitude between animals and men, they used to call the latter by the name of the former; thus, their fellow priests they called lions; the priestesses, lionesses; the servants, cows, &c.

In its ancient sense, implies the science, or discipline, or doctrine, of the magi, or wise men of Persia. The origin of magic, and the magi, is ascribed to Zoroaster; Salmasius derives the very name from Zoroaster, who, he says, was surnamed Mog, whence magus. Others, instead of making him the author of the Persian philosophy, make him only the restorer and improver thereof; alleging, that many of the Persian rites in use among the magi, were borrowed from the Zabii, among the Chaldeans, who agreed in many things with the magi of the Persians; whence some make the name magus common to both the Chaldeans and Persians. Thus Plutarch mentions, that Zoroaster instituted magi among the Chaldeans; in imitation whereof the Persians had theirs too.

Magic, in a more modern sense, is a science which teaches to perform wonderful and surprising effects.

The word magic originally carried along with it a very innocent, nay, a very laudable meaning; being used purely to signify the study of wisdom, and the more sublime parts of knowledge; but in regard to the ancient magi, engaged themselves in astrology, divination, sorcery, &c. the term magic in time became odious, and was only used to signify an unlawful and diabolical kind of science, depending on the devil and departed souls.

If any wonder how vain and deceitful a science 100should gain so much credit and authority over men’s minds, Pliny gives the reason of it. ’Tis, says he, because it has possessed itself of three sciences of the most esteem among men, taking from each all that is great and marvellous in it. Nobody doubts but that it had its first origin in medicine, and that it insinuated itself into the minds of the people, under pretence of affording extraordinary remedies. To these fine promises it added every thing in religion that is pompous and splendid, and that appears calculated to blind and captivate mankind. And, lastly, it mingled judiciary astrology with the rest, persuading people curious of futurity, that it saw every thing to come in the heavens. Agrippa divided magic into three kinds, natural, celestial, and ceremonial or superstitious.

Natural Magic, is no more than the application of natural active causes to passive things, or subjects; by means whereof many surprising, but yet natural effects are produced.

Baptista Porta has a treatise of natural magic, or of secrets for performing very extraordinary things by natural causes. The natural magic of the Chaldæans was nothing but the knowledge of the powers of simples and minerals. The magic which they call theurgia, consisted wholly in the knowledge of the ceremonies to be observed in the worship of the gods, in order to be acceptable to them. By the virtue of these ceremonies, they believed they could converse with spiritual beings and cure diseases.

Celestial Magic borders nearly on judiciary 101astrology; it attributes to spirits a kind of rule or dominion over the planets; and to the planets, a dominion over men; and, on these principles, builds a ridiculous kind of system.

Superstitious, or geotic Magic, consists in the invocation of devils: its effects are usually evil and wicked, though very strange, and seemingly surpassing the powers of nature: they are supposed to be produced by virtue of some compact, either tacit or express, with evil spirits; but the truth is, these supposed compacts have not the power that is usually imagined; nor do they produce half those effects ordinarily ascribed to them.

Naude has published an apology for all the great men suspected of magic. Agrippa says, that the words used by those in compact with the devil, to invoke him, and to succeed in what they undertake, are, dies, mies, jesquet, benedoefet, douvima, enitemaus. There are a hundred other superstitious formulæ of words prescribed for the same occasion, composed of pleasure, or gathered from several different languages; or patched from the Hebrew, or framed in imitation of it.

Magic of the Eastern nations,—a brief view of the origin and progress of Magic, &c.

Chaldeans and Persians.—The origin of almost all our knowledge may be traced to the earlier periods of antiquity. This is peculiarly the case with respect to the acts denominated magical. 102There were few ancient nations, however barbarous, which could not furnish many individuals to whose spells and enchantments the powers of nature and the immaterial world were supposed to be subjected. The Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and, indeed, all the oriental nations, were accustomed to refer all natural effects for which they could not account, to the agency of Demons. Demons were believed (See Demonology,) to preside over herbs, trees, rivers, mountains, and animals; every member of the human body was under their power, and all corporeal diseases were produced by their malignity. For instance, if any happened to be afflicted with a fever, little anxiety was manifested to discover its cause, or to adopt rational measures for its cure; it must no doubt have been occasioned by some evil spirit residing in the body, or influencing in some mysterious way the fortunes of the sufferer. That influence could be counteracted only by certain magical rites,—hence the observance of those rites soon obtained a permanent establishment in the East.

Even at the present day many uncivilized people hold that all nature is filled with genii, of which some exercise a beneficent, and others a destructive power. All the evils with which man is afflicted, are considered the work of these imaginary beings, whose favour must be propitiated by sacrifices, incantations, songs. If the Greenlander be unsuccessful in fishing, the Huron in hunting, or in war; if even the scarcely half-reasoning Hottentot finds every thing is not right in his mind, body, or fortune, no time must be lost 103before the spirit be invoked. After the removal of some present evil, the next strongest desire in the human mind is the attainment of some future good. This good is often beyond the power, and still oftener beyond the inclination of man, to bestow; it must therefore be sought from beings which are supposed to possess considerable influence over human affairs, and which being elevated above the baser passions of our nature, were thought to regard with peculiar favour all who acknowledged their power, or invoked their aid; hence the numerous rites which have in all ages and countries been observed in consulting superior intelligences, and the equally numerous modes in which their pleasure has been communicated to mortals.

The Chaldeans were more celebrated for their skill in Astrology than Magic; of the former, they were beyond doubt the inventors: so famous did they become in divining from aspects, positions, and influences of the stars, that all Astrologers were termed Chaldeans, particularly by the Jews and Romans.

Of all species of idolatry, the worship of the heavenly bodies appears to have been among the most ancient. The Babylonians soon perceived that these bodies continually changed their places, and that some of them moved in regular orbits; they concluded, therefore, that this regularity of motion must necessarily imply some designing cause—something superior to mere inert matter: but the primeval notion of one supreme being presiding over the universe, was almost extinct, from 104a period little subsequent to the deluge, to the vocation of Abraham. Hence arose the belief that the stars were genii, of which some were the friends, and others the enemies of men; that they possessed an incontrollable power over human affairs; and that to their dominion were subjected, not only the vicissitudes of the seasons, of the atmosphere, and the productions of the earth, but also the dispositions and thoughts of mortals. They were supposed to delight in sacrifices and prayers. Hence a species of worship, subordinate to that of the gods, was established in their honour. It was believed that no event could be foreknown, no magical operation performed, without their aid; and they conferred extraordinary and supernatural powers on all who sought their favour. Men eminent for authority or wisdom, were thought, after their decease, to be incorporated with the race of genii, and sometimes even of gods.

There is little doubt that the Baal of the Scriptures, is the same with the Belus of profane historians. Like Atlas, king of Mauritania, he excelled in the knowledge of Astronomy; but superstition has assigned to the celebrated founder of the Babylonian monarchy a greater dignity than to his western rival; the former was long worshipped by the Assyrians as one of their chief gods, while to the latter was committed the laborious and no very enviable task of supporting the earth on his shoulders. Indeed all the successors of Belus enjoyed the rare felicity of being honoured both living and dead. On leaving the globe, their souls being transformed into genii, were distributed 105through the immensity of space, to superintend the nations, and to direct the influence of the heavenly orbs. The Chaldean magii was chiefly founded on Astrology, and was much conversant with certain animals, metals and plants, which were employed in all their incantations, and the virtue of which was derived from Stellar influence. Great attention was always paid to the positions and configurations presented by the celestial sphere; and it was only at favourable seasons that the solemn rites were celebrated. Those rites were accompanied with many peculiar and fantastic gestures, by leaping, clapping of hands, prostrations, loud cries, and not unfrequently unintelligible exclamations^[25]. Sacrifices and burnt-offerings were used to propitiate superior powers; but our knowledge of the magical rites exercised by certain Oriental nations, the Jews only excepted, is extremely limited. All the books professedly written on the subject, have been swept away by the torrent of time. We learn, however, that the professors among the Chaldeans were generally divided into three classes; the Ascaphim, or charmers, whose office it was to remove present, and to 106avert future contingent evils; to construct talismans, &c.; the Mecaschephim, or magicians properly so called, who were conversant with the occult powers of nature, and the supernatural world; and the Chasdim, or astrologers, who constituted by far the most numerous and respectable class. And from the assembling of the wise men on the occasion of the extraordinary dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it would appear that Babylon had also her Oneicrotici, or interpreters of dreams—a species of diviners indeed to which almost every nation of antiquity gave birth.

The talisman is probably a Chaldean invention. It was generally a small image of stone, or of any metallic substance, and was of various forms. On it were several mysterious characters, which were cut under a certain configuration of the planets, and some believed to be powerfully efficacious, not only in averting evils, but in unfolding the dark and distant picture. Some learned men have lately expressed their doubts as to the antiquity of the talisman, and have even contended that it is not older than the Egyptian Amulet, which was probably invented but a short time before the Christian era; but we have the authority of the sacred writings for asserting that the Seraphim, which, according to the Jewish Doctors, gave oracular answers, and which, both in form and use, bore a great resemblance to the talisman, was known at an early period. There is no slight reason for concluding that the latter is either an imitation of the former, or that both are one and the same device.—Like the Chaldean Astrologers, 107the Persian Magi, from whom our word Magic is derived, belongs to the priesthood. But the worship of the gods, was not their chief occupation; they were great proficients in the arts of which we are now treating. At first they were distinguished for their ardour in the pursuit of knowledge; they endeavoured to penetrate the secrets of nature by the only way in which those secrets can be discovered—experiment and reason. The former furnished them with facts; the latter taught them how these facts might be made the foundation of higher researches, and rendered subservient to the public utility. While they continued in this innocent and laudable career, devoting, like the druids, no inconsiderable portion of their time to the cure of diseases, by means of herbs and other natural productions, they deserved and obtained the gratitude of their countrymen; but in process of time they became desirous of increasing the reverence with which they were regarded by all ranks: they grew ambitious of higher honours, to direct the counsels of the state, and to render even their sovereigns subject to their sway. They joined therefore to the worship of the gods, and to the profession of medicine and natural magic, a pretended familiarity with superior powers, from which they boasted of deriving all their knowledge. Like Plato, who probably imbibed many of their notions, they taught that Demons hold a middle rank between gods and men; that they (the Demons) presided not only over divinations, auguries, conjurations, oracles, and every species of magic, but also over sacrifices and prayer, which in behalf 108of men they presented, and rendered acceptable to the gods. Hence they were mediators, whose ministry was thought indispensable in all magical and religious rites. The magi constantly persuaded their credulous countrymen, that to them alone was conceded the high privilege of communicating with gods and demons, and of being thereby enabled to foretel future events; they even went so far as to assert that by means of their incantations, they obliged the latter to execute all their commands, and to serve them with the same deference as servants do their masters. The austerity of their lives was well calculated to strengthen the impression which their cunning had already made on the multitude, and to prepare the way for whatever impositions they might afterwards wish to practise.

All the three order of Magi enumerated by Porphyry, abstained from wine and women, and the first of these orders from animal food. These were indulgences which they considered too vulgar for men who were the favourites of Orosmades, Aremanius, and of the inferior Deities, and who were so intimately connected with the offspring of those Deities, the numerous hosts of Genii and Demon.

Three kinds of divination were chiefly cultivated by the Magi; necromancy, which appears to have been twofold; the predicting of future events by the inspection of dead bodies, and the invoking of departed spirits, which were forced to unfold the dark decrees of fate—a science which has in all ages been almost universally diffused over the earth; lecanomancy, by which demons, in 109obedience to certain powerful songs, were obliged to enter a vessel filled with water, and to answer whatever questions were put to them; and hydromancy, which differs from lecanomancy in this, that the voice of the demon was not heard, but his form was perceptible in the water, in which he represented, either by means of his satellites, or by written verses, the cause and issue of any particular event. Whether the celebrated Zoroaster was acquainted with these three species, cannot be well determined. He has been called the inventor of magic; with what justice, is quite as doubtful. It has been inferred, and perhaps with greater plausibility, that he did not as much invent as methodize the art. He may likewise have so extended its bounds as to eclipse the fame of his predecessors; and from that, as well as from the other consideration, the honour of the invention may have been assigned him.

Indians.—Of Indian magic we know even less than we do of that exercised by any other ancient nation. We have however reason to conclude that much of it was similar to that for which the magi, from whom it was probably derived, were held in so high estimation. But the divination of the Indians differed in one respect from that of all other people; they admitted in it affairs of public moment, but rigorously excluded it from all private concerns. The reason of this prohibition probably was, that the science was esteemed too sacred to be employed on the ordinary occurrences of life. Their Gymnosophists, or Brachmans, (it is not clear that there was any distinction 110between them) were regarded with as much reverence as the magi, and were probably more worthy of it. Some of them dwelt in woods, and others in the immediate vicinity of cities. They performed the ceremonies of religion; by them indeed kings worshipped the deities of the country; not a few pretended to superior powers, to cure diseases by enchantments, and to foretel future events by the stars; but generally speaking, they were a useful and honourable body of men. Their skill in medicine was great: the care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honour; and their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, (if indeed those historians be deserving of full credit) prove that they were much accustomed to profound reflection on the principles of civil polity, morality, religion, and philosophy. They preserved their dignity under the sway of the most powerful princes, whom they would not condescend to visit, or to trouble for the slightest favour. If the latter desired the advice or the prayers of the former, they were obliged either to go themselves, or to send messengers.

Egyptians.—The Egyptians also had their magicians from the remotest antiquity. Though these magicians were unable to contend with Moses, they were greatly superior to the Chaldean Astrologers, the Persian Magi, and the Indian Gymnosophists; they appear to have possessed a deeper insight into the arcana of nature than any other professors of the art. By what extraordinary 111powers their rods were changed into serpents, the waters of the Nile into blood, and the land of Egypt covered with frogs, has much perplexed wise and good men. Of all the methods of solution which the learning and piety of either Jewish or Christian commentators have applied to this difficult problem, none appears so consonant with the meaning of the sacred text, and at the same time liable to so few objections, as this; that the magicians were not, in the present case, impostors, and that they really accomplished, by means of supernatural agents, the wonders recorded by the inspired penman^[26]. Earth, air, and ocean, may contain many things of which our philosophy has never dreamt. If this consideration should humble the pride of learning, it may remind the Christian that secret things belong not to him, but to a higher power.

It was maintained by the Egyptians that besides the Gods, there were many demons which communicated with mortals, and which were often rendered visible by certain ceremonies and songs; that genii exercised an habitual and powerful influence over every particle of matter; that thirty-six of these beings presided over the various members of the human body; and that by magical incantations it might be strengthened, or debilitated^[27], afflicted with, or delivered from diseases. Thus, in every case of sickness, the spirit of presiding over the 112afflicted part, was first duly invoked. But the magicians did not trust solely to their vain invocations; they were well acquainted with the virtues of certain herbs, which they wisely employed in their attempts at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: thus the cynocephalia, or as the Egyptians themselves termed the asyrites, which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes, which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth^[28]. But 113whatever might be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical than for their medicinal qualities; every cure was cunningly ascribed to the presiding demons, with which not a few boasted that they were, by means of their art, intimately connected.

The Egyptian amulets are certainly not so ancient as the Babylonian Talisman, but in their uses they were exactly similar. Some little figures, supposed to have been intended as charms, have been formed on several mummies, which have at various times been brought into Europe. Plutarch informs us, that the soldiers wore rings, on which the representation of an insect, resembling 114our beetle, was inscribed; and we learn from Ælian, that the judges had always suspended round their necks a small image of truth formed of emeralds^[29]. The superstitious belief in the virtues of Amulets is far from extinct in the present age; the Cophts, the Arabians, and Syrians, and, indeed, almost all the inhabitants of Asia, west of the Ganges, whether Christians or Mahometans, still use them against possible evils.

The descendants of the Pharaohs, like the Chaldean kings, were always great encouragers of Astronomy; and though the subjects of the latter were not so eminent as those of the former in the sister science, we have good reason to conclude that they made no inconsiderable progress in it. Herodotus, and other ancient historians, assert that Astrology was, from the remotest times, cultivated by that people. They usually, indeed, prognosticated the general course of life, the disposition, and even the manner of death, of any one, by reference to the deity presiding over the day on which he was born; and not unfrequently by their eastern neighbours, by determining the position of the stars at the moment of delivery.

As Moses passed the greatest part of his life in Egypt, and as he could know little by personal experience of other nations, it may perhaps be inferred that generally when he warns the Israelites against prevailing superstitions, he has a particular eye to those observed in the country in which the posterity 115of Adam had so long resided. He makes frequent allusion, indeed, to the magical rites and idolatrous practices of the Canaanites; but in this case he appears to speak rather from the information he had acquired from others than from his own experience. Should this inference be admitted, we shall have reason for believing that both Witchcraft and Necromancy were known to the Egyptians; and that some days were considered lucky, and others unfavorable, for the prosecution of any important affair. A careful perusal of the Pentateuch, and a reference to the Greek Historians who have written on the affairs of Egypt, and whose works are necessary to elucidate many obscure allusions in the sacred text, will furnish the more curious reader with information on some minor points, which our limits, as a miscellaneous work, necessarily oblige us to omit.

Jews^[30].—We have hitherto had too much reason to complain of the paucity of information afforded by ancient writers on the magic of the Eastern nations; but when we come to consider that of the Jews, we no longer labour under so heavy a disadvantage. The Holy Scriptures, the works of native writers, and above all, the laborious researches of learned Christian commentators, furnish us with abundant materials, from which we shall select such as appear best adapted to give an intelligible, but necessarily brief, view of the subject.—Many Jewish Doctors assign to their magic a preposterous antiquity. They assert 116that it is of divine origin; that it was known to Adam and Abraham, both of whom were animated by the same soul; that the latter taught it by means of his concubines to his children; and that he wore round his neck a precious stone, the bare sight of which cured every disease, and which, after his death, God hung on the sun! But leaving these wild fables, we have sufficient authority for saying, that the Jews were at a very early period addicted to the magical arts. This propensity, which first originated in Egypt, was much increased by their subsequent intercourse with the inhabitants of Syria, and above all, with their Chaldean conquerors. Thus we read in the Book of Kings, that they used divination, and observed the cry of birds. Hence the frequent and awful denunciations employed by the inspired writers against the practisers of their forbidden arts.

Lightfoot has proved, that the Jews, after their return from Babylon, having entirely forsaken idolatry, and being no longer favoured with the gift of prophecy, gradually abandoned themselves, before the coming of our Saviour, to sorcery and divination. The Talmud, which they still regard with a reverence bordering on idolatry, abounds with instructions for the due observance of superstitious rites. After the destruction of their city and temple, many Israelitish impostors were highly esteemed for their pretended skill in magic. Under pretence of interpreting dreams, they met with daily opportunities of practising the most shameful frauds. Many Rabbins were quite as well versed in the school of Zoroaster as in that 117of Moses. They prescribed all kinds of conjuration, some for the cure of wounds, some against the dreaded bite of serpents, and others against thefts and enchantments. Like the Magi, they boasted that by means of their art they held an intercourse with superior beings. Thus Bath-kool, daughter of the voice, is the name given by them to the echo: they regarded it as an oracle, which in the second temple, was destined to supply the defect of the Urim and Thummim, the mysterious oracles of the first. Of Bath-kool many absurd stories are related. Thus when two Rabbins went to consult her concerning the fate of another Rabbin, Samuel, the Babylonian, they passed before a school, in which they heard a boy reading aloud, and Samuel died. (Sam. ch. xxv. v. 1.) On enquiry they subsequently found that the object of their anxiety was no longer an inhabitant of the earth; and thus a casual coincidence, of which no reasonable man would have been surprised, was confidently ascribed to the oracular powers of Bath-kool. Two other Rabbins, Jona and Josa, went to visit Acha in his sickness; as they proceeded on their way they said, “let us hear what sentence Bath-kool will pronounce on the fate of our brother.” Immediately they heard a voice, as if addressed by a woman to her neighbour—“the candle is going out; let not the light be extinguished in Israel.” (Lightfoot, vol. II. p. 267.) No more doubt was entertained that these words proceeded from Bath-kool, than that Elias now assists at the circumcision of every Jewish child.

The divinations of the Israelites were founded 118on the influence of the stars, and on the operations of spirits: that singular people did not, indeed, like the Chaldeans and Magi, regard the heavenly bodies as gods and genii; but they ascribed to them a great power over the actions and opinions of men. Hence the common proverb, ‘such a one may be thankful to his stars,’ when spoken of any person distinguished for his wealth, power, or wisdom. The mazzal-tool was the happy, and the mazzal-ra the malignant influence; and the fate of every one was supposed to be regulated by either one or the other. Like the notions from which their superstitious opinions were derived, the Jews constructed horoscopes, and predicted the fate of every one from his birth. Thus if any one were born under the dominion of the sun, it was prognosticated that he would be fair, generous, open-hearted, and capricious; under Venus, rich and wanton; under Mercury, witty, and of a retentive memory; under the Moon, sickly, and inconstant; under Saturn, unfortunate; under Jupiter, just, and under Mars, successful.

As to the spirits whose agency was so often employed in divination, we have full information from Manasseh, Ben Israel, and others. “Of wicked spirits,” says the author, “there are several varieties, of which some are intelligent and cunning, others ignorant and stupid. The former flying from one extent of the earth to the other, become acquainted with the general cause of human events, both past and present, and sometimes with those of the future. Hence many mortals conjure these spirits, by whose assistance 119they effect wonderful things. The books of the cabalists, and of some other writers, contain the names of the spirits usually invoked, and a particular account of the ceremonies are accompanied. If (continues the same author,) these spirits appear to one man alone, they portend no good; if to two persons together, they presage no evil: they were never known to appear to three mortals assembled together.”

The magical rites of the Jews were, and indeed are still, chiefly performed on various important occasions, as on the birth of a child, a marriage, &c. On such occasions the evil spirits are believed to be peculiarly active in their malignity, which can only be counteracted by certain enchantments^[31]. Thus Tobit, according to the directions of the angel Raphael, exorcised the demon Asmodeus, whom he compelled, by means of the perfume of the heart and liver of a fish, to fly into upper Egypt. (Tobit, ch. viii. v. 2 and 3.)

Josephus does not think magic so ancient as many writers of this nation do; he makes Solomon the first who practised an art which is so powerful against demons; and the knowledge 120of which, he asserts, was communicated to that prince by immediate inspiration. The latter, continues the weakly credulous historian, invented and transmitted to posterity in his writings, certain incantations, for the cure of diseases, and for the expulsion and perpetual banishment of wicked spirits from the bodies of the possessed. This mode of cure, he further observes, is very prevalent in our nation. It consisted, according to his description, in the use of a certain root, which was sealed up, and held under the nose of the person possessed; the name of Solomon, with the words prescribed by him, was then pronounced, and the demon forced immediately to retire. He does not even hesitate to assert, that he himself has been an eye-witness of such an effect produced on a person named Eleazar, in presence of the emperor Vespasian and his sons. Nor will this relation surprise us, when we consider the deep malignity entertained by a Jew to the Christian religion, and his ceaseless attempts to depreciate the miracles of our Saviour, by ascribing them to magical influence, and by representing them as easy of accomplishment to all acquainted with the occult sciences.

We should scarcely credit the account, were it not founded on unquestionable authority, that on the great day of propitiations, the Jews of the sixteenth century, in order to avert the angel of Samuel, endeavoured to appease him by presents. On that day, and on no other throughout the year, they believed that power was given him to accuse them before the judgment-seat of God. 121They aimed, therefore, to prevent their grand enemy from carrying accusations against them, by rendering it impossible for him to know the appointed day. For this purpose they used a somewhat singular stratagem; in reading the usual portion of the law, they were careful to leave out the beginning and the end,—an omission which the devil was by no means prepared to expect on so important an occasion. They entertained no doubt that their cunning, in this instance, had been more than a match for him.

The cabal is chiefly conversant with enchantments, which are effected by a certain number of characters. It gives directions how to select and combine some passages and proper names of Scripture, which are believed both to render supernatural beings visible, and to produce many wonderful and surprising effects. In this manner the Malcha-sheva, (the queen of Sheba who visited Solomon,) who has often been invoked, and as often made to appear. But the most famous wonders have been effected by the name of God. The sacred word Jehovah, is, when read with points, multiplied by the Jewish doctors into twelve, forty-two, and seventy-two letters, of which words are composed that are thought to possess miraculous energy. By these Moses slew the Egyptians; by these Israel was preserved from the destroying angel of the Wilderness; by these Elijah separated the waters of the river, to open a passage for himself and Elisha; and by these it has been daring and impiously asserted, that the Eternal Son of God cast out evil spirits. The 122name of the devil is likewise used in magical devices. The five Hebrew letters of which that name is composed, exactly constitute the number 364, one less than the days in the whole year. Now the Jews pretended, that owing to the wonderful virtue of the number comprised in the name of satan, he is prevented from accusing them for an equal number of days: hence the stratagem of which we have before spoken, for depriving him of the power to injure them on the only day in which that power is granted him.

Innumerable are the devices contained in the Cabal for averting possible evils, as the plague, disease, and sudden death. But we see no necessity, nor even utility, in prosecuting the subject further. We have said enough to convince the reader of the gross superstition and abominable practice of those who, even in their present state of degradation and infamy, have the arrogance to style themselves God’s peculiar people,—as so many lights to enlighten the Gentiles.

Prophecy, Divination, or foretelling future events, either by divine Revelation, by art and human invention, or by conjecture.—See Divination, page 142.

Few great moral or political revolutions have occurred which have not had their accompanying prognostic; and men of a philosophic cast of mind, in the midst of their retirement, freed from the delusions of parties and of sects, while they are withdrawn from their conflicting interests, have rarely been confounded by the astonishment which overwhelms those who, absorbed in active life, are the mere creatures of sensation, agitated by the shadows of truth, the unsubstantial appearances of things. Intellectual nations are advancing in an eternal circle of events and passions which succeed each other, and the last is necessarily connected with its antecedent: the solitary force of some fortuitous incident only can interrupt this concatinated progress of human affairs. That every great event has been accompanied by a presage or prognostic, has been observed by Lord Bacon. “The shepherds of the people should understand the prognostics of state tempests; hollow blasts of wind, seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the sea, often precede a storm.” Such were the prognostics discerned by the politic Bishop Williams, in Charles the First’s time, who clearly foresaw and predicted the final success of the puritanic party in our country: attentive to 124his own security, he abandoned the government and sided with the rising opposition, at a moment when such a change in the public administration was by no means apparent. (See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 420.)

Dugdale, our contemplative antiquary, in the spirit of foresight, must have anticipated the scene which was approaching in 1641, in the destruction of our ancient monuments in cathedral churches. He hurried on his itinerant labours of taking draughts and transcribing inscriptions, as he says, “to preserve them for future and better times.” It is to the prescient spirit of Dugdale that posterity is indebted for the ancient monuments of England, which bear the marks of the haste, as well as the zeal, which have perpetuated them. Sir Thomas More was no less prescient in his views; for when his son Roper was observing to him that the Catholic religion, under the “Defender of the Faith,” was in a most flourishing state, the answer of More was an evidence of political foresight:—“True it is, son Roper! and yet I pray God that we may not live to see the day that we would gladly be at league and competition with heretics, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly to ourselves.” The minds of men of great political sagacity were at that moment, unquestionably, full of obscure indications of the approaching change. Erasmus, when before the tomb of Becket, at Canterbury, observing it loaded with a vast profusion of jewels, wished that those had been distributed among the poor, and 125that the shrine had only been adorned with boughs and flowers:—“For,” said he, “those who have heaped up all this mass of treasure, will one day be plundered, and fall a prey to those who are in power.” A prediction literally fulfilled about twenty years after it was made. The fall of the religious houses was predicted by an unknown author, (see Visions of Pier’s Ploughman,) who wrote in the reign of Edward the Third. The event, in fact, with which we are all well acquainted, was realized two hundred years afterwards, by our Henry VIII. Sir Walter Raleigh foresaw the consequences of the separatists and the sectaries in the National Church, which occurred about the year 1530. His memorable words are, “Time will even bring it to pass, if it were not resisted, that God would be turned out of churches into barns, and from thence again into the fields and mountains, and under hedges. All order of discipline and church government, left to newness of opinion, and men’s fancies, and as many kinds of religion spring up as there are parish churches within England.” Tacitus also foresaw the calamities which so long desolated Europe on the fall of the Roman empire, in a work written five hundred years before the event! In that sublime anticipation of the future, he observed, “When the Romans shall be hunted out from those countries which they have conquered, what will then happen? The revolted people, freed from their master-oppressor, will not be able to subsist without destroying their neighbours, and the most cruel wars will exist among all these nations.” Solon, at Athens, 126contemplating on the port and citadel of Munychia, suddenly exclaimed, “how blind is man to futurity! could the Athenians foresee what mischief this will do, they would even eat it with their own teeth, to get rid of it.” A prediction verified more than two hundred years afterwards! Thales desired to be buried in an obscure quarter of Milesia, observing that that very spot would in time be the forum. Charlemagne, in his old age, observing from the window of a castle a Norman descent on his coast, tears started in the eyes of the aged monarch. He predicted, that since they dared to threaten his dominions while he was yet living, what would they do when he should be no more! A melancholy prediction of their subsequent incursions, and of the protracted calamities of the French nation during a whole century.

In a curious treatise on “Divination,” or the knowledge of future events, Cicero has preserved a complete account of the state contrivances practised by the Roman government, to instil among the people those hopes and fears by which they regulated public opinion. The Pagan creed, now become obsolete and ridiculous, has occasioned this treatise to be rarely consulted; it remains, however, as a chapter in the history of man!

There appears to be something in minds which take in extensive views of human nature, which serves them as a kind of Divination, and the consciousness of this faculty has been asserted by some. Cicero appeals to Atticus how he had always judged of the affairs of the republic as a good diviner; and that its overthrow had happened, as 127he had foreseen, fourteen years before. (Ep. ad Att. lib. 10, ep. 4.)

Cicero had not only predicted what had happened in his own times, but also what occurred long after, according to Cornelius Nepos. The philosopher, indeed, affects no secret revelation, nor visionary second-sight;—he honestly tells us, that that art had been acquired merely by study, and the administration of public affairs, while he reminds his friend of several remarkable instances of his successful predictions. “I do not,” says Cicero, “divine human events by the arts practised by the augurs; but I use other signs.” Cicero then expresses himself with the guarded obscurity of a philosopher who could not openly ridicule the prevailing superstitions, although the nature of his “signs” are perfectly comprehensible, when in the great pending events of the rival conflicts of Pompey and Cæsar, he shewed the means he used for his purpose: “On one side I consider the humour and genius of Cæsar, and on the other, the condition and manner of civil wars.” (Ep. ad. Att. lib. 6, ep. 6.) In a word, the political diviner, by his experience of the personal character, anticipated the actions of the individual. Others, too, have asserted the possession of this faculty. Du Vard, an eminent chancellor of France, imagined the faculty to be intuitive with him; from observations made by his own experience. “Born,” says he, “with constitutional infirmity, a mind and body but ill adapted to be laborious, with a most treacherous memory, enjoying no gift of nature, yet able at all times to exercise 128a sagacity so great that I do not know, since I have reached manhood, that any thing of importance has happened to the state, to the public, or to myself in particular, which I had not foreseen^[32].” The same faculty appears to be described by a remarkable expression employed by Thucidides, in his character of Themistocles, of which the following is a close translation. “By a species of sagacity peculiarly his own, for which he was in no degree indebted either to early education or after study, he was supereminently happy in forming a prompt judgment in matters that admitted but little time for deliberation; at the same time that he far surpassed all his deductions of the future from the PAST; or was the best guesser of the future from the past.”

Should this faculty of moral and political prediction be ever considered as a science, it may be furnished with a denomination, for the writer of the life of Thomas Brown, prefixed to his works, in claiming the honour for that philosopher, calls it the “Stochastic,” a term derived from the Greek and from Archery, meaning to “shoot at the mark.”

Aristotle, who collected all the curious knowledge of his times, has preserved some remarkable opinions on the art of divination. In detailing the various subterfuges practised by the pretended diviners of the present day, he reveals the secret principle by which one of them regulated his predictions. 129He frankly declared that the FUTURE being always very obscure, while the PAST was easy to know, his predictions had never the future view; for he decided from the PAST, as it appeared in human affairs, which, however, he concealed from the multitude. (Arist. Rhetoric, lib. vii. c. 5.)

With regard to moral predictions on individuals, many have discovered the future character. The revolutionary predisposition of Cardinal Retz, even in his youth, was detected by the sagacity of Cardinal Mazarine. He then wrote a history of the conspiracy of Fresco, with such vehement admiration of his hero, that the Italian politician, after its perusal, predicted that the young author would be one of the most turbulent spirits of the age! The father of Marshal Biron, even amid the glory of his son, discovered the cloud which, invisible to others, was to obscure it. The father, indeed, well knew the fiery passions of his son. “Biron,” said the domestic Seer, “I advise thee, when peace takes place, to go and plant cabbages in thy garden, otherwise I warn thee thou wilt lose thy head upon the scaffold!”

Lorenzo de Medici had studied the temper of his son Piero; for we are informed by Guicciardini that he had often complained to his most intimate friends that “he foresaw the imprudence and arrogance of his son would occasion the ruin of his family.”

There is a singular prediction of James the first, of the evils likely to ensue from Laud’s violence, in a conversation given by Hacket, which the King held with Archbishop Williams. When the 130King was hard pressed to promote Laud, he gave his reasons why he intended to “keep Laud back from all place of rule and authority, because I find he hath a restless spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which endangers the stedfastness of that which is in a good pass. I speak not at random; he hath made himself known to me to be such a one.” James then relates the circumstances to which he alludes; and at length, when still pursued by the Archbishop, then the organ of Buckingham, as usual, this King’s good nature too easily yielded; he did not, however, without closing with this prediction: “Then take him to you! but on my soul you will repent it!”

The future character of Cromwell was apparent to two of our great politicians. “This coarse, unpromising man,” observed Lord Falkland, pointing to Cromwell, “will be the first person in the kingdom if the nation comes to blows!” And Archbishop Williams told Charles the First confidentially, that “There was that in Cromwell which foreboded something dangerous, and wished his Majesty would either win him over to him, or get him taken off!”

The incomparable character of Buonaparte, given by the Marquis of Wellesley, predicted his fall when highest in his power. “His eagerness of power,” says this great Statesman, “is so inordinate; his jealousy of independence so fierce; his keenness of appetite so feverish, in all that touches his ambition, even in the most trifling things, that 131he must plunge into dreadful difficulties. He is one of an order of minds that by nature make for themselves great reverses.”

After the commencement of the French Revolution, Lord Mansfield was once asked when it would end? His Lordship replied, “It is an event without precedent, and therefore without prognostic.” The fact is, however, that it had both; as our own history, in the reign of Charles the First, had furnished us with a precedent; and the prognostics were so plentiful, that a volume of passages might be collected from various writers who had foretold it.

There is a production, which does honour to the political sagacity, as well as to his knowledge of human nature, thrown out by Bishop Butler in a Sermon before the House of Lords, in 1741; he calculated that the unreligious spirit would produce, some time or other, political disorders, similar to those which, in the 17th century, had arisen from religious fanaticism. “Is there no danger,” he observed, “that all this may raise somewhat like that levelling spirit, upon Atheistical principles, which in the last age prevailed upon enthusiastic ones? Not to speak of the possibility that different sorts of people may unite in it upon these contrary principles!” All this has literally been accomplished!

If a prediction be raised on facts which our own prejudice induce us to infer will exist, it must be chimerical. The Monk Carron announces in his Chronicle, printed in 1532, that the world was about ending, as well as his Chronicle of it; that 132the Turkish Empire would not last many years; that after the death of Charles V. the Empire of Germany would be torn to pieces by the Germans themselves. This Monk will no longer pass for a prophet; he belongs to that class of Chroniclers who write to humour their own prejudices, like a certain Lady-prophetess who, in 1811, predicted that grass was to grow in Cheapside about this time!

Even when the event does not always justify the prediction, the predictor may not have been the less correct in his principles of divination. The catastrophe of human life, and the turn of great events, often turn out accidental. Marshal Biron, whom we have noticed, might have ascended the throne instead of the scaffold; Cromwell and De Retz might have become only the favourite generals, or the ministers of their Sovereigns. Fortuitous events are not included within the reach of human prescience; such must be consigned to those vulgar superstitions which presume to discover the issue of human events, without pretending to any human knowledge. In the science of the Philosopher there is nothing supernatural.

Predictions have sometimes been condemned as false ones, which, when scrutinize may scarcely be deemed to have failed: they may have been accomplished, and they may again revolve on us. In 1749, Dr. Hartley published his “Observations on Man;” and predicted the fall of the existing governments and hierarchies, in two simple propositions; among others—

133Prop. 81. It is probable that all the civil governments will be overturned.

Prop. 82. It is probable that the present forms of Church government will be dissolved.

Many indeed were terribly alarmed at these predicted falls of Church and State. Lady Charlotte Wentworth asked Hartley when these terrible things would happen? The answer of the predictor was not less awful: “I am an old man, and shall not live to see them.” In the subsequent revolutions of America and France, and perhaps latterly that of Spain, it can hardly be denied that these predictions have failed.

The philosophical predictor, in foretelling some important crisis, from the appearances of things, will not rashly assign the period of time; for the crisis he anticipates is calculated on by that inevitable march of events which generate each other in human affairs; but the period is always dubious, being either retarded or accelerated by circumstances of a nature incapable of entering into his moral arithmetic. There is, however, a spirit of political vaccination which presumes to pass beyond the boundaries of human prescience, which, by enthusiasts, has often been ascribed to the highest source of inspiration; but since “the language of prophecy” has ceased, such pretensions are not less impious than they are unphilosophical. No one possessed a more extraordinary portion of this awful prophetic confidence than Knox the reformer: he appears to have predicted several remarkable events, and the fates of some persons. We are informed that when condemned to a galley in 134Rochelle, he predicted that “within two or three years, he should preach the Gospel at St. Giles’s, in Edinburgh,” an improbable event, which nevertheless happened as he had foretold. Of Mary and Darnley, he pronounced that, “as the King, for the Queen’s pleasure, had gone to mass, the Lord, in his justice, would make her the instrument of his overthrow.” Other striking predictions of the deaths of Thomas Maitland, and of Kirkaldly of Grange, and the warning he solemnly gave to the Regent Murray, not to go to Linlithgow, where he was assassinated, occasioned a barbarous people to imagine that the prophet Knox had received an immediate communication from heaven.

An Almanack-maker, a Spanish friar, predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry the Fourth of France; and Pierese, though he had no faith in the vain science of Astrology, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved Sovereign, consulted with some of the King’s friends, and had the Spanish almanack before his Majesty, who courteously thanked them for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction: the event occurred, and in the following year the Spanish friar spread his own fame in a new almanack. This prediction of the Spanish friar was the result either of his being acquainted with the plot, or from his being made an instrument for the purposes of those who were. It appears that Henry’s assassination was rife in Spain and Italy before the event occurred.

Separating human prediction from inspired prophecy, we can only ascribe to the faculties of 135man that acquired prescience which we have demonstrated, that some great minds have unquestionably exercised. Its principles have been discovered in the necessary dependance of effects on general causes, and we have shewn that, impelled by the same motives, and circumscribed by the same passions, all human affairs revolve in a circle; and we have opened the true source of this yet imperfect science of moral and political prediction, in an intimate, but a discriminative, knowledge of the past. Authority is sacred when experience affords parallels and analogies. If much which may overwhelm, when it shall happen, can be foreseen, the prescient Statesman and Moralist may provide defensive measures to break the waters, whose streams they cannot always direct; and the venerable Hooker has profoundly observed, that “the best things have been overthrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended the same^[33].”

“The philosophy of history,” observes a late writer and excellent observer, “blends the past with the present, and combines the present with the future; each is but a portion of the other. The actual state of a thing is necessarily determined by its antecedent, and thus progressively through the chain of human existence, while, as Leibnitz has happily expressed the idea, the present is always full of the future. A new and beautiful 136light is thus thrown over the annals of mankind, by the analogies and the parallels of different ages in succession. How the seventeenth century has influenced the eighteenth, and the results of the nineteenth, as they shall appear in the twentieth, might open a source of PREDICTIONS, to which, however difficult it might be to affix their dates, there would be none in exploring into causes, and tracing their inevitable effects. The multitude live only among the shadows of things in the appearance of the PRESENT; the learned, busied with the PAST, can only trace whence, and how, all comes; but he who is one of the people and one of the learned, the true philosopher, views the natural tendency and terminations which are preparing for the FUTURE.”

Under the name of materialism things very different from those generally understood are designated: it is the same with respect to fatalism. If it be maintained that every thing in the world, and the world itself, are necessary; that all that takes place is the effect of chance or of blind necessity, and that no supreme intelligence is mixed with, nor in fact mixes with existing objects; this doctrine is a kind of fatalism, differing very little from atheism. But this fatalism has nothing in common with the doctrine which establishes the innateness of the faculties of the soul and mind, and their independence upon organization. We cannot, then, under the first consideration, be accused of fatalism.

137Another species of fatalism is that which teaches that in truth there exists a Supreme Being, creator of the universe, as well as of all the laws and properties connected with it; but that he has fixed those laws in so immutable a manner, that every thing that happens could not happen otherwise. In this system, man is necessarily carried away by the causes that compel him to act, without any participation whatever of the will. His actions are always a necessary result, without voluntary choice or moral liberty; they are neither punishable or meritorious, and the hope of future rewards vanishes, as well as the fear of future punishment.

This is the fatalism with which superstitious ignorance accuse the physiology of the brain^[34], that is the doctrine relative to the functions of the most noble organization in the world. “I have effectually proved,” says Dr. Gall, “that all our moral and intellectual dispositions are innate; that none of our propensities or talents, not even the understanding and will, can manifest themselves independent of this organization. To which also may be added, that it does not depend upon man to be gifted with organs peculiar to his species, consequently with such or such propensities or faculties. Must it now be inferred that man is not the master of his actions, that there exists no free will, consequently neither a meritorious nor an unworthy act?”

Before this conclusion is refuted, let us examine with the frankness worthy of true philosophy, how 138far man is submitted to the immutable laws of his Creator, how far we ought to acknowledge an inevitable necessity, a destiny, or fatalism. To unravel confused ideas, is the best method of placing truth in its clearest point of view.

Man is obliged to acknowledge the most powerful and determined influence of a multitude of things relative to his happiness or misery, and even over his whole conduct, without of himself being able either to add to, or subtract from that influence. No one can call himself to life; no one can choose the time, the climate, or the nation in which he shall be born; no one can fix the manners, laws, customs, form of government, religious prejudices, or the superstitions with which he shall be surrounded from the moment of his birth; no one can say, I will be master or servant, the eldest son or the youngest son; I will have a robust or a debilitated state of health; I will be a man or a woman; I will have such or such a constitution: I will be a fool, an idiot, a simpleton, a man of understanding, or a man of genius, passionate or calm, of a mild or cross nature, modest or proud, stupid or circumspect, cowardly or prone to voluptuousness, humble or independent: no one can determine the degree of prudence or the foolishness of his superiors, the noxious or useful example he shall meet with, the result of his connexions, the fortuitous events, the influence of external things over him, the condition of his father and mother, or his own, or the source of irritation that his desires or passions will experience. The relations of the five senses with external 139things, and the number and functions of the viscera and members, have been fixed in the same invariable manner; so nature is the source of our propensities, sentiments, and faculties. Their reciprocal influence, and their relations with external objects, have been irrevocably determined by the laws of our organization.

As it does not depend upon ourselves to have or see when objects strikes our ears or our eyes, in the same manner our judgments are necessarily the results of the laws of thought. “Judgment, very rightly,” says Mr. Tracy, “in this sense is independent of the will; it is not under our controul, when we perceive a real relation betwixt two of our perceptions, not to feel it as it actually is, that is, such as should appear to every being organized as ourselves, if they were precisely in the same situation. It is this necessity which constitutes the certainty and reality of every thing we are acquainted with. For if it only depended upon our fancy to be affected with a great thing as if it were a small one, with a good as if it were a bad one, with one that is true as if it were false, there would no longer exist any thing real in the world, at least for us. There would neither be greatness nor smallness, good nor evil, falsehood nor truth; our fancy alone would be every thing. Such an order of things cannot even be conceived; it implies contradiction.

Since primitive organization, sex, age, constitution, education, climate, form of government, religion, prejudices, superstitions, &c. exercise the most decided influence over our sensations and 140ideas, our judgments and the determination of our will, the nature and force of our propensities and talents, consequently over the first motives of our actions, it must be confessed that man, in several of the most important moments of his life, is under the empire of a destiny, which sometimes fixes him like the inert shell against a rock; at others, it carries him away in a whirlwind, like the dust.

It is not then surprising that the sages of Greece, of the Indies, China and Japan, the Christians of the east and west, and the Mahomedans, have worked up this species of fatalism with their different doctrines. In all times our moral and intellectual faculties have been made to take their origin from God; and in all times it has been taught that all the gifts of men came from heaven; that God has, from all eternity, chosen the elect; that man of himself is incapable of any good thought; that every difference between men, relative to their faculties, comes from God; that there are only those to whom it has been given by a superior power who are capable of certain actions; that every one acts after his own innate character, the same as the fig tree does not bear grapes, nor the vine figs, and the same that a salt spring does not run in fresh water; lastly, that all cannot dive into the mysteries of nature, nor the decrees of Providence.

It is this same kind of fatalism, this same inevitable influence of superior powers, that has been taught by the fathers of the church. St. Augustine wished this very same doctrine to be preached, to profess loudly in the belief of the infallibility 141of Providence, and our entire dependence upon God. “In the same manner, he says, no one can give himself life, no one can give himself understanding.” If some are unacquainted with the truth, it is, according to his doctrine, because they have not received the necessary capacity to know it. He refutes the objections that might be urged against the justice of God: he remarks that neither has the grace of God distributed equally to every one the temporal goods, such as address, strength, health, beauty, wit, and the disposition for the arts and sciences, riches, honors, &c. St. Cyprian at that time had already said, that we ought not to be proud of our qualities, for we possess nothing from ourselves.

If people had not always been convinced of the influence of external and internal conditions relative to the determination of our will, upon our actions, why, in all times and among every people, have civil and religious laws been made to subdue and direct the desires of men? There is no religion that has not ordained abstinence from certain meats and drinks, fasting and mortification of the body. From the time of Solomon the wise down to our own time, we know of no observer of human nature that has not acknowledged that the physical and moral man is entirely dependant on the laws of the creation.

Is the art or act of foretelling future events, and is divided by the ancients into artificial and natural.

Artificial Divination,

Is that which proceeds by reasoning upon certain external signs, considered as indications of futurity.

Natural Divination,

Is that which presages things from a mere internal sense, and persuasion of the mind, without any assistance of signs; and is of two kinds, the one from nature, and the other by influx. The first is the supposition that the soul, collected within itself, and not diffused, or divided among the organs of the body, has, from its own nature and essence, some foreknowledge of future things: witness what is seen in dreams, ecstasies, the confines of death, &c. The second supposes that the soul, after the manner of a minor, receives some secondary illumination from the presence of God and other spirits.

Artificial divination is also of two kinds; the one argues from natural causes; e. g. the predictions of physicians about the event of diseases, from the pulse, tongue, urine, &c. Such also are those of the politician, O venalem urbem, et mox peuturam, si emptorem inveneris! The second proceeds from experiments and observations arbitrarily instituted, and is mostly superstitious.

143The systems of divination reducible under this head, are almost incalculable, e. g. by birds, the entrails of birds, lines of the hand, points marked at random, numbers, names, the motion of a sieve, the air, fire, the Sortes Prænestinæ, Virgilianæ, and Homericæ; with numerous others, the principal species and names of which are as follows:—

Axinomancy,

Was an ancient species of divination or method of foretelling future events by means of an axe or hatchet. The word is derived from the Greek, αξινη, securis; μαντεια, divinatio. This art was in considerable repute among the ancients; and was performed, according to some, by laying an agate stone upon a red hot hatchet.

Alectoromantia,

Is an ancient kind of divination, performed by means of a cock, which was used among the Greeks, in the following manner.—A circle was made on the ground, and divided into 24 equal portions or spaces: in each space was written one of the letters of the alphabet, and upon each of these letters was laid a grain of wheat. This being done, a cock was placed within the circle, and careful observation was made of the grains he picked. The letters corresponding to these grains were afterwards formed into a word, which word was the answer decreed. It was thus that Libanius and Jamblicus sought who should succeed the Emperor Valens; and the cock answering to the 144spaces ΘΕΟΔ, they concluded upon Theodore, but by a mistake, instead of Theodosius.

Arithmomancy,

Is a kind of divination or method of foretelling future events, by means of numbers. The Gematria, which makes the first species of the Jewish Cabala, is a kind of Arithmomancy.

Belomancy,

Is a method of divination by means of arrows, practised in the East, but chiefly among the Arabians.

Belomancy has been performed in different manners: one was to mark a parcel of arrows, and to put eleven or more of them into a bag; these were afterwards drawn out, and according as they were marked, or otherwise, they judged of future events. Another way was, to have three arrows, upon one of which was written, God forbids it me; upon another, God orders it me; and upon the third nothing at all. These were put into a quiver, out of which one of the three was drawn at random; if it happened to be that with the second inscription, the thing they consulted about was to be done; if it chanced to be that with the first inscription, the thing was let alone; and if it proved to be that without any inscription, they drew over again. Belomancy is an ancient practice, and is probably that which Ezekiel mentions, chap. xxi. v. 21. At least St. Jerome understands it so, and observes that the practice was frequent among the Assyrians and Babylonians. Something like it is also 145mentioned in Hosea, chap. vi. only that staves are mentioned there instead of arrows, which is rather Rhabdomancy than Belomancy. Grotius, as well as Jerome, confounds the two together, and shews that they prevailed much among the Magi, Chaldeans, and Scythians, from whom they passed to the Sclavonians, and thence to the Germans, whom Tacitus observes to make use of Belomancy.

Cleromancy,

Is a kind of divination performed by the throwing of dice or little bones; and observing the points or marks turned up.

At Bura, a city of Achaia, was a temple, and a celebrated Temple of Hercules; where such as consulted the oracle, after praying to the idol, threw four dice, the points of which being well scanned by the priests, he was supposed to draw an answer from them.

Cledonism.

This word is derived from the Greek κληδων, which signifies two things; viz. rumour, a report, and avis, a bird; in the first sense, Cledonism should denote a kind of divination drawn from words occasionally uttered. Cicero observes, that the Pythagoreans made observations not only of the words of the gods, but of those of men; and accordingly believed the pronouncing of certain words, e. g. incendium, at a meal, very unlucky. Thus, instead of prison, they used the words domicilium; and to avoid erinnyes, said Eumenides. In the second 146sense, Cledonism should seem a divination drawn from birds; the same with ornithomantia.

Coscinomancy.

As the word implies, is the art of divination by means of a sieve.

The sieve being suspended, after repeating a certain form of words, it is taken between two fingers only; and the names of the parties suspected, repeated: he at whose name the sieve turns, trembles or shakes, is reputed guilty of the evil in question. This doubtless must be a very ancient practice. Theocritus, in his third Idyllion, mentions a woman who was very skilful in it. It was sometimes also practised by suspending the sieve by a thread, or fixing it to the points of a pair of scissars, giving it room to turn, and naming as before the parties suspected: in this manner Coscinomancy is still practised in some parts of England. From Theocritus it appears, that it was not only used to find out persons unknown, but also to discover the secrets of those who were.

Capnomancy,

Is a kind of divination by means of smoke, used by the ancients in their sacrifices. The general rule was—when the smoke was thin and light, and ascended straight up, it was a good omen; if on the contrary, it was an ill one.

There was another species of Capnomancy which consisted in observing the smoke arising from poppy and jessamin seed, cast upon burning coals.

Is another species of divination used by the ancients, performed by means of a mirror.

Pausanias says, that this method of divination was in use among the Achaians; where those who were sick, and in danger of death, let down a mirror, or looking-glass, fastened by a thread, into a fountain before the temple of Ceres; then looking in the glass, if they saw a ghastly disfigured face, they took it as a sure sign of death; but, on the contrary, if the face appeared fresh and healthy, it was a token of recovery. Sometimes glasses were used without water, and the images of future things, it is said, were represented in them.

Chiromancy,

Is the art of divining the fate, temperament, and disposition of a person by the lines and lineaments of the hands.

There are a great many authors on this vain and trifling art, viz. Artemidorus, Fludd, Johannes De Indagine, Taconerus, and M. De le Chambre, who are among the best.

M. De le Chambre insists upon it that the inclinations of people may be known from consulting the lines on the hands; there being a very near correspondence between the parts of the hand and the internal parts of the body, the heart, liver, &c. “whereon the passions and inclinations much depend.” He adds, however, that the rules and precepts of Chiromancy are not sufficiently warranted; the experiments on which they stand not being well verified. 148He concludes by observing, that there should be a new set of observations, made with justness and exactitude, in order to give to Chiromancy that form and solidity which an art of science demands.

Dactyliomancy.

This is a sort of divination performed by means of a ring. It was done as follows, viz. by holding a ring, suspended by a fine thread, over a round table, on the edge of which were made a number of marks with the 24 letters of the alphabet. The ring in shaking or vibrating over the table, stopped over certain of the letters, which, being joined together, composed the required answer. But this operation was preceded and accompanied by several superstitious ceremonies; for, in the first place, the ring was to be consecrated with a great deal of mystery; the person holding it was to be clad in linen garments, to the very shoes; his head was to be shaven all round, and he was to hold vervein in his hand. And before he proceeded on any thing the gods were first to be appeased by a formulary of prayers, &c.

The whole process of this mysterious rite is given in the 29th book of Ammianus Marcellinus.

Extispicium,

(From exta and spicere, to view, consider.)

The name of the officer who shewed and examined the entrails of the victims was Extispex.

This method of divination, or of drawing presages relative to futurity, was much practised throughout Greece, where there were two families, 149the Jamidæ and Clytidæ, consecrated or set apart particularly for the exercise of it.

The Hetrurians, in Italy, were the first Extispices, among whom likewise the art was in great repute. Lucan gives us a fine description of one of these operations in his first book.

Gastromancy.

This species of divination, practised among the ancients, was performed by means of words coming or appearing to come out of the belly.

There is another kind of divination called by the same name, which is performed by means of glasses, or other round transparent vessels, within which certain figures appear by magic art. Hence its name, in consequence of the figures appearing as if in the belly of the vessels.

Geomancy,

Was performed by means of a number of little points or dots, made at random on paper; and afterwards considering the various lines and figures, which those points present; thereby forming a pretended judgment of futurity, and deciding a proposed question.

Polydore Virgil defines Geomancy a kind of divination performed by means of clefts or chinks made in the ground; and he takes the Persian magi to have been the inventors of it. De invent. rer. lib. 1, c. 23.

⁂ Geomancy is formed of the Greek γη terra, earth; and μαντεια, divination; it being the ancien 150custom to cast little pebbles on the ground, and thence to form their conjecture, instead of the points above-mentioned.

Hydromancy, ὑδροματεια,

The art of divining or foretelling future events by means of water; and is one of the four general kinds of divination: the other three, as regarding the other elements, viz. fire and earth, are denominated Pyromancy, Aeromancy, and Geomancy already mentioned.

The Persians are said by Varro to have been the first inventors of Hydromancy; observing also that Numa Pompilius, and Pythagoras, made use of it.

There are various Hydromantic machines and vessels, which are of a singularly curious nature.

Necromancy,

Is the art of communicating with devils, and doing surprising things by means of their aid; particularly that of calling up the dead and extorting answers from them. (See Magic.)

Oneirocritica,

Is the art of interpreting dreams; or a method of foretelling future events by means of dreams.

From several passages of Scripture, it appears that, under the Jewish dispensation, there was such a thing as foretelling future events by dreams; but there was a particular gift or revelation required 151for that purpose. Hence it would appear that dreams are actually significative of something to come; and all that is wanting among us is, the Oneirocritica, or the art of knowing what: still it is the general opinion of the present day that dreams are mere chimera, induced by various causes, have no affinity with the realization of future events; but having, at the same time, indeed, some relation to what has already transpired.

With respect to Joseph’s dream, “it was possible,” says an old author, “for God, who knew all things, to discover to him what was in the womb of fate; and to introduce that, he might avail himself of a dream; not but that he might as well have foretold it from any other accident or circumstance whatever; unless God, to give the business more importance, should purposely communicate such a dream to Pharoah, in order to fall in with the popular notion of dreams and divination, which at that time was so prevalent among the Egyptians.”

The name given to the interpreters of dreams, or those who judge of events from the circumstances of dreams, was Oneirocritics. There is not much confidence to be placed in those Greek books called Oneirocritics; they are replete with superstition of the times. Rigault has given us a collection of the Greek and Latin works of this kind; one of which is attributed to Astrampsichus; another to Nicephorus, the patriarch of Constantinople; to which are added the treatises of Artimedorus and Achmet. But the books 152themselves are little else than reveries or waking dreams, to explain and account for sleeping ones.

The secret of Oneirocritism, according to all these authors, consists in the relations supposed to exist between the dream and the thing signified; but they are far from keeping to the relations of agreement and similitudes; and frequently they have recourse to others of dissimilitude and contrariety.

Onomancy, or Onomamancy^[35],

Is the art of divining the good or bad fortune which will befall a man from the letters of his name. This mode of divination was a very popular and reputable practice among the ancients.

The Pythagoreans taught that the minds, actions, and successes of mankind, were according to their fate, genius, and name; and Plato himself inclines somewhat to the same opinion.—Ausonius to Probus expresses it in the following manner:—

In this manner he sports with tippling Meroe, as 153if her name told she would drink pure wine without water; or as he calls it, merum mereim. Thus Hippolytus was observed to be torn to pieces by his own coach horses, as his name imported; and thus Agamemnon signified that he should linger long before Troy; Priam, that he should be redeemed out of bondage in his childhood. To this also may be referred that of Claudius Rutilius:—

It is a frequent and no less just observation in history, that the greatest Empires and States have been founded and destroyed by men of the same name. Thus, for instance, Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, began the Persian monarchy; and Cyrus, the son of Darius, ruined it; Darius, son of Hystaspes, restored it; and, again, Darius, son of Asamis, utterly overthrew it. Phillip, son of Amyntas, exceedingly enlarged the kingdom of Macedonia; and Phillip, son of Antigonus, wholly lost it. Augustus was the first Emperor of Rome; Augustulus the last. Constantine first settled the empire of Constantinople, and Constantine lost it wholly to the Turks.

There is a similar observation that some names are constantly unfortunate to princes: e. g. Caius, among the Romans; John, in France, England and Scotland; and Henry, in France.

One of the principal rules of Onomancy, among the Pythagoreans, was, that an even number of vowels in a name signified an imperfection in the 154left side of a man; and an odd number in the right.—Another rule, about as good as this, was, that those persons were the most happy, in whose names the numeral letters, added together, made the greatest sum; for which reason, say they, it was, that Achilles vanquished Hector; the numeral letters, in the former name, amounting to a greater number than the latter. And doubtless it was from a like principle that the young Romans toasted their mistresses at their meetings as often as their names contained letters.

Rhodingius describes a singular kind of Onomantia.—Theodotus, King of the Goths, being curious to learn the success of his wars against the Romans, an Onomantical Jew ordered him to shut up a number of swine in little stys, and to give some of them Roman, and others Gothic names, with different marks to distinguish them, and there to keep them till a certain day; which day having come, upon inspecting the stys they found those dead to whom the Gothic names had been given, and those alive to whom the Roman names were assigned.—Upon which the Jew foretold the defeat of the Goths.

Onycomancy, or Onymancy.

This kind of divination is performed by means of the finger nails. The ancient practice was, to rub the nails of a youth with oil and soot, or wax, 155and to hold up the nails, thus prepared, against the sun; upon which there were supposed to appear figures or characters, which shewed the thing required. Hence also modern Chiromancers call that branch of their art which relates to the inspection of nails, Onycomancy.

Ornithomancy,

Is a kind of divination, or method of arriving at the knowledge of futurity, by means of birds; it was among the Greeks what Augury was among the Romans.

Pyromancy,

A species of divination performed by means of fire.

The ancients imagined they could foretel futurity by inspecting fire and flame; for this purpose they considered its direction, or which way it turned. Sometimes they added other matters to the fire, e. g. a vessel full of urine, with its neck bound round with wool; and narrowly watched the side in which it would burst, and thence took their prognostic. Sometimes they threw pitch in it, and if it took fire instantly, they considered it a favourable omen.

Pyscomancy, or Sciomancy,

An art among the ancients of raising or calling up the manes or souls of deceased persons, to give intelligence of things to come. The witch who conjured up the soul of Samuel, to foretel Saul the event of the battle he was about to give, did so by Sciomancy.

Was an ancient method of divination, performed by means of rods or staves. St. Jerome mentions this kind of divination in his Commentary on Hosea, chap. vi. 12.; where the prophet says, in the name of God: My people ask counsel at their stocks; and their staff declareth unto them: which passage that father understands of the Grecian Rhabdomancy.

The same is met with again in Ezekiel, xxi. 21, 22. where the prophet says: For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright; or, as St. Jerome renders it, he mixed his arrows; he consulted with images; he looked in the liver.

If it be the same kind of divination that is alluded to in these two passages, Rhabdomancy must be the same kind of superstition with Belomancy. These two, in fact, are generally confounded. The Septuagint themselves translate חצים of Ezekiel, by ῥαβδος, a rod; though in strictness it signifies an arrow. So much however is certain, that the instruments of divination mentioned by Hosea are different from those of Ezekiel. In the former it is עצו etso, מקלו maklo, his wood, his staff: in the latter חצים hhitism, arrows. Though it is possible they might use rods or arrows indifferently; or the military men might use arrows and the rest rods.

By the laws of the Frisones, it appears that the ancient inhabitants of Germany practised Rhabdomancy. 157The Scythians were likewise acquainted with the use of it: and Herodotus observes, lib. vi. that the women among the Alani sought and gathered together fine straight wands or rods, and used them for the same superstitious purposes.

Among the various other kinds of divination, not here mentioned, may be enumerated: Chiromancy, performed with keys; Alphitomancy or Aleuromancy, by flour; Keraunoscopia, by the consideration of thunder; Alectromancy, by cocks; Lithomancy, by stones; Eychnomancy, by lamps; Ooscopy, by eggs; Lecanomancy, by a basin of water; Palpitatim, Salisatio, παλμος, by the pulsation or motion of some member, &c. &c. &c.

All these kinds of divination have been condemned by the fathers of the Church, and Councils, as supposing some compact with the devil. Fludd has written several treatises on divination, and its different species; and Cicero has two books of the divination of the ancients, in which he confutes the whole system. Cardan also, in his 4th Book de Sapientia, describes every species of them.

The word oracle admits, under this head, of two significations: first, it is intended to express an answer, usually couched in very dark and ambiguous terms, supposed to be given by demons of old, either by the mouths of their idols, or by those of their priests, to those who consulted them on things 158to come. The Pythian^[36] was always in a rage when she gave oracles.

Ablancourt observes that the study or research of the meaning of Oracles was but a fruitless thing; and they were never understood until they were accomplished. It is related by Historians, that Crœsus was tricked by the ambiguity and equivocation of the oracle.

Κροισος Άλυν διαβας μεγαλην αρχην καταλνσει. rendered thus in Latin:—

Crœsus Halym superans magnam pervertet opum vim.

Oracle is also used for the Demon who gave the answer, and the place where it was given. (Vide Demon.)

The principal oracles of antiquity are that of Abæ, mentioned by Herodotus; that of Amphiarus; that of the Branchidæ, at Didymus; that of 159the Camps, at Lacedemon; that of Dodona; that of Jupiter Ammon; that of Nabarca, in the Country of the Anariaci, near the Caspian sea; that of Trophonius, mentioned by Herodotus; that of Chrysopolis; that of Claros, in Ionia; that of Mallos; that of Patarea; that of Pella, in Macedonia; that of Phaselides, in Cilicia; that of Sinope, in Paphlagonia; that of Orpheus’s head, mentioned by Philostratus in his life of Appolonius, &c. But, of all others, the oracle of Apollo Pythius, at Delphi, was the most celebrated; it was, in short, consulted always as a dernier ressort, in cases of emergency, by most of the princes of those ages.—Mr. Bayle observes, that at first, it gave its answers in verse; and that at length it fell to prose, in consequence of the people beginning to laugh at the poorness of its versification.

Among the more learned, it is a pretty general opinion that all the oracles were mere cheats and impostures; calculated either to serve the avaricious ends of the heathen priests, or the political views of the princes. Bayle positively asserts, they were mere human artifices, in which the devil had no hand. In this opinion he is strongly supported by Van Dale, a Dutch physician, and M. Fontenelle, who have expressly written on the subject.

There are two points at issue on the subject of oracles; viz. whether they were human or diabolical machines; and whether or not they ceased upon the publication and preaching of the Gospel?

Plutarch wrote a treatise on the ceasing of some oracles: and Van Dale has a volume to prove that 160they did not cease at the coming of Christ; but that many of them had ceased long before the coming of that time, and that others held out till the fall of Paganism, under the Empire of Theodosius the Great, and when it was dissipated, these institutions could no longer resist.

Van Dale was answered by a German, one Mœbius, professor of Theology, at Leipsic, in 1685. Fontenelle espoused Van Dale’s system, and improved upon it in his history of oracles; wherein he exposed the weakness of the argument used by many writers in behalf of Christianity, drawn from the ceasing of oracles.

Balthus, a learned Jesuit, answered both Van Dale and Fontenelle. He labours to prove, that there were real oracles, and such as can never be attributed to any artifices of the Priests or Priestesses; and that several of these became silent in the first ages of the Church, either by the coming of Jesus Christ, or by the prayers of the Saints. This doctrine is confirmed by a letter from Father Bouchet, missionary to Father Balthus; wherein it is declared, that what Father Balthus declares of the ancient oracles, is experimented every day in the Indies.

It appears, according to Bouchet, that the devil still delivers oracles in the Indies; and that, not by idols, which would be liable to imposture, but by the mouths of the priests, and sometimes of the bye-standers; it is added that these oracles, too, cease, and the devil becomes mute in proportion as the Gospel is preached among them.

It was Eusebius who first endeavoured to persuade 161the christians that the coming of Jesus Christ had struck the oracles dumb; though it appears from the laws of Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, that the oracles were still consulted as far back as the year 358. Cicero says the oracles became dumb, in proportion as people, growing less credulous, began to suspect them for cheats.

Two reasons are alleged by Plutarch for the ceasing of oracles: the one was Apollo’s chagrin, who, it seems, “took it in dudgeon,” to be interrogated about so many trifles. The other was, that in proportion as the genii, or demons, who had the management of the oracles, died and became extinct, the oracles must necessarily cease. He adds a third and more natural cause for the ceasing of oracles, viz. the forlorn state of Greece, ruined and desolated by wars. For, in consequence of this calamity, the smallness of the gains suffered the priests to sink into a poverty and contempt too bare to cover the fraud.

Most of the fathers of the church imagined it to be the devil that gave oracles, and considered it as a pleasure he took to give dubious and equivocal answers, in order to have a handle to laugh at them. Vossius allows that it was the devil who spoke in oracles; but thinks that the obscurity of his answers was owing to his ignorance as to the precise circumstances of events. That artful and studied obscurity, wherein, says he, answers were couched, shew the embarrassment the devil was under; as those double meanings they usually bore provided for the accomplishment. When the thing 162foretold did not happen accordingly, the oracle, forsooth, was always misunderstood.

Eusebius has preserved some fragments of a Philosopher, called Oenomaus, who, out of resentment for having been so often fooled by the oracles, wrote an ample confutation of all their impertinences, in the following strain: “When we come to consult thee,” says he to Apollo, “if thou seest what is in the womb of futurity, why dost thou use expressions that will not be understood? if thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing us: if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek word whereby thou affirmedst that Crœsus should overthrow a great Empire, was ill-chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Crœsus’ conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou amuse us with thy ambiguities? What dost thou, wretch as thou art, at Delphi; employed in muttering idle prophesies!”

But Oenamaus is still more out of humour with the oracle for the answer which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance to his daughter, was willing the Athenians should save themselves within wooden walls; and that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dead to their mothers, either when Ceres was spread abroad, or gathered together. At this 163Oenamaus loses all patience with the Delphian god: “This contest,” says he, “between father and daughter, is very becoming the deities! It is excellent, that there should be contrary inclinations and interests in heaven! Poor wizard, thou art ignorant who the children are that shall see Salamis perish; whether Greeks or Persians. It is certain they must be either one or the other; but thou needest not have told so openly that thou knewest not which. Thou concealest the time of the battle under these fine poetical expressions, either when Ceres is spread abroad, or gathered together: and thou wouldst cajole us with such pompous language! who knows not, that if there be a seafight, it must either be in seed-time or harvest? It is certain it cannot be in winter. Let things go how they will, thou wilt secure thyself by this Jupiter, whom Minerva is endeavouring to appease. If the Greeks lose the battle, Jupiter proved inexorable to the last; if they gain it, why then Minerva at length prevailed.”

The name of an imaginary set of magicians in the island Gromboccanore, in the East Indies.

The word implies men-devils; these people, it seems, having the art of rendering themselves invisible, and passing where they please, and, by these means, doing infinite mischief; for which reason the people hate and fear them mortally, and always kill them on the spot when they can take them.

164In the Portuguese history, printed 1581, folio, there is mention of a present made by the king of the island to a Portuguese officer, named Brittio, ourans, with whom, it is pretended, he made incursions on the people of Tidore, killed great numbers, &c.

To try whether in effect they had the faculty ascribed to them, one of them was tied by the neck with a rope, without any possibility of disengaging himself by natural means; yet in the morning it was found he had slipped his collar. But that the king of Tidore might not complain that Brittio made war on him with devils, it is said he dismissed them at length, in their own island.

The art of foretelling future events by dreams, is called

Brizomancy.

Macrobius mentions five sorts of dreams, viz. 1st, vision; 2d, a discovery of something between sleep and waking; 3d, a suggestion cast into our fancy, called by Cicero, Vesum; 4th, an ordinary dream; and 5th, a divine apparition or revelation in our sleep; such as were the dreams of the prophets, and of Joseph, as also of the magi of the East.

Origin of Interpreting Dreams.

The fictitious art of interpreting dreams, had 165its origin among the Egyptians and Chaldeans; countries fertile in superstitions of all kinds. It was propagated from them to the Romans, who judging some dreams worthy of observation, appointed persons on purpose to interpret them.

The believers in dreams as prognostics of future events, bring forward in confirmation of this opinion, a great variety of dreams, which have been the forerunners of very singular events:—among these are that of Calphurnia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, dreaming the night before his death, that she saw him stabbed in the capitol: that of Artorius, Augustus’s physician, dreaming before the battle of Philippi, that his master’s camp was pillaged; that of the Emperor Vespasian dreaming an old woman told him, that his good fortune would begin when Nero should have a tooth drawn, which happened accordingly.

Cæsar dreaming that he was committing incest with his mother, was crowned Emperor of Rome; and Hippias the Athenian Tyrant, dreaming the same, died shortly after, and was interred in his mother earth. Mauritius the Emperor, who was slain by Phocas, dreamed a short time previous to this event, that an image of Christ that was fixed over the brazen gate of his palace, called him and reproached him with his sins, and at length demanded of him whether he would receive the punishment due to them in this world or the next; and Mauritius answering in this, the image commanded that he should be given, with his wife and children, into the hands of Phocas. Whereupon Mauritius, awakening in great fear, asked Phillipus, 166his son-in-law, whether he knew any soldier in the army called Phocas, he answered that there was a commissary so called; and Phocas became his successor, having killed his wife and five children. Arlet, during her pregnancy by William the Conqueror, dreamed that a light shone from her womb, that illumined all England. Maca, Virgil’s mother, dreamed that she was delivered of a laurel branch.

The ridiculous infatuation of dreams is still so prominent, even among persons whose education should inform them better, and particularly among the fair sex, that a conversation seldom passes among them, that the subject of some foolish inconsistent dream or other, does not form a leading feature of their gossip. “I dreamed last night,” says one, “that one of my teeth dropped out.”—“That’s a sign,” replies another, “that you will lose a friend or some of your relations.”—“I’m afraid I shall,” returns the dreamer, “for my cousin (brother, or some other person connected with the family or its interests,) is very ill,” &c.

Opinions on the cause of dreams.

Avicen makes the cause of dreams to be an ultimate intelligence moving the moon in the midst of that light with which the fancies of men are illuminated while they sleep. Aristotle refers the cause of them to common sense, but placed in the fancy. Averroes places it in the imagination. Democritus ascribes it to little images, or representations, separated from the things themselves. Plato, among the specific and concrete notions of 167the soul. Albertus to the superior influences which continually flow from the sky, through many specific mediums. And some physicians attribute the cause of them to vapours and humours, and the affections and cares of persons predominant when awake; for, say they, by reason of the abundance of vapours, which are exhaled in consequence of immoderate feeding, the brain is so stuffed by it, that monsters and strange chimera are formed, of which the most inordinate eaters and drinkers furnish us with sufficient instances. Some dreams, they assert, are governed partly by the temperature of the body, and partly by the humour which mostly abounds in it; to which may be added, the apprehensions which have preceded the day before; which are often remarked in dogs, and other animals, which bark and make a noise in their sleep. Dreams, they observe, proceeding from the humours and temperature of the body, we see the choleric dreams of fire, combats, yellow colours, &c.; the phlegmatic, of water, baths, of sailing on the sea, &c.; the melancholics, of thick fumes, deserts, fantasies, hideous faces, &c.; the sanguines, of merry feasts, dances, &c. They that have the hinder part of their brain clogged with viscous humours, called by physicians ephialtes incubus, or, as it is termed, night-mare, imagine, in dreaming, that they are suffocated. And those who have the orifice of their stomach loaded with malignant humours, are affrighted with strange visions, by reason of those venemous vapours that mount to the brain and distemper it.

Cicero tells a story of two Arcadians, who, travelling 168together, came to Megara, a city of Greece, between Athens and Corinth, where one of them lodged in a friend’s house, and the other at an inn. After supper the person who lodged at the private house went to bed, and falling asleep, dreamed that his friend at the inn appeared to him, and begged his assistance, because the innkeeper was going to kill him. The man immediately got out of bed much frightened at the dream but recovering himself and falling asleep again, his friend appeared to him a second time, and desired, that as he would not assist him in time, he would take care at least not to let his death go unpunished; that the innkeeper having murdered him, had thrown his body into a cart and covered it with dung; he therefore begged that he would be at the city gate in the morning, before the cart was out. Struck with this new dream, he went early to the gate, saw the cart, and asked the driver what was in it; the driver immediately fled, the dead body was taken out of the cart, and the innkeeper apprehended and executed.

Fate, in a general sense, denotes an inevitable necessity, depending on some superior cause. It is a term much used among the ancient philosophers. It is formed a fando, from speaking; and primarily implies the same with effatum, i. e. 169a word or decree pronounced by God; or a fixed sentence, whereby the deity has prescribed the order of things, and allotted every person what shall befal him. The Greeks called θμαρμενη, quasi, θρμος, nexus, a change, or necessary series of things, indissolubly linked together; and the moderns call it Providence. But independent of this sense of the word, in which it is used sometimes to denote the causes in nature, and sometimes the divine appointment, the word Fate has a farther meaning, being used to express some kind of necessity or other, or eternal designation of things, whereby all agents, necessary as well as voluntary, are swayed and directed to their ends.

Some authors have divided Fate into Astrological and Stoical.

Astrological fate, denotes a necessity of things and events, arising, as is supposed, from the influence and positions of the heavenly bodies, which give law to the elements and mixed bodies, as well as to the wills of men.

Stoical fate, or FATALITY, or FATALISM, is defined by Cicero, an order or series of causes, in which cause is linked to cause, each producing others; and in this manner all things flow from the one prime cause. Chrysippus defines it a natural invariable succession of all things, ab eterno, each involving the other. To this fate they subject the very gods themselves. Thus the poet observes, that the “parent of all things made laws at the beginning, by which he not only binds other things, but himself.” Seneca also remarks, Eadem necessitas et deos alligat. Irrevocabilis 170divina pariter et humana cursit vehit. Ipse ille omnium conditor et rector scripsit quidam fata, sed sequitur; semel scripsit, semper paret. This eternal series of causes, the poets call μοιραι, and parcæ, or destinies.

By some later authors Fate is divided into Physical and divine.

The first, or Physical fate, is an order and series of physical causes, appropriated to their effects. This series is necessary, and the necessity is natural. The principal or foundation of this Fate is nature, or the power and manner of acting which God originally gave to the several bodies, elements, &c. By this Fate it is that fire warms; bodies communicate motion to each other; the rising and falling of the tides, &c. And the effects of this Fate are all the events and phenomena in the universe, except such as arise from the human.

The second, or divine Fate, is what is more commonly called Providence. Plato, in his Phædo, includes both these in one definition; as intimating, that they were one and the same thing, actively and passively considered. Thus, Fatum Est ratio quædam divina, lexque naturæ comes, quæ transiri nequeat, quippe a causa pendens, quæ superior sit quibusvis impedimentis. Though that of Bœtius seems the clearer of the two:—Fatum, says he, est inhærens rebus molilibus despositio per quam providentia suis quæque nectet ordinibus.

There seems to be something in Physiognomy, and it may perhaps bear a much purer philosophy than these authors (see Note,) were acquainted with. This, at least, we dare say, that of all the fanciful arts of the ancients, fallen into disuse by the moderns, there is none has so much foundation in nature as this. There is an apparent correspondence, or analogy between the countenance and the mind; the features and lineaments of the one are directed by the motions and affections of the other: there is even a peculiar arrangement in the members of the face, and a peculiar disposition of the countenance, to each particular affection; and perhaps to each particular idea of the mind. In fact, the language of the face (physiognomy,) is as copious, nay, perhaps, as distinct and intelligible, as that of the tongue, (speech.) Thanks to bounteous nature, she has not confined us to one only method of conversing with each other, and of learning each other’s thoughts; we have several:—We do not wholly depend on the tongue, which may happen to be bound; and the ear, which may be deaf:—but in those cases we 172have another resource, viz. the Countenance and the Eye, which afford us this further advantage, that by comparing the reports of the tongue, (a member exceedingly liable to deceive,) with those of the face, the prevarications of the former may be detected.

The foundation of Physiognomy is the different objects that present themselves to the senses, nay, the different ideas that arise on the mind, do make some impression on the spirits; and each an impression correspondent or adequate to its cause,—each, therefore, makes a different impression. If it be asked how such an impression could be effected, it is easy to answer; in short, it is a consequence of the economy of the Creator, who has fixed such a relation between the several parts of the creation, to the end that we may be apprized of the approach or recess of things hurtful or useful to us. Should this not be philosophical enough for our purpose, take the manner of the Cartesian language, thus: the animal spirits moved in the organ by an object, continue their motion to the brain; from whence that motion is propagated to this or that particular part of the body, as is most suitable to the design of nature; having first made a proper alteration in the face by means of its nerves, especially the Pathetici and Motores Occulorum. See Dr. Gurther’s work, anno 1604.

The face here does the office of a dial-plate, and the wheels and springs, inside the machine, putting its muscles in motion, shew what is next to be expected from the striking part. Not that the 173motion of the spirits is continued all the way by the impression of the object, as the impression may terminate in the substance of the brain, the common fund of the spirits; the rest Dr. Gurther imagines, may be effected much after the same manner as air is conveyed into the pipes of an organ, which being uncovered, the air rushes in; and when the keys are let go, is stopped again.

Now, if by repeated acts, or the frequent entertaining of a private passion or vice, which natural temperament has hurried, or custom dragged on to, the face is often put in that posture which attends such acts; the animal spirits will make such passages through the nerves, (in which the essence of a habit consists,) that the face is sometimes unalterably set in that posture, (as the Indian religious are by a long continued sitting in strange postures in their pagods,) or, at least, it falls, insensibly and mechanically, into that posture, unless some present object distort it therefrom, or some dissimulation hide it. This reason is confirmed by observation: thus we see great drinkers with eyes generally set towards the nose; the abducent muscles (by some called bibatorii, or bibatory muscles,) being often employed to put them in that posture, in order to view their beloved liquor in the glass, at the time of drinking. Thus, also, lascivious persons are remarkable for the oculorum mobilis petulantia, as Petronius calls it. Hence also we may account for the Quaker’s expecting face, waiting the spirit to move him; the melancholy face of most sectaries; the studious face of men of great application of mind; revengeful 174and bloody men, like executioners in the act; and though silence in a sort may awhile pass for wisdom, yet sooner or later, St. Martin peeps through the disguise to undo all. “A changeable face,” continues Dr. Gurther, “I have observed to show a changeable mind, but I would by no means have what has been said be understood as without exception; for I doubt not but sometimes there are found men with great and virtuous souls under very unpromising outsides.”

“Were our observations a little more strict and delicate, we might, doubtless, not only distinguish habits and tempers, but also professions. In effect, does there need much penetration to distinguish the fierce looks of the veteran soldier, the contentious look of the practised pleader, the solemn look of the minister of state, or many others of the like kind?”

A very remarkable physiological anecdote has been given by De La Place, in his “Pièces Interrestantes et peu connues.” Vol. iv. p. 8.

He was assured by a friend that he had seen a voluminous and secret correspondence which had been carried on between Louis XIV. and his favourite physician De la Chambre on this science: the faith of the monarch seems to have been great, and the purpose to which this correspondence tended was extraordinary indeed, and perhaps scarcely credible. Who will believe that Louis XIV. was so convinced of that talent, which De la Chambre attributed to himself, of deciding merely by the physiognomy of persons, not only 175on the real bent of their character, but to what employment they were adapted, that the king entered into a secret correspondence to obtain the critical notices of his physiognomist. That Louis XIV. should have pursued this system, undetected by his own courtiers, is also singular; but it appears by this correspondence, that this art positively swayed him in his choice of officers and favourites. On one of the backs of these letters De la Chambre had written, “If I die before his majesty, he will incur great risk of making many an unfortunate choice.”

This collection of Physiological correspondence, if it does really exist, would form a curious publication. We, however, have heard nothing of it.

De la Chambre was an enthusiastic physiognomist, as appears by his works: “The Characters of the Passions,” four volumes in quarto; “The art of Knowing Mankind;” and “the Knowledge of Animals.”

Lavater quotes his “vote and interest” in behalf of his favourite science. It is no less curious, however, to add, that Phillip Earl of Pembroke, under James I., had formed a particular collection of portraits, with a view to physiognomonical studies.

The great Prince of Condé was very expert in a sort of Physiognomy which shewed the peculiar habits, motions, and positions of familiar life, and mechanical employments. He would sometimes lay wagers with his friends, that he would guess, upon the Pont Neuf, what trade 176persons were of that passed by, from their walk and air.

The celebrated Marshal Laudohn would have entered when young, into the service of the great Frederick, King of Prussia; but that monarch, with all his penetration, formed a very erroneous judgment of the young officer, (as he himself found in the sequel,) and pronounced that he would never do; in consequence of which Laudohn entered into the service of the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, and became one of the most formidable opponents of his Prussian Majesty. Marshal Turrene was much more accurate in his opinion of our illustrious John Duke of Marlborough, whose future greatness he predicted, when he was serving in the French army as Ensign Churchill, and known by the unmilitary name of the “handsome Englishman.”

In the fine arts, moreover, we have seen no less accurate predictions of future eminence. As the scholars of Rubens were playing and jesting with each other, in the absence of their master, one of them was accidentally thrown against a piece on which Rubens had just been working, and a considerable part of it was entirely disfigured. Another of the pupils set himself immediately to repair it, and completed the design before his master returned. Rubens, on reviewing his work, observed a change, and a difference that surprised and embarrassed him. At last, suspecting that some one had been busy, he demanded an explanation; adding, that the execution was in 177so masterly a manner, that he would pardon the impertinence on account of its merit. Encouraged by this declaration, the young artist confessed, and explained the whole, pleading, that his officiousness was merely to screen a comrade from his master’s anger. Rubens answered, “if any one of my scholars shall excel me, it will be yourself.” This pupil was the great Vandyck.

Lavater, who revived physiognomy, has, unquestionably, brought it to great perfection. But it may justly be doubted whether he is not deceived in thinking that it may be taught like other sciences, and whether there is not much in his system that is whimsical and unfounded. Every man, however, has by nature, something of the science, and nothing is more common than to suspect the man who never looks his neighbour in the face. There is a degree of cunning in such characters, which is always dangerous, but by no means new. “There is a wicked man that hangeth down his head sadly; but inwardly he is full of deceit. Casting down his countenance, and making as if he heard not. A man may be known by his look, and one that hath understanding, by his countenance, when thou meetest him.”—In several of Lavater’s aphorisms, something like the following occurs: “A man’s attire, and excessive laughter, and gait, shew what he is.”

Partial darkness, or obscurity, are the most powerful means by which the sight is deceived: night is therefore the proper season for apparitions. Indeed the state of the mind, at that time, prepares it for the admission of these delusions of the imagination. The fear and caution which must be observed in the night; the opportunity it affords for ambuscades and assassinations; depriving us of society, and cutting off many pleasing trains of ideas, which objects in the light never fail to introduce, are all circumstances of terror: and perhaps, on the whole, so much of our happiness depends upon our senses, that the deprivation of any one may be attended with a proportionate degree of horror and uneasiness. The notions entertained by the ancients respecting the soul, may receive some illustrations from these principles. In dark, or twilight, the imagination frequently transforms an inanimate body into a human figure; on approaching the same appearance is not to be found: hence they sometimes fancied they saw their ancestors; but not finding the reality, distinguished these illusions by the name of shades.

Many of these fabulous narrations might originate from dreams. There are times of slumber, when we are sensible of being asleep^[38]. On this principle, Hobbes has so ingeniously accounted for the spectre which is said to have appeared to Brutus, 179that we cannot resist the temptation of inserting it in his own words. “We read,” says he, “of M. Brutus, (one that had his life given him by Julius Cæsar, and was also his favourite, and notwithstanding murdered him) that at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Cæsar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a vision; but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge it to have been but a short dream. For, sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so it must needs make the apparition by degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or any thing but a vision.”—The well-known story told by Clarendon, of the apparition of the Duke of Buckingham’s father, will admit of a similar solution. There was no man in the kingdom so much the subject of conversation as the Duke; and, from the corruptness of his character, he was very likely to fall a sacrifice to the enthusiasm of the times. Sir George Viliers is said to have appeared to the man at midnight—there is therefore the greatest probability that the man was asleep; and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was likely to be repeated.

It must be confessed, that the popular belief of 180departed spirits occasionally holding a communication with the human race, is replete with matter of curious speculation. Some Christian divines, with every just reason, acknowledge no authentic source whence the impression of a future state could ever have been communicated to man, but from the Jewish prophets or from our Saviour himself. Yet it is certain, that a belief in our existence after death has, from time immemorial, prevailed in countries, to which the knowledge of the gospel could never have extended, as among certain tribes of America. Can then this notion have been intuitively suggested? Or is it an extravagant supposition, that the belief might often have arisen from those spectral illusions, to which men in every age, from the occasional influence of morbific causes, must have been subject? And what would have been the natural self-persuasion, if a savage saw before him the apparition of a departed friend or acquaintance, endowed with the semblance of life, with motion, and with signs of mental intelligence, perhaps even holding a converse with him? Assuredly, the conviction would scarcely fail to arise of an existence after death. The pages of history attest the fact that:—

But if this opinion of a life hereafter, had ever among heathen nations their origin, it must necessarily be imbued with the grossest absurdities, incidental to so fallacious a source of intelligence. Yet still the mind has clung to such extravagancies with avidity; “for,” as Sir Thomas Brown has 181remarked, “it is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him that he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no future state to come, unto which this seems progressively and otherwise made in vain.” It has remained therefore for the light of revelation alone, to impart to this belief the consistency and conformation of divine truth, and to connect it with a rational system of rewards and punishments.

From the foregoing remarks, we need not be surprised that a conviction of the occasional appearance of ghosts or departed spirits, should, from the remotest antiquity, have been a popular creed, not confined to any distinct tribe or race of people. In Europe, it was the opinion of the Greeks and Romans, that, after the dissolution of the body, every man was possessed of three different kinds of ghosts, which were distinguished by the names of Manes, Anima, and Umbra. These were disposed of after the following manner: the Manes descended into the infernal regions, the Anima ascended to the skies, and the Umbra hovered about the tomb, as being unwilling to quit its connexion with the body. Dido, for instance, when about to die, threatens to haunt Æneas with her umbra; at the same time, she expects that the tidings of his punishment will rejoin her manes below^[39].

182The opinions regarding ghosts which were entertained during the Christian era, but more particularly during the middle ages, are very multifarious; yet these, with the authorities annexed to them, have been most industriously collected by Reginald Scot. His researches are replete with amusement and instruction. “And, first,” says he, “you shall understand, that they hold, that all the soules in heaven may come downe and appeare to us when they list, and assume anie bodie saving their owne: otherwise (saie they) such soules should not be perfectlie happie. They saie that you may know the good soules from the bad very easilie. For a damned soule hath a very heavie and soure looke; but a saint’s soule hath a cheerful and merrie countenance: these also are white and shining, the other cole black. And these damned soules also may come up out of hell at their pleasure, although Abraham made Dives believe the contrarie. They affirme, that damned soules walke oftenest: next unto them, the soules of purgatorie; and most seldom the soules of saints. Also they saie, that in the old lawe soules did appeare seldom; and after doomsdaie they shall never be seene more: in the time of grace they shall be most frequent. The walking of these soules (saith Michael Andræas) is a moste excellent argument for the proofe of purgatorie; for (saith he) those soules have testified that which the popes have affirmed in that behalfe; to wit, that there is not onelie such a place of punishment, but that they are released from thence by masses, and such other satisfactorie works, whereby the goodness of the masse is also ratified and confirmed.

183“These heavenlie or purgatorie soules (saie they) appeare most commonlie to them that are borne upon Ember daies; because we are in best date at that time to praie for the one, and to keepe companie with the other. Also, they saie, that soules appeare oftenest by night; because men may then be at best leisure, and most quiet. Also they never appeare to the whole multitude, seldome to a few, and commonlie to one alone; for so one may tell a lie without controlment. Also, they are oftenest seene by them that are readie to die: as Thrasella saw Pope Fœlix; Ursine, Peter and Paule; Galla Romana, S. Peter; and as Musa the maide sawe our Ladie: which are the most certaine appearances, credited and allowed in the church of Rome; also, they may be seene of some, and of some other in that presence not seene at all; as Ursine saw Peter and Paule, and yet manie at that instant being present could not see anie such sight, but thought it a lie, as I do. Michael Andræas confesseth that papists see more visions than Protestants: he saith also, that a good soule can take none other shape than a man; manie a damned soule may and doth take the shape of a blackmore, or of a beaste, or of a serpent, or speciallie of an heretike.”

Such is the accounts which Scot has given regarding the Popish opinion of departed spirits. In another part of his work, he triumphantly asks, “Where are the soules that swarmed in time past? Where are the spirits? Who heareth their noises? Who seeth their visions? Where are the soules that made such mone 184for trentals, whereby to be eased of their pains in purgatorie? Are they all gone to Italie, because masse are growne deere here in England?—The whole course may be perceived to be a false practice, and a counterfeit vision, or rather a lewd invention. For in heaven men’s soules remaine not in sorrow and care, neither studie they there how to compasse and get a worshipfull burial here in earth. If they did they would not have foreslowed so long. Now, therefore, let us not suffer ourselves to be abused anie longer, either with conjuring priests, or meloncholicall witches; but be thankfull to God that hath delivered us from such blindness and error^[40].” This is the congratulation of a true Protestant at an early period of the reformation; and it is certain, that with the disbelief of that future state of purgatory, taught by the Romish church, the communication of the living with the dead became less frequent. Still, however, some belief of the kind prevailed, though less tinctured with superstition. An author, styling himself Theophilus Insulanus, who, half a century ago, wrote on the second-sight of Scotland, affixes the term irreligious to those who should entertain a doubt on the reality of apparitions of departed souls. “Such ghostly visitants,” he gravely affirms, “are not employed on an errand of a frivolous concern to lead us into error, but are employed as so many heralds by the great Creator, for the more ample demonstration of his power, to proclaim tidings for our instruction; and, as we are prone to despond 185in religious matter, to confirm our faith of the existence of spirits, (the foundation of all religions,) and the dignity of human nature.” With due deference, however, to this anonymous writer, whom we should scarcely have noticed, if he had not echoed in this assertion an opinion which was long popular, we shall advert to the opposite sentiments expressed on the subject by a far more acute, though less serious author. The notion, for instance, of the solemn character of ghosts, and that they are never employed on frivolous errands, is but too successfully ridiculed by Grose^[41]. “In most of the relations of ghosts,” says this pleasant writer, “they are supposed to be mere aërial beings without substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid bodies at pleasure. The usual time at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight. Ghosts commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore when living: though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the church-yard ghosts, who have no particular business, but seem to appear pro bono publico, or to scare drunken rustics from tumbling over their graves. I cannot learn that ghosts carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted, though the room in which they appear, if without fire or candle, is frequently said to be as light as day. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English 186ghosts; chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments: dead or alive, English spirits are free. If, during the time of an apparition, there is a lighted candle in the room, it will burn extremely blue: this is so universally acknowledged, that many eminent philosophers have busied themselves in accounting for it, without ever doubting the truth of the fact. Dogs too have the faculty of seeing spirits^[42].”

There are several other minute particulars respecting ghosts given by this author, for the insertion of which we have not room; yet it would be inexcusable to omit noticing the account which he has subjoined, of the awfully momentous errands upon which spirits are sent. “It is somewhat remarkable,” he adds, “that ghosts do not go about their business like the persons of this world. In cases of murder, a ghost, instead of going to the next justice of peace, and laying its information, or to the nearest relation of the person murdered, appears to some poor labourer who knows none of the parties; draws the curtain of some decrepit nurse, or alms-woman; or hovers about the place where the body is deposited. The same circuitous road is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows; when it seems as if the most certain way would be to go to the person 187guilty of the injustice, and haunt him continually till he be terrified into a restitution. Nor are the pointing out lost writings generally managed in a more summary way; the ghost commonly applying to a third person, ignorant of the whole affair, and a stranger to all concerned. But it is presumptuous to scrutinize far into these matters: ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs peculiar to themselves.”

The view which Grose has taken of the character of departed spirits is pretty correct, although I have certainly read of some spirits whose errands to the earth have been much more direct. One ghost, for instance, has terrified a man into the restitution of lands, which had been bequeathed to the poor of a village. A second spirit has adopted the same plan for recovering property of which a nephew had been wronged; but a third has haunted a house for no other purpose than to kick up a row in it—to knock about chairs, tables, and other furniture. Glanville relates a story, of the date of 1632, in which a man, upon the alleged information of a female spirit, who came by her death foully, led the officers of justice to a pit, where a mangled corpse was concealed, charged two individuals with her murder; and upon this fictitious story, the poor fellows were condemned and executed, although they solemnly persevered to the last in maintaining their innocence. It is but too evident, in this case, by whom the atrocious deed had been committed.

Other apparitions of this kind may be considered as the illusions of well-known diseases. Thus there can be no difficulty in considering the following 188apparition, given on the authority of Aubery and Turner, as having had its origin in the Delirium Tremens of drunkenness. “Mr. Cassio Burroughs,” says the narrator of this very choice, yet, we believe, authentic story, “was one of the most beautiful men in England, and very valiant, but very proud and blood thirsty. There was in London a very beautiful Italian lady,” (whom he seduced.) “The gentlewoman died; and afterwards, in a tavern in London, he spake of it, (contrary to his sacred promise,) “and then going” (out of doors) the ghost of the gentlewoman did appear to him. He was afterwards troubled with the apparition of her, even sometimes in company when he was drinking. Before she did appear, he did find a kind of chilness upon his spirits. She did appear to him in the morning before he was killed in a duel.”

Of the causes of many apparitions which have been recorded, it is not so easy as the foregoing narrative, to obtain a satisfactory explanation. Such is the case of the story related of Viscount Dundee, whose ghost about the time he fell at the battle of Killicranky, appeared to Lord Balcarras, then under confinement, upon the suspicion of Jacobitism, at the Castle of Edinburgh. The spectre drew aside the curtain of his friend’s bed, looked stedfastly at him, leaned for some time on the mantlepiece, and then walked out of the room. The Earl, not aware at the time that he was gazing on a phantom, called upon Dundee to stop. News soon arrived of the unfortunate hero’s fate. Now, regarding this, and other stories of the kind, however 189authentic they may be, the most interesting particulars are suppressed. Of the state of Lord Balcarras’s health at the time, it has not been deemed necessary that a syllable should transpire. No argument, therefore, either in support of, or in opposition to, the popular belief in apparitions, can be gathered from an anecdote so deficient in any notice of the most important circumstances upon which the developement of truth depends. With regard to the spectre of Dundee appearing just at the time he fell in battle, it must be considered, that agreeable to the well-known doctrine of chances, which mathematicians have so well investigated, the event might as well occur then as at any other time, while a far greater proportion of other apparitions, less fortunate in such a supposed confirmation of their supernatural origin, are quietly allowed to sink into oblivion. Thus, it is the office of superstition to carefully select all successful coincidences of this kind, and register them in her marvellous volumes, where for ages they have served to delude and mislead the world.

To this story we shall add another, from Beaumont’s World of Spirits, for no other reason, than because it is told better than most ghost stories with which I am acquainted. It is dated in the year 1662, and it relates to an apparition seen by the daughter of Sir Charles Lee, immediately preceding her death. No reasonable doubt can be placed on the authenticity of the narrative, as it was drawn up by the Bishop of Gloucester, from the recital of the young lady’s father.

“Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one 190daughter, of which she died in child-birth; and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady Everard, desired to have the education of the child, and she was by her very well educated, till she was marriageable, and a match was concluded for her with Sir William Perkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary manner. Upon a Thursday night, she, thinking she saw a light in her chamber, after she was in bed, knocked for her maid, who presently came to her; and she asked, ‘Why she left a candle burning in her chamber?’ The maid said, ‘She left none, and there was none but what she brought with her at that time.’ Then she said it was the fire, but that, her maid told her, was quite out; and said she believed it was only a dream. Whereupon she said, it might be so, and composed herself again to sleep. But about two of the clock she was awakened again, and saw the apparition of a little woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her mother, that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that day she should be with her. Whereupon she knocked again for her maid, called for her clothes, and when she was dressed, went into her closet, and came not out again till nine, and then brought out with her a letter sealed by her father; brought it to her aunt, the Lady Everard, told her what had happened, and declared, that as soon as she was dead, it might be sent to him. The lady thought she was suddenly fallen mad, and thereupon sent presently away to Chelmsford for a physician and surgeon, who both came immediately; but the physician could discern no indication of 191what the lady imagined, or of any indisposition of her body: notwithstanding the lady would needs have her let blood, which was done accordingly. And when the young woman had patiently let them do what they would with her, she desired that the chaplain might be sent to read prayers; and when prayers were ended, she took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat down upon a chair without arms, and played and sung so melodiously and admirably, that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it. And near the stroke of twelve, she rose and sat herself down in a great chair with arms, and presently fetching a strong breathing or two, immediately expired, and was so suddenly cold, as was much wondered at by the physician and surgeon. She died at Waltham, in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford, and the letter was sent to Sir Charles, at his house in Warwickshire; but he was so afflicted with the death of his daughter, that he came not till she was buried, but when he came he caused her to be taken up, and to be buried with her mother, at Edmonton, as she desired in her letter.”

This is one of the most interesting ghost-stories on record. Yet, when strictly examined, the manner in which a leading circumstance in the case is reported, affects but too much the supernatural air imparted to other of its incidents. For whatever might have been averred by a physician of the olden time, with regard to the young lady’s sound state of health during the period she saw her mother’s ghost, it may be asked—if any practitioner of the present day would have been proud 192of such an opinion, especially when death followed so promptly after the spectral impression.

Probably the languishing female herself might have unintentionally contributed to the more strict verification of the ghost’s prediction. It was an extraordinary exertion which her tender frame underwent, near the expected hour of dissolution, in order that she might retire from all her scenes of earthly enjoyment, with the dignity of a resigned christian. And what subject can be conceived more worthy the masterly skill of a painter, than to depict a young and lovely saint cheered with the bright prospect of futurity before her, and ere the quivering flame of life which for a moment was kindled up into a glow of holy ardour, had expired for ever, sweeping the strings of her guitar with her trembling fingers, and melodiously accompanying the notes with her voice, in a hymn of praise to her heavenly Maker? Entranced with such a sight, the philosopher himself would dismiss for the time his usual cold and cavelling scepticism, and giving way to the superstitious impressions of less deliberating bye-standers, partake with them in the most grateful of religious solaces, which the spectacle must have irresistibly inspired.

Regarding the confirmation, which the ghost’s mission is, in the same narrative, supposed to have received from the completion of a foreboded death, 193all that can be said of it is, that the coincidence was a fortunate one; for, without it, the story would, probably, never have met with a recorder, and we should have lost one of the sweetest anecdotes that private life has ever afforded. But, on the other hand, a majority of popular ghost-stories might be adduced, wherein apparitions have either visited our world, without any ostensible purpose and errand whatever, or, in the circumstances of their mission, have exhibited all the inconsistency of conduct so well exposed in the quotation which I have given from Grose, respecting departed spirits. “Seldom as it may happen,” says Nicolai, in the memoir which he read to the Society of Berlin, on the appearance of spectres occasioned by disease, “that persons believe they see human forms, yet examples of the case are not wanting. A respectable member of this academy, distinguished by his merit in the science of Botany, whose truth and credulity are unexceptionable, once saw in this very room in which we are now assembled, the phantom of the late president Maupertius.” But it appears that this ghost was seen by a philosopher, and, consequently, no attempt was made to connect it with superstitious speculations. The uncertainty, however, of ghostly predictions, is not unaptly illustrated in the table-talk of Johnson. “An acquaintance,” remarks Boswell, “on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening at Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother, who had gone to America; and the next packet brought an account of that brother’s death. 194Mackbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly calling Sam. She was then at Litchfield; but nothing ensued.” This casual admission, which, in the course of conversation, transpired from a man, himself strongly tainted with superstition, precludes any farther remarks on the alleged nature and errand of ghosts, which would now, indeed, be highly superfluous. “A lady once asked me,” says Mr. Coleridge, “if I believed in ghosts and apparitions? I answered with truth and simplicity, No, Madam! I have seen far too many myself^[43].”

The nearer we approach to times when superstition shall be universally exploded, the more we consign to oblivion the antiquated notions of former days, respecting every degree of supernatural agency or communication. It is not long ago, however, since the second sight, as it is called, peculiar to the Scotch Highlanders, was a subject of dispute, and although it be true, as some assert, ‘that all argument is against it,’ yet it is equally certain that we have many well attested facts for it. We think upon the whole that the question is placed in its true light, in the following communication from a gentleman in Scotland, who had opportunities 195to know the facts he relates, and who has evidently sense enough not to carry them farther than they will bear. What is called in this part of the island by the French word presentiment, appears to me to be a species of second sight, and it is by no means uncommon: why it is less attended to in the ‘busy haunts of men,’ than in the sequestered habitations of the Highlanders, is accounted for by the following detail, and we apprehend upon very just grounds.

“Of all the subjects which philosophers have chosen for exercising their faculty of reasoning, there is not one more worthy of their attention, than the contemplation of the human mind. There they will find an ample field wherein they may range at large, and display their powers; but at the same time it must be observed, that here, unless the philosopher calls in religion to his aid, he will be lost in a labyrinth of fruitless conjectures, and here, in particular, he will be obliged to have a reference to a great first cause; as the mind of man (whatever may be asserted of material substances,) could never be formed by chance; and he will find its affections so infinitely various, that instead of endeavouring to investigate, he will be lost in admiration.

“The faculty or affections of the mind, attributed to our neighbours of the Highlands of Scotland, of having a foreknowledge of future events, or, as it is commonly expressed, having the second sight, is perhaps one of the most singular. Many have been the arguments both for and against the real existence of this wonderful gift. I shall not 196be an advocate on either side, but shall presume to give you a fact or two, which I know to be well authenticated, and from which every one is at liberty to infer what they please.

“The late Rev. D. M’Sween was minister of a parish in the high parts of Aberdeenshire, and was a native of Sky Island, where his mother continued to reside. On the 4th of May, 1738, Mr. M’Sween, with his brother, who often came to visit him from Sky, were walking in the fields. After some interval in their discourse, during which the minister seemed to be lost in thought, his brother asked him what was the matter with him; he made answer, he hardly could tell, but he was certain their mother was dead. His brother endeavoured to reason him out of this opinion, but in vain. And upon the brother’s return home, he found that his mother had really died on that very day on which he was walking with the minister.

“In April, 1744, a man of the name of Forbes, walking over Culloden Muir, with two or three others, was suddenly, as it were, lost in thought, and when in some short time after he was interrupted by his companions, he very accurately described the battle, which was fought on that very spot two years afterwards, at which description his companions laughed heartily, as there was no expectation of the pretender’s coming to Britain at that time.”

Many such instances might be produced, but I am afraid these are sufficient to stagger the credulity of most people. But to the incredulous, I 197shall only say, that I am very far from attributing’ the second sight to the Scotch Highlanders more than to ourselves. I am pretty certain there is no man whatever, who is not sometimes seized with a foreboding in his mind, or, as it may be termed, a kind of reflection which it is not in his power to prevent; and although his thoughts may not perhaps be employed on any particular exigency, yet he is apt to dread from that quarter, where he is more immediately concerned. This opinion is agreeable to all the heathen mythologists, particularly Homer and Virgil, where numerous instances might be produced, and these justified in the event; but there is an authority which I hold in more veneration than all the others put together, I mean that now much disused book called the Bible, where we meet with many examples, which may corroborate the existence of such an affection in the mind; and that too in persons who were not ranked among prophets. I shall instance one or two. The first is the 14th chapter of 1 Samuel, where it is next to impossible to imagine, that had not Jonathan been convinced of some foreboding in his mind, that he would certainly be successful, he and his armour-bearer, being only two in number, would never have encountered a whole garrison of the enemy. Another instance is in the 6th chapter of Esther, where the king of Persia, (who was no prophet,) was so much troubled in his mind, that he could not sleep, neither could he assign any reason for his being so, till the very reason was discovered from the means that were used to divert his melancholy, viz. the reading of 198the records, where he found he had forgot to do a thing which he was under an obligation to perform. Many of the most judicious modern authors also favour this opinion. Addison makes his Cato, sometime before his fatal exit, express himself thus, “What means this heaviness that hangs upon me?” Shakspeare also makes Banquo exclaim, when he is about to set out on his journey, “A heavy summons hangs like lead upon me.” De Foe makes an instance of this kind the means of saving the life of Crusoe, at the same time admonishing his readers not to make light of these emotions of the mind, but to be upon their guard, and pray to God to assist them and bear them through, and direct them in what may happen to their prejudice in consequence thereof.

“To what, then, are we to attribute these singular emotions? Shall we impute them to the agency of spiritual beings called guardian Angels, or more properly to the “Divinity that stirs within us, and points out an hereafter?” However it may be, it is our business to make the best of such hints, which I am confident every man has experienced, perhaps more frequently than he is aware of.

“In great towns the hurry and dissipation that attend the opulent, and the little leisure that the poor have, from following the avocations which necessity drives them to, prevent them from taking any notice of similar instances to the foregoing, which may happen to themselves. But the case is quite different in the Highlands of Scotland, where they live solitary, and have little to do, or see 199done, and consequently, comparatively have but few ideas. When any thing of the above nature occurs, they have leisure to brood over it, and cannot get it banished from their minds, by which means it gains a deep and lasting impression, and often various circumstances may happen by which it may be interpreted, just like the ancient oracles by the priests of the heathen deities. This solitary situation of our neighbours is also productive of an opinion of a worse tendency—I mean the belief in spirits and apparitions, to which no people on earth are more addicted than the Scotch Highlanders: this opinion they suck in with their mother’s milk, and it increases with their years and stature. Not a glen or strath, but is haunted by its particular goblins and fairies. And, indeed, the face of the country is in some places such, that it wears a very solemn appearance, even to a philosophic eye. The fall of cataracts of water down steep declivities, the whistling of the wind among heath, rocks and caverns, a loose fragment of a rock falling from its top, and in its course downward bringing a hundred more with it, so that it appears like the wreck of nature; the hooting of the night-owl, the chattering of the heath-cock, the pale light of the moon on the dreary prospect, with here and there a solitary tree on an eminence, which fear magnifies to an unusual size; all these considered, it is not to be wondered at, that even an enlightened mind should be struck with awe: what then must be the emotion of a person prejudiced from his infancy, when left alone in such a situation?”

200Until the last century the spirit Brownie, in the Highlands of Scotland, was another subject of second sight, as the following story will shew.—“Sir Normand Macleod, and some others, playing at tables, at a game called by the Irish Falmer-more, wherein there are three of a side and each of them threw dice by turns; there happened to be one difficult point in the disposing of the table-men; this obliged the gamester, before he changed his man, since upon the disposing of it the winning or losing of the game depended. At last the butler, who stood behind, advised the player where to place his man; with which he complied, and won the game. This being thought extraordinary, and Sir Normand hearing one whisper him in the ear, asked who advised him so skilfully? He answered, it was the butler; but this seemed more strange, for he could not play at tables. Upon this, Sir Normand asked him how long it was since he had learned to play? and the fellow owned that he never played in his life; but that he saw the spirit Brownie reaching his arm over the player’s head, and touching the part with his finger on the point where the table-man was to be placed^[44].”

201The circumstance, however, deserving most notice, is the reference which the objects of second-sight are supposed to bear to the seer’s assumed gift of prophecy. It is said, in one of the numerous illustrations which have been given of this faculty, that “Sir Normand Mac Leod, who has his residence in the isle of Bernera, which lies between the Isle of North-Uist and Harries, went to the Isle of Skye about business, without appointing any time for his return: his servants, in his absence, being altogether in the large hall at night, one of them, who had been accustomed to see the second-sight, told the rest they must remove, for they would have abundance of company that night. One of his fellow-servants answered that there was very little appearance of that, and if he had any vision of company, it was not like to be accomplished this night; but the seer insisted upon it that it was. They continued to argue the improbability of it, because of the darkness of the night, and the danger of coming through the rocks that lie round the isle; but within an hour after, one, of Sir Normand’s men came to the house, bidding them to provide lights, &c. for his master had newly landed.

The following illustrations of the second-sight are given by Dr. Ferriar, in his “Theory of Apparitions.”

“A gentleman connected with my family, an officer in the army, and certainly addicted to no superstition, was quartered early in life, in the middle of the last century, near the castle of a 202gentleman in the north of Scotland, who was supposed to possess the second-sight. Strange rumours were afloat respecting the old chieftain. He had spoken to an apparition, which ran along the battlements of the house, and had never been cheerful afterwards. His prophetic visions surprise even in the region of credulity; and his retired habits favoured the popular opinions. My friend assured me, that one day, while he was reading a play to the ladies of the family, the chief, who had been walking across the room, stopped suddenly, and assumed the look of a seer. He rang the bell, and ordered a groom to saddle a horse; to proceed immediately to a seat in the neighbourhood, and enquire after the health of Lady ——. If the account was favourable, he then directed him to call at another castle, to ask after another lady whom he named.

“The reader immediately closed his book, and declared he would not proceed till those abrupt orders were explained, as he was confident they were produced by the second-sight. The chief was very unwilling to explain himself; but at length the door had appeared to open, and that a little woman without a head, had entered the room; that the apparition indicated the death of some person of his acquaintance; and the only two persons who resembled the figure, were those ladies after whose health he had sent to enquire.

“A few hours afterwards, the servant returned with an account that one of the ladies had died of an apoplectic fit, about the time when the vision appeared.

203“At another time the chief was confined to his bed by indisposition, and my friend was reading to him, in a stormy winter-night, while the fishing-boat belonging to the castle was at sea.” The old gentleman repeatedly expressed much anxiety respecting his people; and at last exclaimed, “my boat is lost!” The Colonel replied, “how do you know it, sir?” He was answered, “I see two of the boatmen bringing in the third drowned, all dripping wet, and laying him down close beside your chair. The chair was shifted with great precipitation; in the course of the night the fishermen returned with the corpse of one of the boatmen!”

It is perhaps to be lamented, that such narratives as these should be quoted in Dr. Ferriar’s philosophic work on Apparitions. We have lately seen them advanced, on the doctor’s authority, as favouring the vulgar belief in Apparitions, and introduced in the same volume with the story of Mrs. Veal.

Witchcraft implies a kind of sorcery, more especially prevalent, and, as supposed, among old women, who, by entering into a social compact with the devil, if such an august personage there be as commonly represented, were enabled, in many instances, to alter the course of nature’s immutable laws;—to raise winds and storms,—to perform actions that require more than human strength,—to ride through the air upon broomsticks,—to transform themselves into various shapes,—to afflict and torment those who might have rendered themselves obnoxious to them, with acute pains and lingering diseases,—in fact, to do whatsoever they wished, through the agency of the devil, who was always supposed to be at their beck and call.

All countries can boast of their witches, sorcerers, &c. they have been genial with every soil, and peculiar with every age. We have the earliest account of them in holy writ, which contains irrefutable proofs, that whether they existed or not, 205the same superstitious ideas prevailed, and continued to prevail until within the last century. The age of reason has now, however, penetrated the recesses of ignorance, and diffused the lights of the Gospel with good effect among the credulous and uninformed, to the great discomfit of witches and evil spirits.

During the height of this kind of ignorance and superstition, many cruel laws were framed against witchcraft; in consequence of which, numbers of innocent persons, male and female^[45], many of them no doubt friendless, and oppressed with age and penury, and disease, were condemned and burnt for powers they never possessed, for crimes they neither premeditated nor committed. Happily for humanity these terrific laws have long since been repealed. An enlightened age viewed with horror the fanaticism of Pagans, and gave proof of its emancipation from the dark and murderous trammels of ignorance and barbarity, by a recantation of creeds that had no other object in view than to stain the dignity of the creation by binding down the human mind to the most abject state of degeneracy and servility.

The deceptions of jugglers, founded on optical illusions, electrical force, and magnetical attraction, have fortunately, in a great measure, gone a great way to remove the veil of pretended supernatural agency. The oracles of old have been detected as 206mere machinery; the popish miracles, slights of hand; every other supernatural farce has shared the same fate. We hear no more of witches, ghosts, &c. little children go to bed without alarm, and people traverse unfrequented paths at all hours and seasons, without dread of spells or incantations.

In support, however, of the existence of witches, magicians, &c. many advocates have been found; and it is but justice to say, that all who have argued for, have used stronger and more forcible and appropriate reasoning than those who have argued against them. If the bible be the standard of our holy religion, and few there are who doubt it; it must also be the basis of our belief; for whatever is therein written is the WORD OF GOD, and not a parcel of jeux d’esprits, conundrums, or quidproquos, to puzzle and defeat those who consult that sacred volume for information or instruction. Nor do we believe all the jargon and orthodox canting of priests, who lay constructions on certain passages beyond the comprehension of men more enlightened than themselves, especially when they presume to tell us that such and such a word or sentence must be construed such and such a way, and not another. This party purpose will never effect any good for the cause of religion and truth.

In the course of this article we shall quote the texts of Scripture where witches are mentioned in the same manner as we have done those that allude to apparitions, &c. without offering any very decided comment one way or the other, farther than we shall also in this case give precedence to the standard of the Christian religion, which forms a part of the law 207of the land; still maintaining our former opinion, that, doubtless, there have at one time been negotiations carried on between human beings and spirits; and for this assertion we refer to the Bible itself, for proof that there have been witches, sorcerers, magicians, who had the power of doing many wonderful things by means of demoniac agency, but what has become of, or at what precise time, this power or communication became extinct, we may not able to inform our readers, although we can venture to assure them that no such diabolical ascendancy prevails at the present period among the inhabitants of the earth.

That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many innocent beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, there can be no question; our own statute books are loaded with penalties against sorcery; and, as already cited, at no very distant period, our courts of law have been disgraced by criminal trials of that nature, and judges, who are still quoted as models of legal knowledge and discernment, not only permitted such cases to go to a jury, but allowed sentences to be recorded which consigned reputed wizards to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late as the year 1739, a juggler was exposed to the torture, until a confession was extracted from him that he was a sorcerer; upon which, without further proof, he was hanged; and instances in other countries might be multiplied without end. But this, although it exceeds in atrocity, does not equal in absurdity the sanguinary and bigoted infatuation of the Inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned 208to the flames, as being possessed of the devil, a horse belonging to an Englishman who had taught it perform some uncommon tricks; and the poor animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon, in conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601.

The only part of Europe in which the acts of sorcery obtain any great credit, where, in fact, supposed wizards will practice incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of future events, and in which the credulity of the people induced them to place the most implicit confidence. On such occasions a magical drum is usually employed. This instrument is formed of a piece of wood of a semi-oval form, hollow on the flat side, and there covered with a skin, on which various uncouth figures are depicted; among which, since the introduction of Christianity into that country, an attempt is usually made to represent the acts of our Saviour and the apostles. On this covering several brass rings of different sizes are laid, while the attendants dispose themselves in many antic postures, in order to facilitate the charm; the drum is then beat with the horn of a rein-deer, which occasioning the skin to vibrate, puts the rings in motion round the figures, and, according to the position which they occupy, the officiating seer pronounces his prediction^[46].

209“The remedy,” says a late writer^[47], “specifically appropriated for these maladies of the mind, is the cultivation of natural knowledge; and it is equally curious and gratifying to observe, that though the lights of science are attained by only a small proportion of the community, the benefits of it diffuse themselves universally; for the belief of ghosts and witches, and judicial astrology, hardly exists, in these days, even amongst the lowest vulgar. This effect of knowledge, in banishing the vain fears of superstition, is finely alluded to in the last words of the following admirable lines quoted from Virgil, e. g.—

But in order to shew with what fervour the belief in witches and apparitions was maintained about a century and a half ago, we lay before our readers, as it is scarce, “Doctor Henry More, his letter, with the postscript to Mr. J. Glanvil^[48], minding him of the great expedience and usefulness of his new intended edition of the Dæmon of Tedworth, and briefly representing to him the 210marvellous weakness and gullerie of Mr. Webster’s^[49] display of Witchcraft.”

“Sir,

“When I was at London, I called on your bookseller, to know in what forwardness this new intended impression of the story of the Dæmon of Tedworth (see p. 223) was, which will undeceive the world touching that fame spread abroad, as if Mr. Mompesson and yourself had acknowledged the business to have been a meer trick or imposture. But the story, with your ingenious considerations about witchcraft, being so often printed already, he said it behoved him to take care how he ventured on a new impression, unless he had some new matter of that kind to add, which might make this edition the more certainly saleable; and therefore he expected the issue of that noised story of the spectre at Exeter, seen so oft for the discovery of a murther committed some thirty years ago. But the event of this business, as to juridical process, not answering expectation, he was discouraged from making use of it, many things being reported to him from thence in favour of the party most concerned. But I am told of one Mrs. Britton, her appearing to her maid after her death, very well attested, though not of such a tragical event as that of Exeter, which he thought considerable. But of discoveries of murther I never met with any story more plain and unexceptionable than that in Mr. John Webster his display of supposed Witchcraft: the book indeed itself, I 211confess, is but a weak and impertinent piece; but that story weighty and convincing, and such as himself, (though otherwise an affected caviller against almost all stories of witchcraft and apparitions,) is constrained to assent to, as you shall see from his own confession. I shall, for your better ease, or because you may not haply have the book, transcribe it out of the writer himself, though it be something, chap. 16, page 298, about the year of our Lord 1632, (as near as I can remember, having lost my notes and the copy of the letters to Serjeant Hutton, but I am sure that I do most perfectly remember the substance of the story.)

“Near unto Chester-le-Street, there lived one Walker, a yeoman of good estate, and a widower, who had a young woman to his kinswoman, that kept his house, who was by the neighbours suspected to be with child, and was towards the dark of the evening one night sent away with one Mark Sharp, who was a collier, or one that digged coals underground, and one that had been born in Blakeburn hundred, in Lancashire; and so she was not heard of a long time, and no noise or tittle was made about it. In the winter time after, one James Graham, or Grime, (for so in that country they call them) being a miller, and living about 2 miles from the place where Walker lived, was one night alone in the mill very late grinding corn, and about 12 or 1 a clock at night, he came down stairs from having been putting corn in the hopper: the mill doors being shut, there stood a woman upon the midst of the floor with her hair about her head hanging down and all bloody, with 212five large wounds on her head. He being much affrighted and amazed, began to bless himself, and at last asked her who she was and what she wanted? To which she said, I am the spirit of such a woman who lived with Walker, and being got with child by him, he promised to send me to a private place, where I should be well lookt too till I was brought in bed and well again, and then I should come again and keep his house. And accordingly, said the apparition, I was one night late sent away with one Mark Sharp, who upon a moor, naming a place that the miller knew, slew me with a pick, such as men dig coals withal, and gave me these five wounds, and after threw my body into a coal pit hard by, and hid the pick under a bank; and his shoes and stockings being bloody, he endeavoured to wash ’em; but seeing the blood would not forth, he hid them there. And the apparition further told the miller, that he must be the man to reveal it, or else that she must still appear and haunt him. The miller returned home very sad and heavy, but spoke not one word of what he had seen, but eschewed as much as he could to stay in the mill within night without company, thinking thereby to escape the seeing again of that frightful apparition. But notwithstanding, one night when it began to be dark, the apparition met him again, and seemed very fierce and cruel, and threatened him, that if he did not reveal the murder she would continually pursue and haunt him; yet for all this, he still concealed it until St. Thomas’s Eve, before Christmas, when being soon after sun-set in his garden, she appeared again, and then so threatened 213him, and affrighted him, that he faithfully promised to reveal it next morning. In the morning he went to a magistrate and made the whole matter known with all the circumstances; and diligent search being made, the body was found in a coal pit, with five wounds in the head, and the pick, and shoes and stockings yet bloody, in every circumstance as the apparition had related to the miller; whereupon Walker and Mark Sharp were both apprehended, but would confess nothing. At the assizes following, I think it was at Durham, they were arraigned, found guilty, condemned, and executed; but I could never hear they confest the fact. There were some that reported the apparition did appear to the judge or the foreman of the jury, who was alive in Chester-le-Street about ten years ago, as I have been credibly informed, but of that I know no certainty: there are many persons yet alive that can remember this strange murder and the discovery of it; for it was, and sometimes yet is, as much discoursed of in the North Country as any that almost has ever been heard of, and the relation printed, though now not to be gotten. I relate this with great confidence, (though I may fail in some of the circumstances) because I saw and read the letter that was sent to sergeant Hutton, who then lived at Goldsbrugh, in Yorkshire, from the judge before whom Walker and Mark Sharp were tried, and by whom they were condemned, and had a copy of it until about the year 1658, when I had it, and many other books and papers taken from me; and this I confess to be one of the most convincing stories, being of 214undoubted verity, that ever I read, heard, or knew of, and carrieth with it the most evident force to make the most incredulous to be satisfied that there are really sometimes such things as apparitions.” Thus far he.

“This story is so considerable that I make mention of it in my Scholea, on the Immortality of the Soul, in my Volumen Philosophicum, tom. 2, which I acquainting a friend of mine with, a prudent, intelligent person, Dr. J. D. he of his own accord offered me, it being a thing of much consequence, to send to a friend of his in the north for greater assurance of the truth of the narrative, which motion I willingly embracing, he did accordingly. The answer to this letter from his friend Mr. Sheperdson, is this: I have done what I can to inform myself of the passage of Sharpe and Walker; there are very few men that I could meet that were then men, or at the tryal, saving these two in the inclosed paper, both men at that time, and both at the trial; and for Mr. Lumley, he lived next door to Walker, and what he hath given under his hand, can depose if there were occasion. The other gentleman writ his attestation with his own hand; but I being not there got not his name to it. I could have sent you twenty hands that could have said thus much and more by hearsay, but I thought those most proper that could speak from their own eyes and ears. Thus far (continues Dr. More,) Mr. Sheperdson, the Doctor’s discreet and faithful intelligencer. Now for Mr. Lumly, or Mr. Lumley. Being an ancient gentleman, and at the trial of Walker and Sharp 215upon the murder of Anne Walker, saith, That he doth very well remember that the said Anne was servant to Walker, and that she was supposed to be with child, but would not disclose by whom; but being removed to her aunt’s in the same town called Dame Caire, told her aunt (Dame Caire) that he that got her with child, would take care both of her and it, and bid her not trouble herself. After some time she had been at her aunt’s, it was observed that Sharp came to Lumley one night, being a sworn brother of the said Walker’s; and they two that night called her forth from her aunt’s house, which night she was murdered; about fourteen days after the murder, there appeared to one Graime, a fuller, at his mill, six miles from Lumley, the likeness of a woman with her hair about her head, and the appearance of five wounds in her head, as the said Graime gave it in evidence; that that appearance bid him go to a justice of peace, and relate to him, how that Walker and Sharp had murthered her in such a place as she was murthered; but he, fearing to disclose a thing of that nature against a person of credit as Walker was, would not have done it; upon which the said Graime did go to a justice of peace and related the whole matter^[50]. Whereupon the justice of 216peace granted warrants against Walker and Sharp, 217and committed them to a prison; but they found bail to appear at the next assizes, at which they came to their trial, and upon evidence of the circumstances, with that of Graime of the appearance, they were both found guilty and executed.

“The other testimony is that of Mr. James Smart and William Lumley, of the city of Durham, who saith, that the trial of Sharp and Walker was in the month of August 1631, before judge Davenport. One Mr. Fanhair gave it in evidence upon oath, that he saw the likeness of a child stand upon Walker’s shoulders during the time of the trial, at which time the judge was very much troubled, and gave sentence that night the trial was, which was a thing never used in Durham before nor after; out of which two testimonies several things may be counted or supplied in Mr. Webster’s story, though it be evident enough that in the main they agree; for that is but a small disagreement as to the years, when Mr. Webster says about the year of our Lord 1632, and Mr. Fanhair, 1631. But unless at Durham they have assizes but once in the year, I understand not so well how Sharp and Walker should be apprehended some little time after St. Thomas’s day, as Mr. Webster has, and be tried the next assizes at Durham, and yet that be in August, according to Mr. Smart’s testimony. Out of Mr. Lumley’s testimony the christian name of the young woman is supplied, as also the name of the town near Chester-le-Street, namely, Lumley: the circumstance also of Walker’s sending away his kinswoman with Mark Sharp are supplied out of Mr. Lumley’s narrative, and the 218time rectified, by telling it was about fourteen days till the spectre after the murder, when as Mr. Webster makes it a long time.”

We shall not follow the learned Doctor through the whole of his letter, which principally now consists in rectifying some little discrepancies in the account of the murder of Anne Walker, and the execution of the murderers, upon circumstantial evidence, supported by the miller’s story of the apparition, between the account given by Mr. Webster, and that here related by Lumley and Sharp. Mr. Webster’s account, it would appear, was taken from a letter written by Judge Davenport to Sergeant Hutton, giving a detailed narrative of the whole proceeding as far as came within his judicial observation, and the exercise of his functions; which it also appears Dr. More likewise saw; a copy of which, he states, he had in fact by him for some considerable time, but which he unfortunately lost: his account, therefore, is from sheer recollection of the contents of this letter, but as there is very little difference in the material points, unless with respect to the date of the year, between the account given by Webster, and that related from the Doctor’s memory, we shall offer no further observation than that the whole savours so much of other similar stories, the result of superstition and ignorance, that it claims an equal proportion of credit: for if, at the time we allude to, they would hang, burn, or drown a woman for a witch, either upon her own evidence, or that of some of her malignant and less peaceably disposed neighbours, it cannot be matter of surprise, 219that two individuals, for a crime really committed, should be hanged as murderers upon the testimony of the apparition of a murdered person, given through the organ of a miller, who resided only six miles from the spot.

That Dr. Henry More was not only an enthusiast and a visionary, (both of which united in the same person, constitute a canting madman) but also a humorous kind of fellow when he chose to be jocular, and it would appear he was by no means incapable of relaxing the gravity of his countenance as occasion served him, may be still further inferred from the following extracts of the sequel of his letter to the Reverend Joseph Glanvil:—

“This story of Anne Walker, (says Dr. M.) I think you will do well to put amongst your additions in the new impression of your new edition of your Dæmon of Tedworth, it being so excellently well attested, AND SO UNEXCEPTIONABLE IN EVERY RESPECT; and hasten as fast as you can that impression, to undeceive the half-witted world, who so much exult and triumph in the extinguishing the belief of that narration, as if the crying down the truth of that of the Dæmon of Tedworth, were indeed the very slaying of the devil, and that they may now, with more gaiety and security than ever, sing in a loud note, that mad drunken catch—

Which wild song, though it may seem a piece of levity to mention, yet, believe me, the application thereof bears a sober and weighty intimation along 220with it, viz. that these sort of people are very horribly afraid that there should be any spirit, lest there should be a devil, and an account after this life; and therefore they are impatient of any thing that implies it, that they may with a more full swing, and with all security from an after reckoning, indulge their own lusts and humours; and I know by long experience that nothing rouses them so much out of that dull lethargy of atheism and sadducism, as narrations of this kind, for they being of a thick and gross spirit, the most subtle and solid deductions of reason does little execution upon them; but this sort of sensible experiments cuts them and stings them very sore, and so startles them, that a less considerable story by far than this of the drummer of Tedworth, or of Ann Walker, a Doctor of Physic cryed out presently, if this be true I have been in a wrong box all this time, and must begin my account anew.

“And I remember an old gentleman, in the country, of my acquaintance, an excellent justice of peace, and a piece of a mathematician, but what kind of a philosopher he was you may understand from a rhyme of his own making, which he commended to me at my taking horse in his yard; which rhyme is this:—

Which rhyme of his was so rapturous to himself, that at the reciting of the second verse the old man turned himself about upon his toe as nimbly as one may observe a dry leaf whisked round in the corner 221of an orchard walk, by some little whirlwind. With this philosopher I have had many discourses concerning the immortality of the soul and its destruction: when I have run him quite down by reason, he would but laugh at me, and say, this is logic, H., calling me by my christian name; to which I replied, this is reason, Father L., (for I used and some others to call him) but it seems you are for the new lights and the immediate inspirations, which I confess he was as little for as for the other; but I said so only in the way of drollery to him in those times, but truth is, nothing but palpable experience would move him, and being a bold man, and fearing nothing, he told me he had used all the magical ceremonies of conjuration he could to raise the devil or a spirit, and had a most earnest desire to meet with one, but never could do it. But this he told me, when he did not so much as think of it, while his servant was pulling off his boots in the hall, some invisible hand gave him such a clap upon the back that it made all ring again; so, thought he, I am invited to converse with a spirit; and therefore so soon as his boots were off and his shoes on, out he goes into the yard and next field to find out the spirit that had given him this familiar slap on the back, but found him neither in the yard nor the next field to it.

“But though he did not feel this stroke, albeit he thought it afterwards (finding nothing came of it) a mere delusion; yet not long before his death it had more force with him than all the philosophical arguments I could use to him, though I could 222wind him and non-plus him as I pleased; but yet all my arguments, how solid soever, made no impression upon him, wherefore after several reflections of this nature, whereby I would prove to him the soul’s distinction from the body, and its immortality, when nothing of such subtile considerations did any more execution in his mind, than some lightening is said to do, though it melts the sword on the fuzzy consistency of the scabbard: Well, said I, Father L., though none of these things move you, I have something still behind, and what yourself has acknowledged to me to be true, that may do the business: do you remember the clap on your back, when your servant was pulling off your boots in the hall? Assure yourself, said I, Father L., that goblin will be the first that will bid you welcome in the other world. Upon that his countenance changed most sensibly, and he was more confounded with rubbing up of his memory than with all the rational and philosophical argumentations that I could produce.”

How the various commentators on holy writ have reconciled to their minds the existence of spirits, witches, hobgoblins, devils, &c. we are unable to decide, for the want of a folio before us; but, if there are none of this evil-boding fraternity “wandering in air” at the present day, they must be all swamped in the Red sea, ready to be conjured up from the “vasty deep,” by the king of spirits alone; for as sure as the Bible is the word of truth, we find therein such descriptions of spirits, apparitions, witches, and devils, as would make an ordinary man’s hair stand on end. And 223it is from this source alone that Dr. More argues for their existence, and which he has fully corroborated by his old hobby, “The Dæmon of Tedworth,” and the unfortunate Anne Walker.

“Indeed (says the learned divine) if there were any modesty left in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the existence of angels and spirits.”

In another place he observes, “I look upon it as a special piece of providence that there are ever and anon such fresh examples of apparitions and witchcraft, as may rub up and awaken their benumbed and lethargic minds into a suspicion at least, if not assurance, that there are other intelligent beings besides those that are clothed in heavy earth or clay; in this I say, methinks the divine providence does plainly interest the powers of the dark kingdom, permitting wicked men and women, and vagrant spirits of that kingdom, to make leagues or covenant one with another, the confession of witches against their own lives being so palpable an evidence, besides the miraculous feats they play, that there are bad spirits, which will necessarily open a door to the belief that there are good ones, and lastly that there is a God.” There is beyond a doubt much plausibility, supported by strong and appropriate argument, in this declaration of the Doctor’s. But as it is not our province to confute or explain texts or passages of Scripture, much less to warp them round to particular purposes, we shall reply by observing that, although we do not entirely concur in the belief of the non-existence of witches, apparitions, 224&c. at an earlier period of the world; we do, from our very souls, sincerely believe that there are no guests of this description, at the present day, either in the water or roaming about at large and invisible, on terra firma; or floating abroad in ether, holding, or capable of holding, converse or communion, either by word, deed, or sign, with the beings of this earth, civilized or uncivilized, beyond those destined by the God of heaven to constitute the different orders, classes, and genera of its accustomed and intended inhabitants. However, as we live in a tolerant mixed age, we have no fault to find with those who may attach faith to the opposite side of our creed.

We shall now, previous to laying before our readers some of those dismal stories of witches, wizards, apparitions, &c. of the days of yore, give the postscript to Dr. More’s letter to the author of “Saducismus Triumphatus;” a postscript, in fact, that might with more propriety be styled a treatise on the subject it relates to; but the rarity of the document, as well as its curiosity and the great learning and ingenuity it betrays, will, we feel assured, be received as an apology for bringing it under their view in this part of our paper, on the subject matter it bears so strongly upon. We give it the more cheerfully as it exemplifies certain passages of Scripture that have never been handled, at least so well, by after-writers who have attempted the illustration.

Exodus, c. xxii, v. 18. Thou shalt not suffer a WITCH to live.

2 Chronicles, c. xxxiii, v. 6. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom; also he observed times, and used ENCHANTMENTS, and used WITCHCRAFT, and dealt with a FAMILIAR SPIRIT, and with WIZARDS: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

Galatians, c. v, v. 20. Idolatry, WITCHCRAFT, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies.

Micah, c. v, v. 12. I will cut off WITCHCRAFTS out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers.

Acts, c. xiii, v. 6, 8. ¶ And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain Sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus.

But Elymas the Sorcerer, (for so is his name by interpretation,) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.

Acts, c. viii, v. 9. ¶ But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city used Sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one.

Deuteronomy, c. xviii, v. 10, 11. There shall not be found among you any one, that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

226Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a necromancer.

12. For all that do these things are an abomination: and because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them from before thee.

Dr. More’s Postscript.

The following scarce, curious, and learned document, long since out of print, forms a postscript written by Dr. More, who, it appears, strenuously advocated the existence of preternatural agencies, against the opinion of many eminent men, who wrote, at that time, on the same subject; and however much the belief in witches, &c. may have been depreciated of later years, we will venture to say that few of the present day, layman or divine, could take up his pen, and offer so learned a refutation against, as Dr. More has here done in support of his opinions founded on Scripture.

“This letter lying by me some time before I thought it opportune to convey it, and in the meanwhile meeting more than once with those that seemed to have some opinion of Mr. Webster’s criticisms and interpretations of Scripture, as if he had quitted himself so well there, that no proof thence can hereafter be expected of the being of a witch, which is the scope that he earnestly aims at; and I reflecting upon that passage in my letter, which does not stick to condemn Webster’s whole book for a weak and impertinent piece, presently thought fit, (that you might not think that censure over-rash or unjust) it being an endless task to shew all the weakness and impertinencies 227of his discourse, briefly by way of Postscript, to hint the weakness and impertinency of this part which is counted the master-piece of the work, that thereby you may perceive that my judgment has not been at all rash touching the whole.

“And in order to this, we are first to take notice what is the real scope of his book; which if you peruse, you shall certainly find to be this: That the parties ordinarily deemed witches and wizzards, are only knaves and queans, to use his phrase, and arrant cheats, or deep melancholists; but have no more to do with any evil spirit or devil, or the devil with them, than he has with other sinners or wicked men, or they with the devil. And secondly, we are impartially to define what is the true notion of a witch or wizzard, which is necessary for the detecting of Webster’s impertinencies.

“As for the words witch and wizzard, from the notation of them, they signify no more than a wise man or a wise woman. In the word wizzard, it is plain at the very first sight. And I think the most plain and least operose deduction of the name witch, is from wit, whose derived adjective might be wittigh or wittich, and by contraction afterwards witch; as the noun wit is from the verb to weet, which is, to know. So that a witch, thus far, is no more than a knowing woman; which answers exactly to the Latin word saga, according to that of Festus, Sagæ dictæ anus quæ multa sciunt. Thus in general: but use questionless had appropriated the word to such a kind of skill and knowledge, as was out of the common 228road, or extraordinary. Nor did this peculiarity imply in it any unlawfulness. But there was after a further restriction and most proper of all, and in which alone now-a-days the words witch and wizzard are used. And that is, for one that has the knowledge or skill of doing or telling things in an extraordinary way, and that in virtue of either an express or implicit sociation or confederacy with some evil spirit. This is a true and adequate definition of a witch or wizzard, which to whomsoever it belongs, is such, et vice versâ. But to prove or defend that there neither are, nor ever were any such, is, as I said, the main scope of Webster’s book: in order to which, he endeavours in his sixth and eighth chapters to evacuate all the testimonies of Scripture; which how weakly and impertinently he has done, I shall now shew with all possible brevity and perspicuity.

“The words that he descants upon are Deut. c. xviii. v. 10, 11: ‘There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizzard, or a necromancer.’ The first word in the Hebrew is קוסם קסמים, kosem kesamim, a diviner. Here because קסם kasam, sometimes has an indifferent sense, and signifies to divine by natural knowledge or human prudence or sagacity; therefore nothing of such a witch as is imagined to make a visible league with the devil, or to have her body sucked by him, or have carnal copulation with him, or is really turned into a cat, hare, wolf or dog, can be deduced from this word. A goodly 229inference indeed, and hugely to the purpose, as is apparent from the foregoing definition. But though that cannot be deduced, yet in that, this divination that is here forbidden, is plainly declared abominable and execrable, as it is v. 12, it is manifest that such a divination is understood that really is so; which cannot well be conceived to be, unless it imply either an express or implicite inveaglement with some evil invisible powers who assist any kind of those divinations that may be comprehended under this general term. So that this is plainly one name of witchcraft, according to the genuine definition thereof. And the very words of Saul to the witch of Endor, are, קסומי נא לי באוב; that is to say, ‘Divine to me, I pray thee, by thy familiar spirit.’ Which is more than by natural knowledge or human sagacity.

“The next word is מעונן megnonen, which, though our English translation renders [gnon] (tempus,) ‘an observer of times;’ which should rather be a declarer of the seasonableness of the time, or unseasonableness of the time, or unseasonableness as to success; a thing which is inquired of also from witches, yet the usual sense, rendered by the learned in the language, is præstigiatur, an imposer on the sight, Sapientes prisci, says Buxtorf, a עין [gnajin, oculus] deduxerunt et מעונן [megnonen] esse eum dixerunt, qui tenet et præstringit oculos, ut falsum pro vero videant. Lo, another word that signifies a witch or a wizzard, which has its name properly from imposing on the sight, and making the by-stander believe he sees forms or transformations of things he sees not! As 230when Anne Bodenham transformed herself before Anne Styles in the shape of a great cat; Anne Styles’s sight was so imposed upon, that the thing to her seemed to be done, though her eyes were only deluded. But such a delusion certainly cannot be performed without confederacy with evil spirits. For to think the word signifies præstigiator, in that sense we translate in English, juggler, or a hocus-pocus, is so fond a conceit, that no man of any depth of wit can endure it. As if a merry juggler that plays tricks of legerdemain at a fair or market, were such an abomination to either the God of Israel, or to his law-giver Moses; or as if a hocus-pocus were so wise a wight as to be consulted as an oracle: for it is said, v. 14, ‘For the nations which thou shalt possess, they consult,’ מעוננים megnonenim. What, do they consult jugglers and hocus-pocusses? No, certainly, they consult witches or wizzards, and diviners, as Anne Styles did Anne Bodenham.’ Wherefore here is evidently a second name of a witch.

“The third word in the text is מנחש menachesh, which our English translation renders, an enchanter. And, with Mr. Webster’s leave, (who insulteth so over their supposed ignorance) I think they have translated it very learnedly and judiciously; for charming and enchanting, as Webster himself acknowledges, and the words intimate, being all one, the word, מנחש menachesh, here, may very well signify enchanters, or charmers; but such properly as kill serpents by their charming, from נחש nachash, which signifies a serpent, from whence comes נחש nichesh, to kill 231serpents, or make away with them. For a verb in pihel, sometimes (especially when it is formed from a noun) has a contrary signification. Thus from שרש radix is שרש radices evulsit, from דשן cinis דשן removit cineres, from חטא peccavit חטא expiavit à peccato; and so lastly from נחש serpens, is made נחש liberavit â serpentibus, nempe occidendo vel fugando per incantationem. And therefore there seems to have been a great deal of skill and depth of judgment in our English translators that rendered מנחש menachesh, an enchanter, especially when that of augur or soothsayer, which the Septuagint call Ὀιωνιζόμενον (there being so many harmless kinds of it) might seem less suitable with this black list: for there is no such abomination in adventuring to tell, when the wild geese fly high in great companies, and cackle much, that hard weather is at hand, but to rid serpents by a charm is above the power of nature; and therefore an indication of one that has the assistance of some invisible spirit to help him in this exploit, as it happens in several others; and therefore this is another name of one that is really a witch.

“The fourth word is מכשף mecasseph, which our English translators render, a witch; for which I have no quarrel with them, unless they should so understand it that it must exclude others from being so in that sense I have defined, which is impossible they should. But this, as the foregoing, is but another term of the same thing; that is, of a witch in general, but so called here from the prestigious imposing on the sight of beholders. Buxtorf tells us, that Aben Ezra defines those to 232be מכשפים [mecassephim] qui mutant et transformant res naturales ad aspectum oculi. Not as jugglers and hocus-pocusses, as Webster would ridiculously insinuate, but so as I understood the thing in the second name; for these are but several names of a witch, who may have several more properties than one name intimates. Whence it is no wonder that translators render not them always alike. But so many names are reckoned up here in this clause of the law of Moses, that, as in our common law, the sense may be more sure, and leave no room to evasion. And that here this name is not from any tricks of legerdemain as in common jugglers that delude the sight of the people at a market or fair, but that it is the name of such as raise magical spectres to deceive men’s sight, and so are most certainly witches, is plain from Exod. chap. xxii, v. 18, ‘Thou shalt not suffer,’ מכשפה mecassephah, that is, ‘a witch, to live.’ Which would be a law of extreme severity, or rather cruelty, against a poor hocus-pocus for his tricks of legerdemain.

“The fifth name is חובר חבר chobher chebher, which our English translators render charmer, which is the same with enchanter. Webster upon this name is very tedious and flat, a many words and small weight in them. I shall dispatch the meaning briefly thus: this חובר חבר, chobher chebher, that is to say, socians societatem, is another name of a witch, so called specially either from the consociating together serpents by a charm, which has made men usually turn it (from the example of the Septuagint, ἐπάδων ἐπαοιδὴν,) a 233charmer, or an enchanter, or else from the society or compact of the witch with some evil spirits; which Webster acknowledges to have been the opinion of two very learned men, Martin Luther and Perkins, and I will add a third, Aben Ezra, (as Martinius hath noted,) who gives this reason of the word חובר chobher, an enchanter, which signifies socians or jungens, viz. Quòd malignos spiritus sibi associat. And certainly one may charm long enough, even till his heart aches, ere he make one serpent assemble near him, unless helped by this confederacy of spirits that drive them to the charmer. He keeps a pudder with the sixth verse of the fifty-eighth Psalm to no purpose; whereas from the Hebrew, אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר חברים מחכם, if you repeat ἀπὸ κοινoῦ לקול before חובר, you may with ease and exactness render it thus: ‘That hears not the voice of muttering charmers, no not the voice of a confederate wizzard, or charmer that is skilful.’ But seeing charms, unless with them that are very shallow and sillily credulous, can have no such effects of themselves, there is all the reason in the world (according as the very word intimates, and as Aben Ezra has declared,) to ascribe the effect to the assistance, confederacy, and co-operation of evil spirits, and so חובר חברים, chobher chabharim, or חובר חבר chobher chebher, will plainly signify a witch or wizzard according to the true definition of them. But for J. Webster’s rendering this verse, p. 119, thus, Quæ non audiet vocem mussitantium incantationes docti incantantis, (which he saith is doubtless the most genuine rendering of the place) let any skilful man 234apply it to the Hebrew text, and he will presently find it grammatical nonsense. If that had been the sense, it should have been חברי חובר מחכם.

“The sixth word is שואל אוב, shoel obh, which our English translation renders, ‘a consulter with familiar spirits;’ but the Septuagint Ἐγγαστρίμυθος. Which therefore must needs signifie him that has this familiar spirit: and therefore שואל אוב shoel obh, I conceive, (considering the rest of the words are so to be understood) is to be understood of the witch or wizzard himself that asks counsel of his familiar, and does by virtue of him give answers unto others. The reason of the name of אוב obh, it is likely was taken first from that spirit that was in the body of the party, and swelled it to a protuberancy like the side of a bottle. But after, without any relation to that circumstance, OBH signifies as much as pytho; as pytho also, though at first it took its name from the pythii vates, signifies no more than spiritum divinationis, in general, a spirit that tells hidden things, or things to come. And OBH and pytho also agree in this, that they both signify either the divinatory spirit itself, or the party that has that spirit. But here in שואל אוב, shoel obh, it being rendered by the Septuagint Ἐγγαςείμυθος, OBH is necessarily understood of the spirit itself, as pytho is, Acts xvi. 16, if you read πνεῦμα πύδωνα, with Isaac Casaubon; but if πύθωνος, it may be understood either way. Of this πνεύμα πύθων, it is recorded in that place, that ‘Paul being grieved, turned and said to that spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her, and he came out at the same hour;’ 235which signifies as plainly as any thing can be signified, that this pytho or spirit of divination, that this OBH was in her: for nothing can come out of the sack that was not in the sack, as the Spanish proverb has it; nor could this pytho come out of her unless it was a spirit distinct from her; wherefore I am amazed at the profane impudence of J. Webster, that makes this pytho in the maid there mentioned, nothing but a wicked humour of cheating and cozening divination: and adds, that this spirit was no more cast out of that maid than the seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, which he would have understood only of her several vices; which foolish familistical conceit he puts upon Beza as well as Adie. Wherein as he is most unjust to Beza, so he is most grossly impious and blasphemous against the spirit of Christ in St. Paul and St. Luke, who makes them both such fools as to believe that there was a spirit or divining devil in the maid, when according to him there is no such thing. Can any thing be more frantic or ridiculous than this passage of St. Paul, if there was no spirit or devil in the damsel? But what will this profane shuffler stick to do in a dear regard to his beloved hags, of whom he is sworn advocate, and resolved patron right or wrong?

“But to proceed, that אוב, obh, signifies the spirit itself that divines, not only he that has it, is manifest from Levit. xx. 27, Vir autem sive mulier cùm fuerit [בהם אוב] in eis pytho. And 1 Sam. xxviii. 8, Divina quæso mihi [באוב] per pythonem. In the Septuagint it is ἐν τῶν Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ, that is, by that spirit that sometimes goes into the 236body of the party, and thence gives answers; but here it only signifies a familiar spirit. And lastly, בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, Quæ habit pythonem; there OBH must needs signify the spirit itself, of which she of Endor was the owner or possessor; that is to say, it was her familiar spirit. But see what brazen and stupid impudence will do here, בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, with Webster must not signify one that has a familiar spirit, but the mistress of the bottle. Who but the master of the bottle, or rather of whom the bottle had become master, and by guzzling had made his wits excessively muddy and frothy, could ever stumble upon such a foolish interpretation? But because אוב obh, in one place of the Scripture signifies a bottle, it must signify so here, and it must be the instrument forsooth, out of which this cheating quean of Endor does ‘whisper, peep, or chirp like a chicken coming out of the shell,’ p. 129, 165. And does she not, I beseech you, put her nib also into it sometimes, as into a reed, as it is said of that bird, and cries like a butter-bump? certainly he might as well have interpreted בעלת אוב bagnalath obh, of the great tun of Heidelberg, that Tom. Coriat takes such special notice of, as of the bottle.

“And truly so far as I see, it must be some such huge tun at length rather than the bottle, that is, such a spacious tub as he in his deviceful imagination fancies Manasses to have built; a μανείον forsooth, or oracular edifice for ‘cheating rogues and queans to play their cozening tricks in;’ from that place 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6, ועשה אוב, Et fecit 237pythonem. Now, says he, how could Manasses make a familiar spirit? or make one that had a familiar spirit? Therefore he made a bottle a tun, or a large tub, a μαντεῖον, or oracular edifice ‘for cheating rogues or queans to play their cozening tricks in.’ Very wisely argued, and out of the very depth of his ignorance of the Hebrew tongue, whereas if he had looked into Buxtorf’s Dictionary he might have understood that עשה signifies not only fecit but also paravit, comparavit, acquisivit, magni fecit, none of which words imply the making of OBH in his sense, but the only appointing them to be got, and countenancing them. For in Webster’s sense he did not make ידעני jidegnoni neither, that is wizzards, and yet Manasses is said to make them both alike. יעשה אוב וידעני, Et fecit pythonem et magos. So plain is it that אוב, obh, signifies pytho, and that adequately in the same sense that pytho does, either a familiar spirit, or him that has that spirit of divination. But in בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, it necessarily signifies the familiar spirit itself, which assisted the witch of Endor; whereby it is manifest she is rightly called a witch. As for his stories of counterfeit ventriloquists, (and who knows but some of his counterfeit ventriloquists may prove true ones,) that is but the threadbare sophistry of Sadducees and Atheists to elude the faith of all true stories by those that are of counterfeits or feigned.

“The seventh word is ידעוני, jidegnoni, which our English translators render a wizzard. And Webster is so kind as to allow them to have translated this word aright. Wizzards, then, Webster 238will allow, that is to say, he-witches, but not she-witches. How tender the man is of that sex! But the word invites him to it ידעוני, jidegnoni, coming from scire, and answering exactly to wizzard or wise man. And does not witch from wit and weet signify as well a wise woman, as I noted above? And as to the sense of those words from whence they are derived, there is no hurt herein; and therefore if that were all, ידעוני, jidegnoni, had not been in this black list. Wherefore it is here understood in that more restrict and worse sense: so as we understand usually now-a-days witch and wizzard, such wise men and women whose skill is from the confederacy of evil spirits, and therefore are real wizzards and witches. In what a bad sense ידעוני, jidegnoni, is understood, we may learn, from Levit. xx. 27, ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizzard, jidegnoni, shall be put to death, they shall stone them with stones,’ &c.

“The last word is דורש המתים, doresh hammethim, which our translators rightly render necromancers; that is, those that either upon their own account, or desired by others, do raise the ghosts of the deceased to consult with; which is a more particular term than בעל אוב, bagnal obh: but he that is bagnal obh, may be also doresh hammethim, a necromancer, as appears in the witch of Endor. Here Webster by המתים, hammethim, the dead, would understand dead statues; but let him, if he can, any where shew in all the Scripture where the word המתים, hammethim, is used of what was not once alive. He thinks he hits the nail on the 239head in that place of Isaiah, viii. 19, ‘And when they say unto you, seek unto [האבות, that is, to בעליה אוב, such as the witch of Endor was,] them that have familiar spirits, and to wizzards that peep and that mutter; [the Hebrew has it המהגים and המצפצפים; that is, speak with a querulous murmurant or mussitant voice, when they either conjure up the spirit, or give responses. If this be to ‘peep like a chicken,’ Isaiah himself peeped like a chicken, xxxviii. 14,] should not a people seek unto their God? for the living, (אל המתים,) to the dead?’ Where hammethim is so far from signifying dead statues, that it must needs be understood of the ghosts of dead men, as here in Deuteronomy. None but one that had either stupidly or wilfully forgot the story of Samuel’s being raised by that בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, the witch of Endor, could ever have the face to affirm that המתים, hammethim, here in Isaiah, is to be understood of dead statues, when wizzards or necromancers were so immediately mentioned before, especially not Webster, who acknowledges that שואל אוב, shoel obh, signifies a necromancer in this Deuteronomical list of names. And therefore, forsooth, would have it a tautology that doresh hammethim should signify so too. But I say it is no tautology, this last being more express and restrict. And besides, this enumeration is not intended as an accurate logical division of witches or witchcraft, into so many distinct kinds, but a reciting of several names of that ill trade, though they will interfere one with another, and have no significations so precisely distinct. But as I said 240before, this fuller recounting of them is made that the prohibition in this form might be the surer fence against the sin. And now therefore what will J. Webster get by this, if doresh hammethim will not signify a witch of Endor, when it must necessarily signify a necromancer, which is as much against his tooth as the other? Nay indeed this necromancer is also a witch or wizzard, according to the definition produced above.

“The rest of the chapter being so inconsiderable, and I having been so long already upon it, I shall pass to the next, after I have desired you to take notice how weak and childish, or wild and impudent, Mr. Webster has been in the interpretation of Scripture hitherto, in the belief of his sage dames, to fence off the reproach of being termed witches; whereas there is scarce one word in this place of Deuteronomy that does not imply a witch or wizzard, according to the real definition thereof. And truly he seems himself to be conscious of the weakness of his own performance, when after all this ado, the sum at last amounts but to this, that there are no names in all the Old Testament that signifies such a witch that destroy men or beasts, that make a visible compact with the devil, or on whose body he sucketh, or with whom he hath carnal copulation, or that is really changed into a cat, hare, dog, or such like. And to shew it amounts to no more than so, was the task we undertook in this chapter.

“But assure yourself, if you peruse his book carefully, you shall plainly find that the main drift thereof is to prove, as I above noted, that there is 241no such witch as with whom the devil has any thing more to do than with any other sinner, which, notwithstanding this conclusion of his a little before recited, comes infinitely short of: and therefore this sixth chapter, consisting of about thirty pages in folio, is a meer piece of impertinency. And there will be witches for all this, whether these particulars be noted in them or no; for it was sufficient for Moses to name those ill sounding terms in general, which imply a witch according to that general notion I have above delivered; which if it be prohibited, namely, the having any thing to do with evil spirits, their being suckt by them, or their having any lustful or venerous transactions with them, is much more prohibited.

“But for some of these particularities also they may seem to be in some manner hinted at in some of the words, especially as they are rendered sometimes by skilful interpreters: for מכשף (Mecasseph,) is translated by Vatablus, and the vulgar Latin Maleficus, by the Septuagint φαρμακός, that is Veneficus: which word signifies mischievously enough both to man and beast. Besides that Mecasseph carries along with it the signification of transformation also; and haply this may be the difference betwixt מכשף Mecasseph, and מעונן Megnonen, that the former uses prestigious transformations to some great mischief, as where Olaus Magnus tells of those that have transformed themselves into wolves, to men’s thinking, and have presently fallen upon worrying of sheep. Others transformed in their astral spirit, into various shapes, get into 242houses and do mischief to men and children, as I remember Remegius reports. And therefore it is less wonder that that sharp law of Moses is against the מכשפה Mecassephah; such a witch as this is, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;’ this may be a more peculiar signification of that word. And now for making a compact with the devil, how naturally does that name חובר חבר Chobber Chebber, signifie that feat also? But for sucking and copulation, though rightly stated it may be true, yet I confess there is nothing hinted towards that so far as I see, as indeed it was neither necessary that the other should be. But these are the very dregs, the fex magorum et sagarum, that sink in those abominations, against which a sufficient bar is put already by this prohibition in general by so many names. And the other is filthy, base, and nasty, that the mention thereof was neither fit for the sacred style of Moses’s law, nor for the years of the people.

In my passing to the eight chapter I will only take notice by the way of the shameless impudence of J. Webster, who in favour to his beloved hags, that they may be never thought to do any thing by the assistance of the devil, makes the victory of Moses, with whom the mighty hand of God was, or of Christ, (who was the angel that appeared first to Moses in the bush, and conducted the children of Israel out of Egypt to the promised land) to be the victory only over so many hocus-pocusses, so many jugglers that were, as it seems, old and excellent at the tricks of Legerdemain; which is the basest derogation to the glory of that 243victory, and the vilest reproach against the God of Israel, and the person of Moses, that either the malicious wit of any devil can invent, or the dulness of any sunk soul can stumble upon. Assuredly there was a real conflict here betwixt the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and the evil spirits thereof, which assisted the חרטמים Hartummim, the Magicians of Egypt; who before that name is named, that no man may mistake, are called מכשפים, Mecassaphim, such kind of magicians as can exhibit to the sight manifold prestigious transformations through diabolical assistance, and are rendered Malificia by good interpreters, as I noted above; that is, they were wizzards, or he-witches. The self same word being used in that severe law of Moses, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Are not these magicians then examples plain enough that there are witches; that is to say, such wretched wights as do strange miraculous things by the assistance or consociation of the evil spirits?

“O no, says Mr. Webster, these are only חכמים Chacamim, wise men and great naturalists, who all what they did, they did בלהטיהם, by their bright glittering laminæ, for so להטם forsooth must signifie. But what necessity thereof that להט should signifie lamina? there is only the presence of that one place, Gen. iii, 24. להט חרב, where it is חרב only that signifies the lamina, and that of a long form, scarce usual in those magical laminæ with signatures celestial upon them, which J. Webster would be at; but הטם signifies merely flamma; so that בלהטיהם by this account must 244signifie by their flames, if it be from להט ardere, flammare: and therefore Buxtorfius judiciously places the word under בלהטיהם abscondit, obvolvit, reading not בלאטיהם but בלאטיהם, which is as much as to say, occultis suis rationibus Magicis, which is briefly rendered in English, ‘by their enchantments;’ which agrees marvellously well with מכשפים Mecassephim, which is as much as Præstigiatores Magici, or such as do strange wonderous things in an hidden way, by the help of evil spirits. But that the Egyptian magicians should do those things that are there recorded of them in Exodus, by virtue of any lamels, or plates of metals, with certain sculptures or figures, under such or such a constellation, is a thing so sottish and foolish that no man that is not himself bewitched by some old hag or hobgobling, can ever take sanctuary here to save himself or his old dames from being in a capacity, from this history in Exodus, of being accounted witches. For if there may be he-witches, that is magicians, such as these of Egypt were, I leave J. Webster to scratch his head to find out any reason why there may not be she-witches also.

“And indeed that of the witch of Endor, to pass at length to the eighth chapter, is as plain a proof thereof as can be desired by any man whose mind is not blinded with prejudices. But here J. Webster, not impertinently, I confess, for the general, (abating him the many tedious particular impertinences that he has clogg’d his discourse with) betakes himself to these two ways, to shew there was nothing of a witch in all that whole narration. First, by pretending that all the transaction on the 245woman of Endor’s part was nothing but collusion and a cheat, Saul not being in the same room with her, or at least seeing nothing if he was. And then in the next place, that Samuel that is said to appear, could neither be Samuel appearing in his body out of the grave, nor in his soul; nor that it was a devil that appeared; and therefore it must be some colluding knave, suborned by the witch. For the discovering the weakness of his former allegation, we need but appeal to the text, which is this, 1 Sam. xxviii, v. 8.

‘And Saul said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee,’ קסומי־נא לי that is, do the office of a divineress, or a wise woman, ‘I pray thee unto me, באוב Beobh, by virtue of the familiar spirit, whose assistance thou hast, not by virtue of the bottle, as Mr. Webster would have it. Does he think that damsel in the Acts, which is said to have had πνεῦμα πύθωνος, that is to have had אוב Obh, carried an aqua-vitæ bottle about with her, hung at her girdle, whereby she might divine and mutter, chirp, or peep out of it, as a chicken out of an egg-shell, or put her neb into it to cry like a bittern, or take a dram of the bottle, to make her wits more quick and divinatory. Who but one who had taken too many drams of the bottle could ever fall into such a fond conceit? Wherefore אוב Obh, in this place does not, as indeed no where else, signifie an oracular bottle, or μαντεῖον, into which Saul might desire the woman of Endor to retire into, and himself expect answers in the next room; but signifies that familiar spirits by virtue of whose 246assistance she was conceived to perform all those wond’rous offices of a wise woman. But we proceed to verse 11.

“‘Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, bring me up Samuel.’ Surely as yet Saul and the woman are in the same room, seeing the woman askt, ‘Whom shall I bring up unto thee?’ and he answering, ‘Bring up unto me Samuel,’ it implies, that Samuel was so brought up that Saul might see him, and not the witch only. But we go on, verse 12.

“‘And when the woman saw Samuel, she cryed with a loud voice; and the woman spake to Saul, saying, why hast thou deceived, for thou art Saul? Tho’ the woman might have some suspicions before that it was Saul, yet she now seeing Samuel did appear, and in another kind of way than her spirits used to do, and in another hue, as it is most likely so holy a soul did, she presently cryed out with a loud voice, ‘not muttered, chirpt, and peept as a chicken coming out of the shell,’ that now she was sure it was Saul, for she was not such a fool, as to think her art could call up real Samuel, but that the presence of Saul was the cause thereof: and Josephus writes expressly, Ὅτι θεασάμενον τὸ γύναιον ἄνδρα σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται, καὶ πρὸς την ὄψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ σύ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σαοῦλος; i. e. ‘The woman seeing a grave god-like man is startled at it, and thus astonished at the vision, turned herself to the king, and said, art not thou king Saul?’ Verse 13.

“‘And the king said unto her, be not afraid; for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto 247Saul, I saw Gods ascending out of the earth.’ The king here assures the woman, that tho’ he was Saul, yet no hurt should come to her, and therefore bids her not be afraid. But she turning her face to Saul as she spake to him, and he to her, and so her sight being off from the object, Saul asked her, ‘What sawest thou?’ and she in like manner answered, ‘I saw Gods,’ &c. For Gods, I suppose any free translator in Greek, Latin, and English, would say, δαίμονας, genios, spirits. And אלהים signifies Angels as well as Gods; and it is likely these wise women take the spirits they converse with to be good angels, as Ann Bodenham the witch told a worthy and learned friend of mine, that these spirits, such as she had, were good spirits, and would do a man all good offices all the days of his life; and ’tis likely this woman of Endor had the same opinion of hers, and therefore we need not wonder that she calls them אלהים Elohim, especially Samuel appearing among them, to say nothing of the presence of Saul. And that more than one spirit appears at a time, there are repeated examples in Ann Bodenham’s magical evocations of them, whose history, I must confess, I take to be very true.

“The case stands therefore thus: The woman and Saul being in the same room, she turning her face from Saul, mutters to herself some magical form of evocation of spirits; where upon they beginning to appear and rise up, seemingly out of the earth, upon the sight of Samuel’s countenance, she cryed out to Saul, and turning her face towards him, spoke to him. Now that 248Saul hitherto saw nothing, though in the same room, might be either because the body of the woman was interposed betwixt his eyes and them, or the vehicles of those spirits were not yet attempered to that conspissation that they would strike the eyes of Saul, tho’ they did of the witch. And that some may see an object, others not seeing it, you have an instance in the child upon Walker’s shoulders, appearing to Mr. Fairhair, and it may be to the judge, but invisible to the rest of the Court; and many such examples there are. But I proceed to verse 14.

“‘And he said unto her, what form is he of? and she said, an old man cometh up, and is covered with a mantle.’ He asks here in the singular number, because, his mind was only fixt on Samuel. And the woman’s answer is exactly according to what the spirit appeared to her, when her eye was upon it, viz. איש זקן עלה ‘an old man coming up;’ for he was but coming up when she looked upon him, and accordingly describes him: For עלה there, is a particle of the present tense, and the woman describes Saul from his age, habit, and motion he was in, while her eye was upon him. So that the genuine and grammatical sense in this answer to ‘what form is he of?’ is this, an old man coming up, and the same covered with a mantle, this is his form and condition I saw him in. Wherefore Saul being so much concerned herein, either the woman or he changing their postures or standings, or Samuel by this having sufficiently conspissated his vehicle, and fitted it to Saul’s sight also, it follows in the text: ‘And Saul perceived 249it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself.’

“O the impudent profaneness and sottishness of perverse shufflers and whifflers! that upon the hearing of this passage can have the face to deny that Saul saw any thing, and meerly because the word ‘perceived’ is used, and not ‘saw,’ when the word ‘perceived,’ plainly implies that he saw Samuel, and something more, namely, that by his former familiar converse with him, he was assured it was he. So exquisitely did he appear, and over-comingly to his senses, that he could not but acknowledge (for so the Hebrew word ידע signifies) that it was he, or else why did he stoop with his face to the very ground to do him honour?

“No, no, says J. Webster, he saw nothing himself, but stood waiting like a drowned puppet (see of what a base rude spirit this squire of hags is, to use such language of a prince in his distress,) in another room to hear what would be the issue; for all that he understood, was from her cunning and lying relations. That this gallant of witches should dare to abuse a prince thus, and feign him as much foolisher and sottisher in his intellectuals, as he was taller in stature than the rest of the people, even by head and shoulders, and merely forsooth, to secure his old wives from being so much as in a capacity of ever being suspected for witches, is a thing extremely coarse and intolerably sordid. And indeed, upon the consideration of Saul’s being said to bow himself to Samuel, (which plainly implies, that there was there a Samuel that was the object of his sight, and of the 250reverence he made) his own heart misgives him in this mad adventure, and he shifts off from thence to a conceit that it was a confederate knave, that the woman of Endor turned out into the room where Saul was, to act the part of Samuel, having first put on him her own short cloak, which she used with her maund under her arm to ride to fairs or markets in. To this countryslouch in the woman’s mantle, must king Saul, stooping with his face to the very ground, make his profound obeysance. What was a market-woman’s cloak and Samuel’s mantle, which Josephus calls διπλοΐδα ἱερατικήν, a ‘sacerdotal habit,’ so like one another? Or if not, how came this woman, being so surpriz’d of a sudden, to provide herself of such a sacerdotal habit to cloak her confederate knave in? Was Saul as well a blind as a drowned puppet, that he could not discern so gross and bold an impostor as this? Was it possible that he should not perceive that it was not Samuel, when they came to confer together, as they did? How could that confederate knave change his own face into the same figure, look, and mien that Samuel had, which was exactly known to Saul? How could he imitate his voice thus of a sudden, and they discoursed a very considerable time together?

“Besides, knaves do not use to speak what things are true, but what things are pleasing. And moreover, this woman of Endor, though a Pythoness, yet she was of a very good nature and benign, which Josephus takes notice of, and extols her mightily for it, and therefore she could take no delight to lay further weight on the oppressed spirit 251of distressed king Saul; which is another sign that this scene was acted bonâ fide, and that there was no cozening in it. As also that it is another, that she spoke so magnificently of what appeared to her, that she saw Gods ascending. Could she then possibly adventure to turn out a countryslouch with a maund-woman’s cloak to act the part of so God-like and divine a personage of Samuel, who was Θεῷ τὴν μορφὴν ὅμοιος, as the woman describes him in Josephus Antiq. Judaic. lib. vii. c. 15, unto all which you may add, that the Scripture itself, which was written by inspiration, says expressly, verse 20, that it was Samuel. And the son of Sirach, chap xlvi. that Samuel himself prophesied after his death, referring to this story of the woman of Endor. But for our new inspired seers, or saints, S. Scot, S. Adie, and if you will, S. Webster, sworn advocate of the witches, who thus madly and boldly, against all sense and reason, against all antiquity, all interpreters, and against the inspired scripture itself, will have no Samuel in this scene, but a cunning confederate knave, whether the inspired scripture, or these inblown buffoons, puffed up with nothing but ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity, are to be believed, let any one judge.

“We come now to his other allegation, wherein we shall be brief, we having exceeded the measure of a postscript already. ‘It was neither Samuel’s soul,’ says he, ‘joined with his body, nor his soul out of his body, nor the devil; and therefore it must be some confederate knave suborned by that cunning, cheating quean of Endor.’ But 252I briefly answer, it was the soul of Samuel himself; and that it is the fruitfulness of the great ignorance of J. Webster in the sound principles of theosophy and true divinity, that has enabled him to heap together no less than ten arguments to disprove this assertion, and all little to the purpose: so little indeed, that I think it little to the purpose particularly to answer them, but shall hint only some few truths which will rout the whole band of them.

“I say therefore that departed souls, as other spirits, have an ἀυτεξούσιον in them, such as souls have in this life; and have both a faculty and a right to move of themselves, provided there be no express law against such or such a design to which their motion tends.

“Again, that they have a power of appearing in their own personal shapes to whom there is occasion, as Anne Walker’s soul did to the miller; and that this being a faculty of theirs either natural or acquirable, the doing so is no miracle. And,

“Thirdly, That it was the strong piercing desire, and deep distress and agony of mind in Saul, in his perplexed circumstances, and the great compassion and goodness of spirit in the holy soul of Samuel, that was the effectual magick that drew him to condescend to converse with Saul in the woman’s house at Endor, as a keen sense of justice and revenge made Anne Walker’s soul appear to the miller with her five wounds in her head.

“The ridged and harsh severity that Webster fancies Samuel’s ghost would have used against 253the woman, or sharp reproofs to Saul; as for the latter, it is somewhat expressed in the text, and Saul had his excuse in readiness, and the good soul of Samuel was sensible of his perplexed condition. And as for the former, sith the soul of Samuel might indeed have terrified the poor woman, and so unhinging her, that she had been fit for nothing after it, but not converted her, it is no wonder if he passed her by; goodness and forbearance more befitting an holy angelical soul than bluster and fury, such as is fancied by that rude goblin that actuates the body and pen of Webster.

“As for departed souls, that they never have any care or regard to any of their fellow souls here upon earth, is expressly against the known example of that great soul, and universal pastor of all good souls, who appeared to Stephen at his stoning, and to St. Paul before his conversion, though then in his glorified body; which is a greater condescension than this of the soul of Samuel, which was also to a prince, upon whose shoulders lay the great affairs of the people of Israel: To omit that other notable example of the angel Raphael so called (from his office at that time, or from the angelical order he was adopted into after his death) but was indeed the soul of Azarias, the son of Ananias the Great, and of Tobit’s brethren, Tobit, v. 12. Nor does that which occurs, Tob. xii. 15, at all clash with what we have said, if rightly understood: for his saying, ‘I am Raphael one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the holy one,’ in the Cabbalistical sense 254signifies no more than thus, that he was one of the universal society of the holy angels, (and a Raphael in the order of the Raphaels) which minister to the saints, and reinforce the prayers of good and holy men by joining thereto their own; and as they are moved by God, minister to their necessities, unprayed to themselves, which would be an abomination to them, but extreme prone to second the petitions of holy sincere souls, and forward to engage in the accomplishing of them, as a truly good man would sooner relieve an indigent creature, over-hearing him making his moan to God in prayer, than if he begged alms of himself, though he might do that without sin. This Cabbalistical account, I think, is infinitely more probable, than that Raphael told a downright lye to Tobit, in saying he was the son of Ananias when he was not. And be it so, will J. Webster say, what is all this to the purpose, when the book of Tobit is apocryphal, and consequently of no authority? What of no authority? Certainly of infinitely more authority than Mr. Wagstaff, Mr. Scot, and Mr. Adie, that Mr. Webster so frequently and reverently quoteth.

“I but, will he farther add, these apparitions were made to good and holy men, or to elect vessels; but King Saul was a wretched reprobate. This is the third liberal badge of honour that this ill-bred advocate of the witches has bestowed on a distressed prince. First, a ‘drowned puppet,’ p. 170, then a ‘distracted bedlam,’ in the same page, which I passed by before; and now a ‘wretched reprobate.’ But assuredly Saul was a 255brave prince and commander, as Josephus justly describes him, and reprobate only in type, as Ismael and Esau; which is a mystery it seems, that J. Webster was not aware of. And therefore no such wonder that the soul of Samuel had such a kindness for him, as to appear to him in the depth of his distress, to settle his mind, by telling him plainly the upshot of the whole business, that he should lose the battel, and he and his sons be slain, that so he might give a specimen of the bravest valour that ever was atchieved by any commander, in that he would not suffer his country to be overrun by the enemy while he was alive without resistance; but though he knew certainly he should fail of success, and he and his sons dye in the fight, yet in so just and honourable a cause as the defence of his crown and his country, would give the enemy battel in the field, and sacrifice his own life for the safety of his people. Out of the knowledge of which noble spirit in Saul, and his resolved valour in this point, those words haply may come from Samuel, ‘To morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me,’ (as an auspicious insinuation of their favourable reception into the other world,) in סחיצחצדקימ, in thalamo justorum, as Munster has noted out of the Rabbins.

“Lastly, as for that weak imputation, that this opinion of its being Samuel’s soul that appeared is Popish, that is very plebeianly and idiotically spoken, as if every thing that the Popish party are for, were Popish. We divide our zeal against so many things that we fancy Popish, that we scarce reserve a just share of detestation against what is 256truly so: Such as are that gross, rank and scandalous impossibility of ‘transubstantiation,’ the various modes of fulsome idolatry and lying impostures, the uncertainty of their loyalty to their lawful sovereigns by their superstitious adhesion to the spiritual tyranny of the Pope, and that barbarous and ferine cruelty against those that are not either such fools as to be persuaded to believe such things as they would obtrude upon men, or are not so false to God and their own consciences, as knowing better, yet to profess them.

“As for that other opinion, that the greater part of the reformed divines hold, that it was the devil that appeared in Samuel’s shape; and though Grotius also seems to be inclined thereto, alleging that passage of Porphyrius de abstinentia Animalium, where he describes one kind of spirit to be Γένος ἀπατηλῆς φύσεως, παντόμορφόν τε καὶ πολύτροπον, ὑποκρινόμενον καὶ θεοὺς καὶ δαίμονας καὶ ψυχὰς τεθνηκότων. (which is, I confess, very apposite to this story; nor do I doubt but that in many of these necromantick apparitions, they are ludicrous spirits, not the souls of the deceased that appear,) yet I am clear for the appearing of the soul of Samuel in this story, from the reasons above alleged, and as clear that in other necromancies, it may be the devil or such kind of spirits, as Porphyrius above describes, ‘that change themselves into omnifarious forms and shapes, and one while act the parts of dæmons, another while of angels or gods, and another while of the souls of the deceased.’ And I confess such a spirit as this might personate Samuel here, for any thing Webster has 257alleged to the contrary, for his arguments indeed are wonderfully weak and wooden, as may be understood out of what I have hinted concerning the former opinion, but I cannot further particularize now.

“For I have made my postscript much longer than my letter, before I was aware; and I need not enlarge to you, who are so well versed in these things already, and can by the quickness of your parts presently collect the whole measures of Hercules by his foot, and sufficiently understand by this time it is no rash censure of mine in my letter, that Webster’s book is but a weak impertinent piece of work, the very master-piece thereof being so weak and impertinent, and falling so short of the scope he aims at, which was really to prove that there was no such thing as a witch or wizard, that is not any mention thereof in Scripture, by any name ‘of one that had more to do with the devil, or the devil with him, than with other wicked men;’ that is to say, of one who in virtue of covenant, either implicit or explicit, did strange things by the help of evil spirits, but that ‘there are many sorts of deceivers and impostures, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy,’ which is part of his very title-page.

“Whereby he does plainly insinuate, that there is nothing but couzenage or melancholy in the whole business of the fears of witches. But a little to mitigate or smother the greatness of this false assertion, he adds, ‘And that there is no corporeal league betwixt the devil and the witch; and that he does not suck on the witches body, nor has carnal 258copulation with her, nor the witches turned into dogs or cats,’ &c. All which things as you may see in his book, he understands in the grossest imaginable, as if the imps of witches had mouths of flesh to suck them, and bodies of flesh to lie with them, and at this rate he may understand a corporeal league, as if it were no league or covenant, unless some lawyer drew the instrument, and engrossed it in vellum or thick parchment, and there were so many witnesses with the hand and seal of the party. Nor any transformation into dogs or cats, unless it were real and corporeal, or grossly carnal; which none of his witch-mongers, as he rudely and slovenly calls that learned and serious person, Dr. Casaubon and the rest, do believe. Only it is a disputable case of their bodily transformation, betwixt bodinus and remigius; of which more in my Scholia. But that without this carnal transmutation, a woman might not be accounted a witch, is so foolish a supposition, that Webster himself certainly must be ashamed of it.

“Wherefore if his book be writ only to prove there is no such thing as a witch that covenants in parchment with the Devil by the advice of a lawyer, and is really and carnally turned into a dog, cat, or hare, &c. and with carnal lips sucked by the devil, and is one with whom the devil lies carnally; the scope thereof is manifestly impertinent, when neither Dr. Casaubon, nor any one else holds any such thing. But as for the true and adequate notion of a witch or wizard, such as at first I described, his arguments all of them are too weak and impertinent, as to the disproving 259the existence of such a witch as this, who betwixt his deceivers, impostors, and melancholists on one hand, and those gross witches he describes on the other hand, goes away sheer as a hair in a green balk betwixt two lands of corn, none of his arguments reaching her, or getting the sight of her, himself in the mean time standing on one side amongst the deceivers and impostors, his book, as to the main design he drives at, being a meer cheat and impostor.

“C. C. C. May, 25, 1678.”

The Confessions of certain Scotch Witches, taken out of an authentic copy of their trial at the Assizes held at Paisley, in Scotland, Feb. 15, 1678, touching the bewitching of Sir George Maxwel.

The tenour of the confessions as taken before justices. As first of Annabil Stuart, of the age of 14 years, or thereby; who declared that she was brought in the presence of the justices for the crime of witchcraft; and declared, that one harvest last, the devil, in the shape of a black man, came to her mother’s house, and required the declarant to give herself up to him; and that the devil promised her she should not want any thing that was good.—Declares that she, being enticed by her mother, Jennet Mathie, and Bessie Wen, who was officer to their several meetings, she put her hand to the crown of her head, and the other to the sole of her foot, and did give herself up to 260the devil. Declares that her mother promised her a new coat for doing it. Declares that her spirit’s name was Ennipa, and that the devil took her by the hand and nipt her arm, which continued to be sore for half an hour. Declares that the devil, in the shape of a black man, lay with her in the bed, under the clothes, and that she found him cold. Declares, that thereafter, he placed her nearest himself, and declares she was present in her mother’s house when the effigy of wax was made, and that it was made to represent Sir George Maxwel. Declares, that the black man, Jannet Mathie, the declarant’s mother, (whose spirit’s name was Lemdlady; Bessie Weir, whose spirit’s name was Sopha; Margaret Craige, whose spirit’s name is Regerum, and Margaret Jackson, whose spirit’s name is Locas) were all present at the making of the said effigy; and that they bound it on a spit, and turned it before the fire; and that it was turned by Bessie Weir, saying, as they turned it, Sir George Maxwel, Sir George Maxwel, and that this was expressed by all of them, and by the declarant. Declares that this picture was made in October last. And further declares that upon the third day of January instant, Bessie Weir came to her mother’s house, and advertised her to come to her brother John Stuart’s upon the night following; and that accordingly she came to the place, where she found Bessie Weir, Margery Craige, Margaret Jackson, and her brother John Stuart, and a man with black cloaths, and a blue band, and white handcuffs, with hogers, and that his feet were cloven: that declarant sat down by 261the fire with them when they made a picture of clay, in which they placed pins in the breasts and sides; that they placed one in every side, and one in the breast; that the black man did put the pins in the picture of wax; but is not sure who put the pins in the picture of clay; that the effigies produced are those she saw made; that the black man’s name is Ejsal.

This declaration was emitted before James Dunlop, of Husil, and William Gremlage, &c. Jan. 27, 1677, ita est Robertus Park, Notarius Publicus.

“The second confession is of John Stuart, who being interrogate anent the crime of witchcraft, declared that upon Wednesday, the third day of January instant, Bessie Weir, in Pollocton, came to the declarant late at night, who being without doors near to his own house, the said Bessie Weir did intimate to him that there was a meeting to be at his house, the next day; and that the devil under the shape of a black man, Margaret Jackson, Margery Craige, and the said Bessie Weir were to be present; and that Bessie Weir required declarant to be there, which he promised; and that the next night, after declarant had gone to bed, the black man came in, and called the declarant quietly by his name, upon which he arose from his bed, put on his clothes and lighted a candle. Declare, that Margaret Jackson, Bessie Weir, and Margery Craige, did enter in at a window in the cavil of declarant’s house; and that the first thing the black man required, was, that the declarant should renounce his baptism, and deliver himself wholly to him; which the declarant 262did, by putting one hand on the crown of his head, and the other on the sole of his foot; and that he was tempted to it by the devil promising him that he should not want any pleasure, and that he should get his heart filled on all that should do him wrong. Declares, that he gave him the name of Jonat for his spirit’s name; that thereafter the devil required every one of their consents for the making of the effigies of clay, for the taking away the life of Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, to revenge the taking of declarant’s mother, Jannet Mathie, that every one of the persons above named, gave their consent to the making of the said effigy, and that they wrought the clay; that the black man did make the figure of the head and face, and two arms, to the said effigy; that the devil set three pins in the same, on one each side and one in the breast; and that the declarant did hold the candle to them, all the time the picture was making. And that he observed one of the black man’s feet to be cloven—that his apparel was black—that he had a blueish band and handcuffs—that he had hogers on his legs, without shoes; and that the black man’s voice was hough and goustie: and farther declares that after they had begun the framing of the effigies, his sister, Annabil Stuart, a child of 13 or 14 years of age, came knocking at the door, and being let in by the declarant, she staid with them a considerable time, but that she went away before the rest, he having opened the door for her—that the rest went out at the window at which they entered—that the effigies was placed by Bessie Weir in his bed-straw. He farther declares 263he himself did envy against Sir George Maxwel, for apprehending Jannet Mathie, his mother; and that Bessie Weir had great malice against this Sir George Maxwel, and that her quarrel was, as the declarant conceived, because the said Sir George had not entered her husband to his harvest service; also that the said effigies was made upon the fourth day of January instant, and that the devil’s name was Ejoal; that declarant’s spirit’s name was Jonas, and Bessie Weir’s spirit’s name, who was officer, was Sopha; and that Margaret Jackson’s spirit’s name was Locas; and that Annabil Stuart’s spirit’s name, the declarant’s sister, was Enippa; but does not remember what Margery Craige’s spirit’s name was. Declares that he cannot write.

This confession was emitted in the presence of the witnesses to the other confession, and on the same day.—Ita est. Robertus Park, Notarius Publicus.

The next confession is that of Margaret, relict of Thomas Shaws, who being examined by the justices, anent her being guilty of witchcraft, declares that she was present at the making of the first effigies and picture that were made in Jannet Mathie’s house, in October; and that the devil, in the shape of a black man, Jannet Mathie, Bessie Weir, Margery Craige, and Annabil Stuart, were present at the making of them, and that they were made to represent Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, for the taking away his life. Declares, that 40 years ago, or thereabout, she was at Pollockshaw Croft, with some few sticks on her back, that the black man came to her, and that she did give up 264herself unto him, from the top of her head to the sole of her foot; and that this was after declarant had renounced her baptism, and that the spirit’s name which he designed her was Locas: and that about the third or fourth of January instant, or thereby, in the night-time, when she awaked, she found a man to be in bed with her, whom she supposed to be her husband, though her husband had been dead twenty years or thereby, and that the said man immediately disappeared; that this man who disappeared was the devil. Declares, that upon Thursday the fourth of January instant, she was present in the house of John Stuart, at night, when the effigies of clay was made, and that she saw the black man there, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing with John Stuart; and that the black man’s cloaths were black, and that he had white handcuffs; and that Bessie Weir, in Pollocton, and Annabil Stuart, in Shaws, and Margery Craigie, were at the aforesaid time and place at making the said effigies of clay; and declares that she gave her consent to the making of the same, and that the devil’s name who compeered in the black man’s shape was Ejoll.

Sic Subscribitur, ita est, Robertus Park, Notatius Publicus, &c.

Then follows the depositions of certain persons, agreeing with confessions of the above-said witches.

“Andr. Martin, Servitour to the Lord of Pollock, of the age of thirty years, or thereby, deposes, 265that he was present in the house of Jannet Mathie, Pannel, when the picture of wax produced was found in a little hole in the wall at the back of the fire—that Sir George, his sickness did fall upon him about the eighteenth of October, or thereby—that the picture of wax was found on the —— of December, and that Sir George his sickness did abate and relent about the time the picture of wax was found and discovered in Jannet Mathie’s house—that the pins were placed in the right and left sides; and that Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, his pains, lay most in his right and left sides. Depones, that Sir George’s pains did abate and relent after the finding of the said picture of wax, and taking out the pins as is said—that the pannel, Jannet Mathie, has been by fame and bruite a reputed witch these several years past. And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God.—Sic Subscribitur, Andr. Martin.”

“Lawrence Pollock, Secretary to the Lord of Pollock, sworn and purged of partial counsel, depones that on the —— day of December he was in the Pannel Jannet Mathie’s house when the picture was found; and that he did not see it before it was brought to the Pannel’s door—that Sir George Maxwel of Pollock’s sickness did seize upon him about the 14th of October, or thereabouts, and he did continue in his sickness or distemper for six weeks, or thereby—that Sir George’s sickness did abate and relent after the finding of the said picture of wax, and taking out of the pins that were in the effigies—that by open bruit and common fame, Jannet Mathie, and Bessie Weir, 266and Margery Craige, are brandit to be witches. Depones, that the truth is this, as he shall answer to God.—Sic Subscrib. Lawrence Pollock.”

“Lodawic’ Stuart, of Auckenhead, being sworn and purged of partial counsel, depones, that Sir George’s sickness fell upon him the 14th or 13th day of October—that he was not present at the finding of the picture of wax; but that he had seen Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, after it was found; and having seen him in his sickness oftentimes before, he did perceive that Sir George had sensibly recovered after the time that the said picture was said to have been found, which was upon the 11th or 12th of December—that Jannet Mathie and Margery Craigie, two of the Pannel, are by report of the country said to be witches—that he having come to Pollock, he did see Sir George Maxwel, whose pains did recur, and that his pains and torments were greatly increased in respect of what they were before the finding of the picture of wax—that upon the eighth of January, when they left the said Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, the deponent James Dunlop, of Housil, Allan Douglass, and several others, did go to the house of John Stuart, Warlock, on Pollockshaw, and there he found a picture of clay in the said John Stuart’s bed-straw—that there were three pins in the said picture of clay, and that there was one on each side, and one in the breast—and further depones, that being returned to Sir George’s house, Sir George told the deponent that he found great ease of his pains, and that it was before the deponent Hounsil, and the rest, did reveal to him 267that they had found the said picture of clay, and further, that this is the truth, as he shall answer to God.—Sic. Subscrib. Lodowick Stuart.”

There are more depositions of a similar nature whence these were extracted, but these are enough to discover that the confession of those witches are neither fables nor dreams. It belongs us, therefore, in this enlightened age, when superstition has fled before the rays of science and the influence of religion, to account for the then prevalent notion, which appears so far to be authenticated, of the existence of witches. It is not enough to say that people are barbarous, ignorant, or unenlightened, to exculpate them from charges involving such strong points as supernatural with human agency. In this stage of investigation, nothing is more natural than to ask, did witches ever exist? Yes.—Upon what authority? Sacred Writ.—Are there such beings as witches now? We hear of none.—Then the last grand question, to which a secret of some importance is attached—What has become of them? have they vanished into viewless air, without leaving a wreck behind; or are they consigned to the “bottom of the bottomless pit?” Of this we may say something hereafter; while in the meantime we lay before our readers

The Confession of Agnes Sympson to King James.

“Item.—Fyled and convict for samecle, as she confest before his Majesty that the devil in man’s likeness met her going out in the fields, from her own 268house a Keith, betwixt five and six at even, being alone, and commendit her to be at Northborrick Kirk the next night. And she passed then on horseback, conveyed by her good-son called John Cooper, and lighted at the Kirk-yard, or a little before she came to it, about eleven hours at even. They danced along the Kirk-yard, Geilie Duncan plaid to them on a trump, John Fien, mussiled, led all the rest; the said Agnes and her daughter followed next. Besides there were Kate Grey, George Moile’s wife, Robert Guerson, Catherine Duncan Buchanan, Thomas Barnhill and his wife, Gilbert Macgil, John Macgil, Catherine Macgil, with the rest of their complices, above an hundred persons, whereof there were six men, and all the rest women. The women made first their homage and then the men. The men were turned nine times Widdershins about, and the women six times. John Fien blew up the doors and in the lights, which were like mickle black candles sticking round about the pulpit. The devil started up himself in the pulpit, like a mickle black man, and every one answered here. Mr. Robert Guerson being named, they all ran hirdie girdie, and were angry; for it was promised he should be called Robert the Comptroller, alias Rob the Rowar, for expriming of his name. The first thing he demandit was, as they kept all promise, and been good servants, and what they had done since the last time they convened. At his command they opened up three graves, two within, and one without the Kirk, and took off the joints of their fingers, toes, and neise, and parted them 269amongst them: and the said Agnes Sympson got for her part a winding-sheet and two joints. The devil commandit them to keep the joints upon them while they were dry, and then to make a powder of them to do evil withal. Then he commandit them to keep his commandments, which were to do all the evil they could. Before they departed they kissed his breech [the record speaks more broad.] He [meaning the devil] had on him ane gown and ane hat, which were both black: and they that were assembled, part stood and part sate: John Fien was ever nearest the devil, at his left elbock; Graymarcal keeped the door.”

The Scotch accent has been here retained for the better authenticity of the matter; the confession here given being, in all probability, a principal reason why King James changed his opinion relative to the existence of witches; which, it was reported, he was inclined to think were mere conceits; as he was then but young (not above five or six and twenty years of age) when this examination took place before him; and part of the third chapter of his Demonologie appears to be a transcript of this very confession.

Agnes Sympson was remarkable for her skill in diseases, and frequently, it is said, took the pains and sickness of the afflicted upon herself to relieve them, and afterwards translated them to a third person: she made use of long Scriptural rhymes and prayers, containing the principal points of Christianity, so that she seemed not so much a white witch as a holy woman. She also used nonsensical rhymes in the instruction of ignorant 270people, and taught them to say the white and black Pater-noster in metre, in set forms, to be used morning and evening; and at other times, as occasion might require.

The White Pater-noster runs thus:—

The Black Pater-noster.

Whenever she required an answer from the devil, on any occasion, he always appeared to her in the shape of a dog. And when she wished him to depart, she conjured him in the following manner, namely: “I charge thee to depart on the law thou livest on:” this it is said was the language with which she dismissed him, after consulting with him on old Lady Edmiston’s sickness. The manner in which she raised the devil was with these words: “Elia come and speak to me;” when he 271never failed to appear to her in the shape of a dog, as usual. Her sailing with her Kemmers and fellow witches in a boat is related as a very remarkable story, where the devil caused them all to drink good wine and beer without money; and of her neither seeing the sailors nor they her; and of the storm which the devil raised, whereby the ship perished; also her baptizing, and using other ceremonies upon a cat, in the company of other witches, to prevent Queen Anne from coming to Scotland.

That which is most remarkable in John Fein, is the devil appearing to him, not in black, but white raiment, although he proposed as hellish a covenant to him as any in the black costume. His skimming along the surface of the sea with his companions—his foretelling the leak in the Queen’s ship—his raising a storm by throwing a cat into the sea, during the King’s voyage to Denmark—his raising a mist on the King’s return, by getting Satan to cast a thing like a foot-ball into the sea, which caused such a smoke, as to endanger his Majesty being driven on the coast of England—his opening locks by means of sorcery, by merely blowing into a woman’s hand while she sat by the fire—his embarking in a boat with other witches, sailing over the sea, getting on board of a ship, drinking wine and ale there, and afterwards sinking the vessel with all on board—his kissing Satan’s —e again, at another conventicle—his being carried into the air, in chasing a cat, for the purpose of raising a storm, according to Satan’s prescription. He pretended also to tell any man 272how long he would live, provided he told him the day of his birth.

The crime of witchcraft, or divination, by the assistance of evil spirits.

Sorcery is held by some to be properly what the ancients called Sortilegium, or divination by means of Sortes or lots.

Lord Coke (3 Instit. fol. 44,) describes a Sorcerer, qui utitur sortibus, et incantationibus dæmonium. Sorcery, by Stat. 1o.Jac. is felony. In another book it is said to be a branch of heresy; and by Stat. 12, Carolus II. it is excepted out of the general pardons.

Sorcery is pretended to have been a very common thing formerly; the credulity, at least, of those ages made it pass for such; people frequently suffered for it. In a more enlightened and less believing age, sorcery has fled before the penetrating rays of science, like every other species of human superstition and complicated diablerie. For, indeed, it is a very probable opinion, that the several glaring instances of sorcery we meet, in our old law books and historians, if well inquired into, would be found at bottom, to have more human art and desperate malignity and vindictive cunning about them, than of demoniacal and preternatural agency. Were it not for a wellregulated 273police acting under wise regulations for the safety and harmony of society, sorcerers and evil spirits would be equally as prevalent and destructive at the present day, as they were some two or three hundred years ago.

The ancients had a method of deciding dubious cases, where there appeared no ground for a preference, by Sortes or lots, as in casting of dice, drawing tickets, and various other ways, many of which are still adopted.

The ancient sortes or lots, were instituted by God himself; and in the Old Testament we meet with many standing and perpetual laws, and a number of particular commands, prescribing and regulating the use of them. Thus Scripture informs us that the lot fell on St. Matthias, when a successor to Judas in the apostolate was to be chosen. Our Saviour’s garment itself was cast lots for. Sortiti sunt Christo vestem.

The Sortes Prænestinæ were famous among the Greeks. The method of these was to put a great number of letters, or even whole words, into an urn; to shake them together, and throw them out; and whatever should chance to be made out in the arrangement of the letters, &c. composed the answer of this oracle.

In what repute soever this mode of divination 274formerly might have been, M. Dacier observes, that, in Cicero’s time, its credit was but low; so much so, that none but the most credulous part of the populace had recourse to it. Instead of this another kind of sortes was introduced into Greece and Italy; which was, to take some celebrated poet, as for instance Homer, Euripides, Virgil, &c., to open the book, and whatever first presented itself to the eye on opening, it thus was taken for the ordinance of heaven. This made what was called the Sortes Homericæ and Sortes Virgilianæ, which succeeded the use of the Sortes Prænestinæ.

This superstition passed hence into Christianity; and the Christians took their sortes out of the Old and New Testament. The first passage that presented itself on opening a book of Scripture, was esteemed the answer of God himself. If the first passage that was opened did not happen to be any thing to the purpose for which the sortes were consulted, another book was opened, and so on until something was met with that might, one way or the other, be taken for an answer. This was called Sortes Sanctorum.

St. Augustine does not disapprove of this method of learning futurity, provided it be not used for worldly purposes; and, in fact, he owns having practised it himself.

Gregory of Tours adds, that the custom was to lay the Bible on the altar, and to pray the Lord that he would discover by it what was to come to pass. Indeed, instances of the use of the Sanctum Sanctorum are very frequent in history. 275Mr. Fleury tells us that Heraclius, in his war against Cossoes, to learn where he should take up his winter quarters, purified his army for three days, and then opened the Gospels, and discovered thereby that the place appointed for them was in Albania.

Gilbert of Nogent informs us, that, in his time, viz. about the beginning of the twelfth century, the custom was, at the consecration of bishops, to consult the Sortes Sanctorum, to learn the success, fate, and other particulars of their episcopate. This practice is founded on a supposition that God presides over the Sortes, and this is strengthened by Prov. chap. xvi. verse 33, where it is said, “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”

In fact, many divines have held, and even now many of them still hold, that the lot is conducted in a particular manner by Providence; that it is an extraordinary manner, in which God declares his will by a kind of immediate revelation. The Sortes Sanctorum, however, were condemned by the council of Agda, in 506, at the time they were beginning to take footing in France.

This practice crept in among the Christians, of casually opening the sacred books for directions in important circumstances; to know the consequences of events; and what they had to fear from their rulers.

This consultation of the divine will from the Scriptures, was of two kinds:—The first consisted, as I have said, in casually opening those writings, but not before the guidance of heaven had been 276implored with prayer, fasting, and other acts of religion. The second was much more simple: the first words of the Scripture, which were singing or reading, at the very instant when the person, who came to know the disposition of heaven, entered the church, being considered either an advice, or a prognostic.

St. Austin, in his epistle to Januarius, justly condemns the practice; but St. Gregory of Tours, by the following instance, which he relates as having happened to himself, shows that he entertained a better opinion of it:—“Leudastus, Earl of Tours,” says he, “who was for ruining me with Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs against me, I withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I took the Psalms, to try if, at opening them, I should light upon some consoling verse. My heart revived within me, when I cast my eyes on this of the 77th Psalm, ‘He caused them to go on with confidence, whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.’ Accordingly, the Count spoke not a word to my prejudice; and leaving Tours that very day, the boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in swimming saved him.”

The following is also from the same author. “Chranmes having revolted against Clotaire, his brother, and being at Dijon, the ecclesiastics of the place, in order to foreknow the success of this procedure, consulted the sacred books; but instead of the Psalms, they made use of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the Prophet Isaiah. Opening the latter they read these words: ‘I will pluck up the fence 277of my vineyard, and it shall be destroyed, because instead of good, it has brought forth bad grapes.’ The Epistles agreeing with the prophecy, it was concluded to be a sure presage of the tragical end of Cranmes.”

St. Consortia, in her youth, was passionately courted by a young man of a very powerful family, though she had formed a design of taking the veil. Knowing that a refusal would expose her parents to many inconveniences, and perhaps to danger, she desired a week’s time to determine her choice. At the expiration of this time, which she had employed in devout exercises, her lover, accompanied by the most distinguished matrons of the city, came to know her answer. “I can neither accept of you nor refuse you,” said she, “every thing is in the hand of God: but if you will agree to it, let us go to the church, and have a mass said; afterwards, let us lay the holy gospel on the altar, and say a joint prayer; then we will open the book, to be certainly informed of the divine will in this affair.” This proposal could not with propriety be refused; and the first verse which met the eyes of both, was the following: “Whosoever loveth father or mother better than me, is not worthy of me.” Upon this, Consortia said, “You see God claims me as his own;” and the lover acquiesced.

But about the eighth century, this practice began to lose ground, as soon or late, reason and authority will get the better of that which is founded on neither. It was proscribed by several popes and councils, and in terms which rank it 278among Pagan superstitions. However, some traces of this custom are found for several ages after, both in the Greek and the Latin church. Upon the consecration of a bishop, after laying the bible upon his head, a ceremony still subsisted, that the first verse which offered itself, was accounted an omen of his future behaviour, and of the good or evil which was reserved for him in the course of his episcopacy. Thus, a Bishop of Rochester, at his consecration by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, had a very happy presage in these words: “Bring hither the best robe, and put it on him.” But the answer of the Scripture, at the consecration of St. Lietbert, Bishop of Cambray, was still more grateful: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” The death of Albert, Bishop of Liege, is said to have been intimated to him by these words, which the Archbishop, who consecrated him, found at the opening of the New Testament, “And the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought; and he went and beheaded him in the prison.” Upon this the primate tenderly embracing the new bishop, said to him with tears, “My son, having given yourself up to the service of God, carry yourself righteously and devoutly, and prepare yourself for the trial of martyrdom.” The Bishop was afterwards murdered by the treacherous connivance of the Emperor Henry VI.

These prognostics were alleged upon the most important occasions. De Garlande, Bishop of Orleans, became so odious to his clergy, that they sent a complaint against him to Pope Alexander 279III. concluding in this manner: “Let your apostolical hands put on strength to strip naked the iniquity of this man; that the curse prognosticated on the day of his consecration, may overtake him; for the gospels being opened, according to custom, the first words were, And the young man, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked.”

William of Malmsbury relates, that Hugh de Montaigne, Bishop of Auxerre, was obliged to go to Rome, to answer different charges brought against the purity of his morals, by some of his chapter; but they who held with the bishop, as an irrefragable proof of his spotless chastity, insisted that the prognostic on the day of his consecration was, “Hail, Mary, full of grace.”

I proceed to the second manner of this consultation, which was to go into a church with the intention of receiving, as a declaration of the will of Heaven, any words of the Scripture which might chance to be sung or read, at the moment of the person’s entrance. Thus, it is said, St. Anthony, to put an end to his irresolution about retirement, went to a church, where immediately hearing the deacon pronounce these words, “Go sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, then come and follow me;” he applied them to himself, as a direct injunction from God, and withdrew to that solitude for which he is so celebrated among the Catholics.

The following passage from Gregory of Tours, is too remarkable to be omitted. He relates that Clovis, the first Christian king of France, marching 280against Alaric, King of the Visgoths, and being near the city of Tours, where the body of St. Martin was deposited, he sent some of his nobles, with presents to be offered at the saint’s tomb, to see if they could not bring him a promising augury, while he himself uttered this prayer “Lord, if thou wouldest have me punish this impious people, the savage enemy of thy holy name, give me some signal token, by which I may be assured that such is thy will.” Accordingly, his messengers had no sooner set foot within the cathedral, than they heard the priest chaunt forth this verse of the eighteenth Psalm, “Thou hast girded me with strength for war, thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.” Transported at these words, after laying the presents at the tomb of the saint, they hastened to the King with this favourable prognostic; Clovis joyfully accepted it, and engaging Alaric, gained a complete victory.

Here also may be subjoined a passage in the history of St. Louis IX. In the first emotions of his clemency, he had granted a pardon to a criminal under sentence of death; but some minutes after, happening to alight upon this verse of the Psalms, “Blessed is he that doth righteousness at all times;” he recalled his pardon, saying, “The King who has power to punish a crime, and does not do it, is, in the sight of God, no less guilty than if he had committed it himself.”

The Sortes Sanctorum were fulminated against by various councils. The council of Varres “forbade all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, 281to perform that kind of divination, or to pry into futurity, by looking into any book, or writing, whatsoever.” The council of Ayde, in 506, expressed itself to the same effect; as did those of Orleans, in 511; and Auxerre, in 595. It appears, however, to have continued very common, at least in England, so late as the twelfth century: the council of Aenham, which met there in 1110, condemned jointly, sorcerers, witches, diviners, such as occasioned death by magical operations, and who practised fortune-telling by the holy book-lots.

Peter de Blois, who wrote at the close of the twelfth century, places among the sorcerers, those who, under the veil of religion, promised, by certain superstitious practices, such as the lots of the Apostles and Prophets, to discover hidden and future events: yet this same Peter de Blois, one of the most learned and pious men of his age, in a letter to Reginald, whose election to the see of Bath had a long time been violently opposed, tells him, that he hopes he has overcome all difficulties; and further, that he believes he is, or soon will be, established in his diocese. “This belief,” says he, “I ground on a dream I lately had two nights successively, of being at your consecration; and also, that being desirous of knowing its certain meaning, by lots of human curiosity, and the Psalter, the first which occurred to me were, ‘Moses and Aaron among his priests.’”

Thus, though the ancient fathers, and, since them, others have in general agreed, that the Sortes Sanctorum cannot be cleared of superstition, 282though they assert that it was tempting God, to expect that he would inform us of futurity, and reveal to us the secrets of his will, whenever the sacred book is opened for such a purpose, though it contain nothing which looks like a promise of that kind from God; though so far from being warranted by any ecclesiastical law, it has been condemned by several, and, at last, in more enlightened times, has been altogether abolished, yet they do not deny, that there have been occasions, when discreet and pious persons have opened the sacred book, not to discover futurity, but to meet with some passage to support them in times of distress and persecution.

This word is supposed to be formed of the two Greek words σιου for Θεου Dei, and βουλη counsel.

The Sibyllæ of antiquity were virgin-prophetesses, or maids supposed to be divinely inspired; who, in the height of their enthusiasm, gave oracles, and foretold things to come.

Authors are at variance with respect to the number of sibyls. Capella reckons but two; viz. Erophyte of Troy, called Sibylla Phrygia; and Sinuachia of Erythræa. Solinus mentions three, viz. Cumæa, Delphica, and Erythræa. Ælian makes their number four, and Varro increases it to ten, denominating them from the places of their birth; the Persian, Delphic, Cumæan, Erythræan, 283Samian, Cuman, Hellespontic or Troiad, Phrygian, and Tiburtine. Of these the most celebrated are, the Erythræan, Delphic, and Cumæan Sibyls.

The sibylline oracles were held in great veneration by the more credulous among the ancients; but they were much suspected by the better informed. The books wherein they were written, were kept by the Romans with infinite care; and nothing of moment was undertaken without consulting them. Tarquin first committed them to the custody of two patrician priests for that purpose.

Magical figures, engraven or cut under superstitious observances of the characterisms and configurations of the heavens, are called talismans; to which some astrologers, hermetical philosophers, and other adepts, attribute wonderful virtues, particularly that of calling down celestial influences.

The author of a book, intituled Talismans Justifies, pronounces a talisman is the seal, figure, character, or image of a heavenly sign, constellation, or planet, engraven on a sympathetic stone, or on a metal corresponding to the star, &c. in order to receive its influences.

The talismans of the Samothracians, so famous of old, were pieces of iron formed into certain 284images, and set in rings, &c. They were held as preservatives against all kinds of evils. There were other talismans taken from vegetables, and others from minerals.

Three kinds of Talismans were usually distinguished, viz. Astronomical, which are known by the signs or constellations of the heavens engraven upon them, with other figures, and some unintelligible characters. Magical, which bear very extraordinary figures, with superstitious words and names of angels unheard of. And mixt, which consist of signs and barbarous words; but have no superstitious ones, or names of angels.

It is maintained by some rabbins, that the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the Wilderness, for the destruction of the serpents that annoyed the Israelites, was properly a Talisman.

All the miraculous things wrought by Apollonius Tyanæus are attributed to the virtue and influence of Talismans; and that wizard, as he is called, is even said to have been the inventor of them.

Some authors take several Runic medals,—medals, at least, whose inscriptions are in the Runic characters,—for talismans, it being notorious, that the northern nations, in their heathen state, were much devoted to them. M. Keder, however, has shewn, that the medals here spoken of are quite other things than talismans.

A drug, or other preparation, used as a pretended charm to excite love. These are distinguished into true and spurious: the spurious are spells or charms supposed to have an effect beyond the ordinary law of nature, by some inherent magic virtue; such are those said to be possessed formerly by old women, witches, &c.—The true Philters were supposed to operate by some natural and magnetical power. There are many enthusiastic and equally credulous authors, who have encouraged the belief in the reality of these Philters; and adduce matter in fact in confirmation of their opinions, as in all doubtful cases. Among these may be quoted Van Helmont, who says, that by holding a certain herb in his hand, and afterwards taking a little dog by the foot with the same hand, the animal followed him wherever he went, and quite deserted his former master. He also adds, that Philters only require a confirmation of Mumia^[51]; and on this principle he accounts for the phenomena of love transplanted by the touch of an herb; for, says he, the heat communicated to the herb, not coming alone, but animated by the emanations of the natural spirits, determines the herb towards the man, and identifies it to him. Having 286then received this ferment, it attracts the spirit of the other object magnetically, and gives it an amorous motion. But all this is mere absurdity, and has fallen to the ground with the other irrational hypothesis from the same source.

A place of punishment, where, we are told in Scripture, the wicked are to receive the reward of their evil deeds, after this life. In this sense, hell is the antithesis of HEAVEN.

Among the ancients hell was called by various names, Ταρταρος, Ταρταρᾶ, Tartarus, Tartara; Ἁδης, Hades, Infernus, Inferna, Inferi, &c.—The Jews, wanting a proper name for it, called it Gehenna, or Gehinnon, from a valley near Jerusalem, wherein was Tophet, or place where a fire was perpetually kept.

Divines reduce the torments of hell to two kinds, pœna damni, the loss and privation of the beatific vision; and pœna sensus, the horrors of darkness, with the continual pains of fire inextinguishable.

Most nations and religions have a notion of a hell. The hell of the poets is terrible enough: witness the punishment of Tityus, Prometheus, the Danæids, Lapithæ, Phlegyas, &c. described by Ovid, in his Metamorphosis. Virgil, after a survey of Hell, Æneid, lib. vi. declares, that if he had a hundred mouths and tongues, they would not suffice to recount all the plagues of the tortured. The New Testament represents hell as a lake of 287fire and brimstone; and a worm which dies not, &c. Rev. xx. 10, 14, &c. Mark ix. 43, &c. Luke xvi. 23, &c.

The Caffres are said to admit thirteen hells, and twenty-seven paradises; where every person finds a place suited to the degree of good or evil he has done.

There are two great points of controversy among writers, touching hell: the first, whether there be any local hell, any proper and specific place of torment by fire? the second, whether the torments of hell are to be eternal?

I. The locality of hell, and the reality of the fire thereof, have been controverted from the time of Origen. That father, in his treatise Περι Αρχαν, interpreting the scripture account metaphorically, makes hell to consist not in eternal punishments, but in the conscience of sinners, the sense of their guilt, and the remembrance of their past pleasures. St. Augustine mentions several of the same opinion in his time; and Calvin, and many of his followers, have embraced it in ours.

The retainers to the contrary opinion, who are much the greatest part of mankind, are divided as to situation, and other circumstances of this horrible scene. The Greeks, after Homer, Hesiod, &c. conceived hell, τοπον τινα ὐπο την γην μεγσν, &c. a large and dark place under the earth.—Lucian, de Luctu; and Eustathius, on Homer.

Some of the Romans lodged in the subterranean regions directly under the lake Avernus, in Campania, which they were led to from the consideration 288of the poisonous vapours emitted by that lake. Through a dark cave, near this lake, Virgil makes Æneas descend to hell.

Others placed hell under Tenarus, a promontory of Laconia; as being a dark frightful place, beset with thick woods, out of which there was no finding a passage. This way, Ovid says, Orpheus descended to hell. Others fancied the river or fountain of Styx, in Arcadia, the spring-head of hell, by reason the waters thereof were mortal.

But these are all to be considered as only fables of poets; who, according to the genius of their art, allegorizing and personifying every thing, from the certain death met withal in those places, took occasion to represent them as so many gates, or entering-places into the other world.

The primitive Christians conceiving the earth a large extended plain, and the heavens an arch drawn over the same, took hell to be a place in the earth, the farthest distant from the heavens; so that their hell was our antipodes.

Tertullian, De Anima, represents the Christians of his time, as believing hell to be an abyss in the centre of the earth: which opinion was chiefly founded on the belief of Christ’s descent into hades, hell, Matt. xii. 40.

Mr. Wiston has lately advanced a new opinion. According to him, the comets are to be conceived as so many hells, appointed in the course of their trajectories, or orbits, alternately to carry the damned into the confines of the sun, there to be scorched by his flames, and then to return them to starve in the cold, dreary, dark regions, beyond the orb of Saturn.

289The reverend and orthodox Mr. T. Surnden, in an express Inquiry into the nature and place of Hell, not contented with any of the places hitherto assigned, contends for a new one. According to him, the sun itself is the local hell.

This does not seem to be his own discovery: it is probable he was led into it by that passage in Rev. xvi. 8, 9. Though it must be added, that Pythagoras seems to have the like view, in that he places hell in the sphere of fire; and that sphere in the middle of the universe. Add, that Aristotle mentions some of the Italic or Pythagoric school, who placed the sphere of fire in the sun, and even called it Jupiter’s Prison.—De Cælo, lib. ii.

To make way for his own system, Mr. Swinden undertakes to remove hell out of the centre of the earth, from these two considerations:—1. That a fund of fuel or sulphur, sufficient to maintain so furious and constant a fire, cannot be there supposed; and, 2. That it must want the nitrous particles in the air, to sustain and keep it alive. And how, says he, can such fire be eternal, when by degrees the whole substance of the earth must be consumed thereby?

It must not be forgot, however, that Tertullian had long ago obviated the former of these difficulties, by making a difference between arcanus and publicus ignis, secret and open fire: the nature of the first, according to him, is such, as that it not only consumes, but repairs what it preys upon. The latter difficulty is solved by St. Augustine, 290who alleges, that God supplies the central fire with air, by a miracle.

Mr. Swinden, however, proceeds to shew, that the central parts of the earth are possessed by water rather than fire; which he confirms by what Moses says of water under the earth, Exod. xx. from Psalm xxiv. 2, &c.

As a further proof, he alleges, that there would want room in the centre of the earth, for such an infinite host of inhabitants as the fallen angels and wicked men.

Drexelius, we know, has fixed the dimensions of hell to a German cubic mile, and the number of the damned to an hundred thousand millions: De Damnator, Carcer, &c. Rogo. But Mr. Swinden thinks he need not to have been so sparing in his number, for that there might be found an hundred times as many; and that they must be insufferably crowded in any space he could allow them on our earth. It is impossible, he concludes, to stow such a multitude of spirits in such a scanty apartment, without a penetration of dimensions, which, he doubts, in good philosophy, even in respect of spirits: “If it be (he adds,) why God should prepare, i. e. make, a prison for them, when they might all have been crowded together into a baker’s oven.” p. 206.

His arguments for the sun’s being the local hell are: 1. Its capacity. Nobody will deny the sun spacious enough to receive all the damned conveniently; so that there will be no want of room. Nor will fire be wanting, if we admit of Mr. Swinden’s 291argument against Aristotle, whereby he demonstrates, that the sun is hot, p. 208, et seq. The good man is “filled with amazement to think what Pyrenian mountains of sulphur, how many Atlantic oceans of scalding bitumen, must go to maintain such mighty flames as those of the sun; to which our Ætna and Vesuvius are mere glow-worms.” p. 137.

2. Its distance and opposition to the empyreum, which has usually been looked upon as the local heaven: such opposition is perfectly answerable to that opposition in the nature and office of a place of angels and devils, of elect and reprobate, of glory and horror, of hallelujahs and cursings; and the distance quadrates well with Dives seeing Abraham afar off, and the great gulph between them; which this author takes to be the solar vortex.

3. That the empyreum is the highest, and the sun the lowest place of the creation; considering it as the centre of our system; and that the sun was the first part of the visible world created; which agrees with the notion of its being primarily intended or prepared to receive the angels, whose fall he supposes to have immediately preceded the creation.

4. The early and almost universal idolatry paid to the sun; which suits well with the great subtilty of that spirit, to entice mankind to worship his throne.

II. As to the eternity of hell torments, we have Origen again at the head of those who deny it; it being the doctrine of that writer, that not only men, but devils themselves, after a suitable course 292of punishment, answerable to their respective crimes, shall be pardoned and restored to heaven.—De civit. Dei. l. xxi. c. 17. The chief principle Origen went upon was this, that all punishments was emendatory; applied only to painful medicines, for the recovery of the patient’s health. And other objections, insisted on by modern authors, are the disproportion between temporary crimes and eternal punishments, &c.

The scripture phrases for eternity, as is observed by Archbishop Tillotson, do not always import an infinite duration: thus, in the Old Testament, for ever often signifies only for a long time; particularly till the end of the Jewish dispensation: thus in the epistle of Jude, ver. 7, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire; that is, of a fire that was not extinguished till those cities were utterly consumed. So one generation is said to come, &c. but the earth endureth for ever.

In effect, Mr. Le Clerc notes, that there is no Hebrew word which properly expresses eternity: עולם gnolam, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known; and is accordingly used in a more or less extensive sense, according to the thing treated of.

Thus when God says, concerning the Jewish laws, that they must be observed לעולם legnolam, for ever, we are to understand as long a space as we should think fit; or a space whose end was unknown to the Jews before the coming of the Messiah. All general laws, and such as do not regard 293particular occasions, are made for ever, whether it be expressed in those laws, or not; which yet is to be understood in such a manner, as if the sovereign power could no way change them.

Archbishop Tillotson, however, argues very strenuously, that where hell torments are spoken of, the words are to be understood in the strict sense of infinite duration; and what he esteems a peremptory decision of the point is, that the duration of the punishment of the wicked is in the very same sentence expressed by the very same word which is used for the duration of the happiness of the righteous, which all agree to be eternal. “These, speaking of the wicked, shall go away εις ηολασιν ονεωνιον, into eternal punishment; but the righteous, εις ζωην αιωνι, into life eternal.”

Oldham, in his “Satires upon the Jesuits,” alludes to their “lying legends,” and the numerous impositions they practised on the credulous. The following lines are quoted from these legendary miracles, noticed under the article Legend, and the amours of the Virgin Mary are narrated in vol. ii. under the article Religious Nouvellete:—

These are all extravagant fictions in the “Golden legend.” Among other gross and equally absurd impositions to deceive the mob, Oldham also attacks them for certain publications on topics not less singular. The tales he has recounted, says Oldham, are only baits for children like toys at a fair; but they have their profounder and higher matters for the learned and the inquisitive.

Topographical descriptions of Hell, Purgatory, and even Heaven, were once favourite researches among certain orthodox and zealous defenders of the papish church, who exhausted their materials in fabricating a hell to their own ideas, or for their particular purpose. There is a treatise of Cardinal Bellarmin, a jesuit, on Purgatory, wherein he appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer among the secret tracts 295and formidable divisions of “the bottomless pit.” This jesuit informs us that there are beneath the earth four different places, or a place divided into four parts; the deepest of which is hell: it contains all the souls of the damned, where will be also their bodies after the resurrection, and likewise all the demons. The place nearest hell is purgatory, where souls are purged, or rather where they appease the anger of God by their sufferings. The same fires and the same torments, he says, are alike in both places, the only difference between hell and purgatory consisting in their duration. Next to purgatory is the limbo of those infants who die without having received the sacrament; and the fourth place is the limbo of the Fathers; that is to say, of those just men who died before the death of Christ. But since the days of the Redeemer this last division is empty, like an apartment to let. A later Catholic theologist, the famous Tillemont, condemns all the illustrious pagans to the eternal torments of hell! because they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could not be benefited by the redemption! Speaking of young Tiberius, who was compelled to fall on his own sword, Tillemont adds, “Thus by his own hand he ended his miserable life, to begin another, the misery of which will never end!” Yet history records nothing bad of this prince. Jortin observes, that he added this reflection in his later edition, so that the good man as he grew older grew more uncharitable in his religious notions. It is in this matter too that the Benedictine editor of Justin Martyr 296speaks of the illustrious pagans. This father, after highly applauding Socrates, and a few more who resembled him, inclines to think that they are not fixed in hell. But the Benedictine editor takes infinite pains to clear the good father from the shameful imputation of supposing that a virtuous pagan might be saved as well as a Benedictine monk^[52]!

The adverse party, who were either philosophers or reformers, received all such information with great suspicion. Anthony Cornelius, a lawyer in the 16th century, wrote a small tract, which was so effectually suppressed, as a monster of atheism, that a copy is now only to be found in the hands of the curious. This author ridiculed the absurd and horrid doctrine of infant damnation, and was instantly decried as an atheist, and the printer prosecuted to his ruin! Cœlius Secundus Curio, a noble Italian, published a treatise De Amplitudine beati regno Dei, to prove that heaven has more inhabitants than hell, or in his own phrase, that the elect are more numerous than the reprobate. However we may incline to smile at these works, their design was benevolent. They were the first streaks of the morning-light of the Reformation. Even such works assisted mankind to examine more closely, and hold in greater contempt, the extravagant and pernicious doctrines of the domineering papistical church.

In the civil and canon law, inquisition implies a manner of proceeding for the discovery of some crime by the sole office of the judge, in the way of search, examination, or even torture. It is also used in common law for a like process in the king’s behalf, for the discovery of lands, profits, and the like; in which sense it is often confounded with the office of the

Inquisition, or the Holy Office,

Which denotes an ecclesiastical jurisdiction established in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, for the trial and examination of such persons as are suspected to entertain any religious opinions contrary to those professed in the church of Rome. It is called inquisition because the judges of their office take cognizances of crime or common report, without any legal evidence, except what they themselves fish out.

Some people fancy they see the original inquisition, in a constitution made by Pope Lucius, at the council of Verona, in 1184, where he orders the bishops to get information, either by themselves or by their commissaries, of all such persons as were suspected of heresy; and distinguishes the several degrees of suspected, convicted, penitent, relapsed, &c. However this may be, it is generally allowed, that Pope Innocent III., laid the first foundation of the holy office; and that the Vaudois and Albigenses were what gave the occasion 298to it. The pontiff sent several priests, with St. Dominic at their head, to Tholouse, in order to blow up a spirit of zeal and persecution amongst the prelates and princes. These missionaries were to give an account of the number of heretics in those parts, and the behaviour of the princes and persons in authority to them; and thence they acquired the names of inquisitors: but these original inquisitors had not any court, or any authority; they were only a kind of spiritual spies, who were to make report of their discoveries to the Pope.

The Emperor Frederick II. at the beginning of the 13th century, extended their power very considerably: he committed the taking cognizances of the crime of heresy, to a set of ecclesiastical judges; and as fire was the punishment decreed to the obstinate, the inquisitors determined indirectly, with regard both to the persons and the crimes; by which means the laity was cut off from its own jurisdiction, and abandoned to the devout madness and zeal of the ecclesiastics.

After the death of Frederick, who had long before repented the power he had given the churchmen, as having seen some of the fruits of it; Pope Innocent IV. erected a perpetual tribunal of inquisitors, and deprived the bishops and secular judges of the little power the Emperor Frederick had left them. And this jurisdiction, which depended immediately on himself, he took care to introduce into most of the states of Europe. But the inquisitors were so fiery hot, and made such horrid butchery among the reputed heretics, that 299they raised an universal detestation, even in some Catholic countries themselves. Hence it was that their reign proved very short both in France and Germany; nor was even Spain entirely subject to them till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1448, when their power was increased, under the pretence of clearing the country of Judaism and Mahometanism. The power of the inquisition is very much limited in some countries, particularly at Venice, where it is received under such modifications as prove a great check on its authority. Indeed at Venice it seems rather a political than a religious contrivance, and serves rather for the security of the state, than that of the church. There are appeals from the subaltern inquisitions in Italy, to the congregation of the holy office at Rome.

It is the constant practice of the inquisition to affect, in all their procedures, to inspire as much terror as possible; every thing is done with the most profound silence and secrecy, and with the greatest rigour and pretended impartiality. When a person is seized all the world abandons him; not the nearest friend dares to speak a word in his defence; that alone would be enough to render them suspected of heresy, and would bring them within the claws of the inquisition. The criminals are seized, examined, tried, tortured, and unless they recant, are even condemned and executed, without ever seeing or knowing their accusers; whence the revengeful have a fair opportunity of wreaking their malice on their enemies. When the inquisition has done with them, and condemned 300them to death, they are turned over to the secular arm, with a world of prayer, and pious entreaty, that their lives may not be touched.

Time is no manner of security in point of heresy, nor does the grave itself shelter the accused from the pursuits of the inquisition; even the deceased have their trials, and they proceed in all their form and solemnity against the dead carcases. The execution is always deferred till the number of condemned is very great, that the multitude of sufferers may strike the deeper horror, and make the scene more terrible and shocking.

The inquisition of Rome is a congregation of twelve cardinals and some other officers, where the Pope presides in person. This is accounted the highest tribunal in Rome; it began in the time of Pope Paul IV. on occasion of the Lutheranism.

The inquisition is very severe in the Indies. It is true, there must there be the oaths of seven witnesses to condemn a man; but the deposition of slaves or children are taken. The person is tortured till he condemns himself; for his accusers are never brought to confront him. Persons are accused for the most slender expression against the church; or even for a disrespectful word against the inquisitors.

The standard of the inquisition is a piece of red damask, on which is painted a cross, with an olive branch on one side and a sword on the other; with these words of the Psalm, Exurge, Domine, et judica causam meam.

This infernal engine of tyranny, bigotry, and 301superstition, did not become known in Spain before the year 1484. The court of Rome owed this obligation to another Dominican, John de Torquemada. As he was the confessor of Queen Isabella, he had extorted from her a promise that if ever she ascended the throne, she would use every means to extirpate heresy and heretics. Ferdinand had conquered Grenada, and had expelled from the Spanish realms multitudes of unfortunate Moors. A few remained, who, with the Jews, he compelled to become Christians: they at least assumed the name, but it was well known that both these nations naturally respected their own faith, rather than that of the Christians. This race was afterwards distinguished as Christianos novos; and in marriages, the blood of the Hidalgo was considered to lose its purity by mingling with such a suspicious source.

It was pretended by Torquemada, that this dissimulation would greatly hurt the holy religion. The Queen listened with respectful diffidence to her confessor; and at length gained over the king to consent to the establishment of the unrelenting tribunal. Torquemada, indefatigable in his zeal for the holy see, in the space of fourteen years that he exercised the office of chief inquisitor, is said to have prosecuted near eighty thousand persons, of whom six thousand were condemned to the flames.

Voltaire attributes the taciturnity of the Spaniards to the universal horror such proceedings spread. “A jealousy and suspicion took possession of all ranks of people: friendship and sociability 302were at an end! Brothers were afraid of brothers, fathers of their children.”

The situation and feelings of one imprisoned in the cells of the inquisition are forcibly painted by Orobio, a mild, and meek, and learned man, whose controversy with Limborch is well known. When he escaped from Spain he took refuge in Holland, was circumcised, and died a philosophical Jew. He has left this admirable description of himself in the cell of the inquisition:—“Inclosed in this dungeon I could not even find space enough to turn myself about; I suffered so much that I found my brain disordered. I frequently asked myself, am I really Don Bathazaar Orobio, who used to walk about Seville at my pleasure, who so much enjoyed myself with my wife and children? I often imagined that all my life had only been a dream, and that I really had been born in this dungeon! The only amusement I could invent was metaphysical disputations. I was at once opponent, respondent, and phæses!” In the cathedral at Saragossa is the tomb of a famous inquisitor; six pillars surround the tomb; to each is chained a Moor, as preparatory to his being burnt. On this St. Foix ingeniously observes, “If ever the jack-ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as an excellent model.”

Bayle informs us, that the inquisition punished heretics by fire, to elude the maxim, Ecclesia non novit sanguinem; for burning a man, say they, does not shed his blood! Otho, the bishop at the Norman invasion, in the tapestry worked by Matilda, 303the queen of William the Conqueror, is represented with a mace in his hand, for the purpose, that when he dispatched his antagonist, he might not spill blood, but only break bones! Religion has had her quibbles as well as law.

The establishment of this despotic order was resisted in France; but it may perhaps surprise the reader that a recorder of London, in a speech, urged the necessity of setting up an inquisition in England! It was on the trial of Penn the Quaker, in 1670, who was acquitted by the jury, which seems highly to have provoked the said recorder. “Magna Charta,” says the preface to the trial, “with the recorder of London, is nothing more than Magna F——!” It appears that the jury after being kept two days and two nights to change their verdict, were in the end both fined and imprisoned. Sir John Howell, the recorder, said, “Till now I never understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the inquisition among them; and certainly it will not be well with us, till something like unto the Spanish inquisition be in England.” Thus it will ever be, while both parties, struggling for pre-eminence, rush to the sharp extremity of things, and annihilate the trembling balance of the constitution. But the adopted motto of Lord Erskine must ever be that of every Briton, “Trial by Jury.”

Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of seventy, so late as the year 1761, was burnt by these evangelical executioners. His trial was printed at Amsterdam, 3041762, from the Lisbon copy. And for what was this unhappy Jesuit condemned? Not, as some imagined, for his having been concerned in a conspiracy against the King of Portugal. No other charge is laid to him in his trial, but that of having indulged certain heretical notions, which any other tribunal but that of the inquisition, would have looked upon as the deleterious fancies of a fanatical old man. Will posterity believe, that in the eighteenth century an aged visionary was led to the stake for having said, amongst other extravagances, “that the Virgin having commanded him to write the life of Antichrist, told him, that he, Malagrida, was a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist; that there were to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be born at Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would marry Proserpine, one of the infernal furies.”

For such ravings as these the unhappy old man was burnt in recent times. Granger assures us, that a horse, in his remembrance, who had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c. by significant tokens, was, together with his owner, put into the inquisition, for both of them dealing with the devil! A man of letters declared that, having fallen into their hands, nothing perplexed him so much as the ignorance of the inquisitor and his council; and it seemed very doubtful whether they had read even the Scriptures.

The following most interesting anecdote relating to the terrible inquisition, exemplifying how 305the use of the diabolical engines of torture forces men to confess crimes they have not been guilty of, was related to Mr. D’Israeli by a Portuguese gentleman.

A nobleman in Lisbon having heard that his physician and friend was imprisoned by the inquisition, under the stale pretext of Judaism, addressed a letter to one of them, to request his freedom, assuring the inquisitor, that his friend was as orthodox a Christian as himself. The physician, notwithstanding this high recommendation, was put to the torture; and, as was usually the case, at the height of his sufferings, confessed every thing they wished. This enraged the nobleman, and feigning a dangerous illness, he begged the inquisitor would come to give him his last spiritual aid.

As soon as the Dominican arrived, the lord, who had prepared his confidential servants, commanded the inquisitor, in their presence, to acknowledge himself a Jew; to write his confession and to sign it. On the refusal of the inquisitor, the nobleman ordered his people to put on the inquisitor’s head a red hot helmet, which to his astonishment, in drawing aside a screen, he beheld glowing in a small furnace. At the sight of this new instrument of torture, “Luke’s iron crown,” the monk wrote and subscribed this abhorred confession. The nobleman then observed, “See now the enormity of your manner of proceeding with unhappy men! My poor physician, like you, has confessed Judaism; but with this difference, only 306torments have forced that from him, which fear alone has drawn from you!”

The inquisition has not failed of receiving its due praises. Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, has discovered the “Origin of the Inquisition,” in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege, that God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of Babel! Macedo, however, is not so dreaming a personage as he appears; for he obtained a professor’s chair at Padua, for the arguments he delivered at Venice, against the Pope, which were published by the title of “The Literary Roarings of the Lion of St. Mark;” besides, he is the author of 109 different works; but it is curious how far our interest is apt to prevail over conscience,—Macedo praised the inquisition up to heaven, while he sank the Pope to nothing.

Among the great revolutions of this age, the inquisition of Spain and Portugal is abolished, but its history enters into that of the human mind; and the history of the inquisition by Limborch, translated by Chandler, with a very curious “Introduction,” loses none of its value with the philosophical mind. This monstrous tribunal of human opinions, aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect. It may again be restored, to keep Spain stationary at the middle ages!

A name the ancients gave to certain spirits, or genii, which, they say, appeared to men, either to do them service, or to hurt them.

The first notion of demons was brought from Chaldea; whence it spread itself among the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Pythagoras and Thales were the first who introduced demons into Greece. Plato fell in with the notion, and explained it more distinctly and fully, than any of the former philosophers had done. By demons, he understood spirits, inferior to gods, and yet superior to men; which inhabited the middle region of the air, kept up the communication between gods and men, carrying the offerings and prayers of men to the gods, and bringing down the will of the gods to men. But he allowed of none but good and beneficent ones: though his disciples afterwards, finding themselves at a loss how to account for the origin of evil, adopted another sort of demons, who were enemies to men.

There is nothing more common in the heathen theology, than these good and evil genii. And the same superstitious notion we find got footing among the Israelites, by their commerce with the Chaldeans. But by demons, they did not mean the devil, or a wicked spirit: they never took the word demon in that sense, nor was it ever used in such signification, till by the evangelists and some modern Jews. The word is Greek, θαιμων.

Gale endeavours to shew, that the origin and intitution 308of demons was an imitation of the Messiah. The Phœnicians called them בעלים Baalim. For they had one supreme being, whom they called Baal, (and Moloch, and various inferior deities called Baalim,) whereof we find frequent mention in the Old Testament. The first demon of the Egyptians was Mercury, or Thuet. The same author finds some resemblance between the several offices ascribed to the demons and those of the Messiah.

Demoniac, is applied to a person possessed with a spirit, or demon. In the Roman church, there is a particular office for the exorcism of demoniacs.

Demoniacs are also a party or branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is, that the devil shall be saved at the end of the world.—See Demonology.

Diabolus, a devil, or evil angel, is one of those celestial spirits cast down from heaven for pretending to equal himself with God.

309The Ethiopians paint the devil white, to be even with the Europeans, who paint him black.

We find no mention made of the word devil in the Old Testament, but only of Satan: nor in any heathen authors do we meet with the word devil, in the signification attached to it among the Christians; that is, as a creature revolted from God: their theology went no farther than to evil genii, or demons, who harassed and persecuted mankind, though we are well aware many names are given to the devil both in holy writ and elsewhere.

Demon was the name given by the Greeks and Romans to certain genii or spirits, who made themselves visible to men with the intention of doing them either good or harm.

The Platonists made a distinction between their gods, or dei majorum gentium; their demons, or those beings which were not dissimilar in their general character to the good and evil angels of Christian belief; and their heroes. The Jews and the early Christians restricted the appellation of demons to beings of a malignant nature, or to devils; and it is to the early opinions entertained by this people, that the outlines of later systems of Demonology are to be traced.

“The tradition of the Jews concerning evil spirits are various; some of them are founded on 310Scripture; some borrowed from the notions of the pagans; some are fables of their own invention; and some are allegories.” The demons of the Jews were considered either as the distant progeny of Adam or of Eve, which had resulted from an improper intercourse with supernatural beings, or of Cain. As this doctrine, however, was extremely revolting to some few of the early Christians, they maintained that demons were the souls of departed human beings, who were still permitted to interfere in the affairs of the earth, either to assist their friends or to persecute their enemies. This doctrine, however, did not prevail.

An attempt was made about two centuries and a half ago to give, in a condensed form, the various opinions entertained at an early period of the Christian era, and during the middle ages, of the nature of the demons of popular belief. We shall therefore lay this chapter before our readers, which, being so comprehensive, and at the same time so concise, requires no abridgment;—“I, for my own part, do also thinke this argument about the nature and substance of devels and spirits to be difficult, as I am persuaded that no one author hath in anie certaine or perfect sort hitherto written thereof. In which respect I can neither allow the ungodly and profane sects and doctrines of the Sadduces and Perepateticks, who denie that there are any spirits and devils at all; nor the fond and superstitious treatises of Plato, Proctics, Plotenus, Porphyrie; nor yet the vaine and absurd opinions of Psellus, Nider, Sprenger, Cumanus, Bodin, Michæl, Andæas, James Mathæus, Laurentius, Ananias, 311Jamblicus, &c.; who, with manie others, write so ridiculous lies in these matters, as if they were babes fraied with bugges; some affirming that the souls of the dead become spirits, the good to be angels, the bad to be divels; some, that spirits or divels are onelie in this life; some, that they are men; some that they are women; some that divels are of such gender that they list themselves; some that they had no beginning, nor shall have ending, as the Manechies maintain; some that they are mortal and die, as Plutarch affirmeth of Pan; some that they have no bodies at all, but receive bodies according to their fantasies and imaginations; some that their bodies are given unto them; some, that they make themselves. Some saie they are wind; some that one of them begat another; some, that they were created of the least part of the masse, whereof the earth was made; and some, that they are substances between God and man, and that some of them are terrestrial, some celestial, some waterie, some airie, some fierie, some starrie, and some of each and every part of the elements; and that they know our thoughts, and carrie our good works to God, and praiers to God, and return his benefits back unto us, and that they are to be worshipped; wherein they meete and agree jumpe with the papists.”—“Againe, some saie, that they are meane between terrestrial and celestial bodies, communicating part of each nature; and that, although they be eternal, yet they are moved with affections; and as there are birds in the aire, fishes in the water, and worms in the earth, so in the fourth element, which is the fire, is the habitation of spirits and devils.”—“Some saie they are onelie 312imaginations in the mind of man. Tertullian saith they are birds, and flie faster than anie fowle in the aire. Some saie that divels are not, but when they are sent; and therefore are called evil angels. Some think that the devil sendeth his angels abrode, and he himself maketh his continual abode in hell, his mansion-place.”

In allusion to this subject a late writer remarks that “It was not, however, until a much later period of Christianity, that more decided doctrines relative to the origin and nature of demons was established. These tenets involved certain very knotty points relative to the fall of those angels, who, for disobedience, had forfeited their high abode in heaven. The Gnostics, of early Christian times, in imitation of a classification of the different orders of spirits by Plato had attempted a similar arrangement with respect to an hierarchy of angels, the gradation of which stood as follows:—The first, and highest order, was named seraphim; the second, cherubim; the third was the order of thrones; the fourth, of dominions; the fifth, of virtues; the sixth, of powers; the seventh, of principalities; the eighth, of archangels; the ninth, and lowest, of angels. This fable was, in a pointed manner, censured by the apostles; yet still, strange to say, it almost outlived the Pneumatologists of the middle ages. These schoolmen, in reference to the account that Lucifer rebelled against heaven, and that Michael the Archangel warred against him, long agitated the momentous question, what orders of angels fell on this occasion? At length it became the prevailing 313opinion that Lucifer was of the order of seraphim. It was also proved, after infinite research, that Agares, Belial, and Barbatos, each of them deposed angels of great rank, had been of the order of virtues; that Bileth, Focalor, and Phœnix, had been of the order of thrones; that Gaap had been of the order of powers; and that Pinson had been both of the order of virtues and powers; and Murmur of thrones and angels. The pretensions of many other noble devils were, likewise, canvassed, and in an equally satisfactory manner, determined. Afterwards, it became an object of enquiry to learn, how many fallen angels had been engaged in the contest. This was a question of vital importance, which gave rise to the most laborious research, and to a variety of discordant opinions.—It was next agitated—where the battle was fought? in the inferior heaven,—in the highest region of the air, in the firmament, or in paradise? how long it lasted? whether, during one second, or moment of time, (punctum temporis) two, three, or four seconds? These were queries of very difficult solution; but the notion which ultimately prevailed was, that the engagement was concluded in exactly three seconds from the date of its commencement; and that while Lucifer, with a number of his followers, fell into hell, the rest were left in the air to tempt man. A still newer question arose out of all these investigations, whether more angels fell with Lucifer, or remained in heaven with Michael? Learned clerks, however, were inclined to think, that the rebel chief had been beaten by a superior force, and that, 314consequently, devils of darkness were fewer in number than angels of light.

“These discussions, which, during a number of successive centuries, interested the whole of Christendom, too frequently exercised the talents of the most erudite characters in Europe. The last object of demonologists was to collect, in some degree of order, Lucifer’s routed forces, and to re-organise them under a decided form of subordination or government. Hence, extensive districts were given to certain chiefs that fought under this general. There was Zemimar, “the lordly monarch of the North,” as Shakspeare styles him^[53], who had this distinct province of devils; there was Gorson, the king of the South; Amaymon, the king of the East; and Goap, the prince of the West. These sovereigns had many noble spirits subordinate to them, whose various ranks were settled with all the preciseness of heraldic distinction; there were devil dukes, devil marquises, devil earls, devil knights, devil presidents, and devil prelates. The armed force under Lucifer seems to have comprised nearly 2,400 legions, of which each demon of rank commanded a certain number. Thus, Beleth, whom Scott has described as a “great king and terrible, riding on a pale horse, before whom go trumpets and all melodious music,” commanded 85 legions; Agarer, 315the first duke under the power of the East, commanded 31 legions; Leraie, a great marquis, 30 legions; Morax, a great earl and president, 36 legions; Furcas, a knight, 20 legions; and after the same manner, the forces of the other devil chieftains were enumerated.”

Derivation of the strange and hideous forms of Devils, &c.

In the middle ages, when conjuration was regularly practised in Europe, devils of rank were supposed to appear under decided forms, by which they were as well recognised, as the head of any ancient family would be by his crest and armorial bearings. The shapes they were accustomed to adopt were registered along with their names and characters. A devil would appear, either like an angel seated in a fiery chariot, or riding on an infernal dragon; and carrying in his right hand a viper, or assuming a lion’s head, a goose’s feet, and a hare’s tail, or putting on a raven’s head, and mounted on a strong wolf. Other forms made use of by demons, were those of a fierce warrior, or an old man riding upon a crocodile with a hawk in his hand. A human figure would arise having the wings of a griffin; or sporting three heads, two of them like those of a toad and of a cat; or defended with huge teeth and horns, and armed with a sword; or displaying a dog’s teeth, and a large raven’s head; or mounted upon a pale horse, and exhibiting a serpent’s tail; or gloriously crowned, and riding upon a dromedary; or presenting 316the face of a lion; or bestriding a bear, and grasping a viper. There were also such shapes as those of an archer, or of a Zenophilus. A demoniacal king would ride upon a pale horse; or would assume a leopard’s face and griffin’s wings; or put on the three heads of a bull, of a man, and a ram with a serpent’s tail, and the feet of a goose; and, in this attire, sit on a dragon, and bear in his hand a lance and a flag; or, instead of being thus employed, goad the flanks of a furious bear, and carry in his fist a hawk. Other forms were those of a goodly knight; or of one who bore lance, ensigns, and even sceptre; or, of a soldier, either riding on a black horse, and surrounded with a flame of fire; or wearing on his head a Duke’s crown, and mounted on a crocodile; or assuming a lion’s face, and with fiery eyes, spurring on a gigantic charger, or, with the same frightful aspect, appearing in all the pomp of family distinction, on a pale horse; or clad from head to foot in crimson raiment, wearing on his bold front a crown, and sallying forth on a red steed.

Some infernal Duke would appear in his proper character, quietly seated on a griffin; another spirit of a similar rank would display the three heads of a serpent, a man, and a cat; he would also bestride a viper, and carry in his hand a firebrand; another of the same stamp, would appear like a duchess, encircled with a fiery zone, and mounted on a camel; a fourth would wear the aspect of a boy, and amuse himself on the back of a two-headed dragon. A few spirits, however, would be content with the simple garbs of a horse, a leopard, 317a lion, an unicorn, a night-raven, a stork, a peacock, or a dromedary; the latter animal speaking fluently the Egyptian language. Others would assume the more complex forms of a lion or of a dog, with a griffin’s wings attached to each of their shoulders; or of a bull equally well gifted; or of the same animal, distinguished by the singular appendage of a man’s face; or of a crow clothed with human flesh; or of a hart with a fiery tail. To certain other noble devils were assigned such shapes as those of a dragon with three heads, one of these being human; of a wolf with a serpent’s tail, breathing forth flames of fire; of a she wolf exhibiting the same caudal appendage, together with a griffin’s wings, and ejecting hideous matter from the mouth. A lion would appear either with the head of a branded thief, or astride upon a black horse, and playing with a viper, or adorned with the tail of a snake, and grasping in his paws two hissing serpents. These were the varied shapes assumed by devils of rank. To those of an inferior order were consigned upon earth, the duty of carrying away condemned souls. These were described as blacker than pitch: as having teeth like lions, nails on their fingers like those of the wild boar, on their forehead horns, through the extremities of which, poison was emitted, having wide ears flowing with corruption, and discharging serpents from their nostrils, and having cloven feet^[54]. But this last appendage, as Sir Thomas 318Brown has learnedly proved, is a mistake, which has arisen from the devil frequently appearing to the Jews in the shape of a rough and hairy goat, this animal being the emblem of sin-offerings^[55].

It is worthy of farther remark, says Dr. Hibbert, that the forms of the demons described by St. Bernard, differs little from that which is no less carefully pourtrayed by Reginald Scott, 350 years later, and, perhaps, by the Demonologists of the present day. “In our childhood,” says he, “our mothers’ maids have so terrified us with an ouglie devell having hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eies like a bason, fangs like a dog, clawes like a bear, a skin like a tiger, and a voice roaring like a lion,—whereby we start and are afraid when we heare one cry bough.”

It is still an interesting matter of speculation worth noticing—why, after the decay of the regular systems of demonology taught in the middle ages, the same hideous form should still be attached to the devil? The learned Mede has remarked, “that the devil could not appear in human shape while man was in his integrity; because he was a spirit fallen from his first glorious perfection; and, therefore, must appear in such a shape which might argue his imperfection and abasement, which was the shape of a beast; otherwise, no reason can be given, why he should not 319rather have appeared to Eve in the shape of a woman than of a serpent. But since the fall of man, the case is altered: now we know he can take upon him the shape of man. He appears, it seems, in the shape of man’s imperfection, either for age or deformity, as like an old man (for so the witches say); and perhaps it is not altogether false, which is vulgarly affirmed, that the devil appearing in human shape, has always a deformity of some uncouth member or other, as though he could not yet take upon him human shape entirely, for that man himself is not entirely and utterly fallen as he is.” Grose, with considerable less seriousness, observes, that “although the devil can partly transform himself into a variety of shapes, he cannot change his cloven feet, which will always mark him under every appearance.

The late Dr. Ferriar took some trouble to trace to their real source spectral figures, which have been attributed to demoniacal visits. In his observations on the works of Remy, the commissioner in Lorraine, for the trial of witches, he makes the following remark:—“My edition of this book was printed by Vincente, at Lyons, in 1595; it is entitled Dæmonolatria. The trials appear to have begun in 1583. Mr. Remy seems to have felt great anxiety to ascertain the exact features and dress of the demons, with whom many people supposed themselves to be familiar. Yet nothing transpired in his examinations, which varied from the usual figures exhibited by the gross sculptures and paintings of the middle age. They are said to be black faced, with sunk but fiery eyes, their 320mouths wide and swelling of sulphur, their hands hairy, with claws, their feet horny and cloven.” In another part of Dr. Ferriar’s, the following account is also given of a case which passed under his own observation:—“I had occasion,” he observes, “to see a young married woman, whose first indication of illness was a spectral delusion. She told me that her apartment appeared to be suddenly filled with devils, and that her terror impelled her to quit the house with great precipitation. When she was brought back, she saw the whole staircase filled with diabolical forms, and was in agonies of fear for several days. After the first impression wore off, she heard a voice tempting her to self destruction, and prohibiting her from all exercises of piety. Such was the account given by her when she was sensible of the delusion, yet unable to resist the horror of the impression. When she was newly recovered, I had the curiosity to question her, as I have interrogated others, respecting the forms of the demons with which she had been claimed; but I never could obtain any other account, than that they were very small, very much deformed, and had horns and claws like the imps of our terrific modern romances.” To this illustration of the general origin of the figures of demoniacal illusions, I might observe, that, in the case of a patient suffering under delirium tremens, which came under my notice, the devils who flitted around his bed were described to me as exactly like the forms that he had recently seen exhibited on the stage in the popular drama of Don Giovanni.

321With the view of illustrating other accounts of apparitions, I shall now return to the doctrine of demonology which was once taught. Although the leading tenets of this occult science may be traced to the Jews and early Christians, yet they were matured by our early communication with the Moors of Spain, who were the chief philosophers of the dark ages, and between whom and the natives of France and Italy, a great communication subsisted. Toledo, Seville, and Salamanca, became the greatest schools of magic. At the latter city, prelections on the black art were, from a consistent regard to the solemnity of the subject, delivered within the walls of a vast and gloomy cavern. The schoolmen taught, that all knowledge might be obtained from the assistance of the fallen angels. They were skilled in the abstract sciences, in the knowledge of precious stones, in alchymy, in the various languages of mankind and of the lower animals, in the belles lettres, in moral philosophy, pneumatology, divinity, magic, history, and prophecy. They could controul the winds, the waters, and the influence of the stars; they could raise earthquakes, induce diseases, or cure them, accomplish all vast mechanical undertakings, and release souls out of purgatory. They could influence the passions of the mind—procure the reconciliation of friends or foes—engender mutual discord—induce mania and melancholy—or direct the force and objects of the sexual affections.

Such was the object of demonology, as taught by its most orthodox professors. Yet other systems 322of it were devised, which had their origin in causes attending the propagation of Christianity. For it must have been a work of much time to eradicate the universal belief, that the Pagan deities, who had become so numerous as to fill every part of the universe, were fabulous beings. Even many learned men were induced to side with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than endeavour to reconcile it with their acknowledged systems of demonology. They taught that such heathen objects of reverence were fallen angels in league with the prince of darkness, who, until the appearance of our Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion. According to the various ranks which these spirits held in the vast kingdom of Lucifer, they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take up their abode in the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas. But, although the various attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities, were, by the early teachers of Christianity, considered in the humble light of demoniacal delusions, yet for many centuries they possessed great influence over the minds of the vulgar. In the reign of Adrian, Evreux, in Normandy, was not converted to the Christian faith, until the devil, who had caused the obstinacy of the inhabitants, was finally expelled from the temple of Diana. To this goddess, during the persecution of Dioclesian, oblations were rendered by the inhabitants of London. In the 5th century, the worship of her existed at Turin, and incurred the rebuke of 323St. Maximus. From the ninth to the fifteenth century, several denunciations took place of the women who, in France and Germany, travelled over immense spaces of the earth, acknowledging Diana as their mistress and conductor. In rebuilding St. Paul’s cathedral, in London, remains of several of the animals used in her sacrifices were found; for slight traces of this description of reverence, subsisted so late as the reign of Edward the First, and of Mary. Apollo, also, in an early period of Christianity, had some influence at Thorney, now Westminster. About the 11th century, Venus formed the subject of a monstrous apparition, which could only have been credited from the influence which she was still supposed to possess. A young man had thoughtlessly put his ring around the marble finger of her image. This was construed by the Cyprian goddess as a plighted token of marriage; she accordingly paid a visit to her bridegroom’s bed at night, nor could he get rid of his bed-fellow until the spells of an exorcist had been invoked for his relief. In the year 1536, just before the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna, a Spanish merchant, while travelling in Sicily, saw the apparition of Vulcan attended by twenty of his Cyclops, as they were escaping from the effects which the over heating of his furnace foreboded^[56].

To the superstitions of Greece and Rome, we are also indebted for those subordinate evil 324spirits called genii, who for many centuries were the subject of numerous spectral illusions. A phantasm of this kind appeared to Brutus in his tent, prophesying that he should be again seen at Philippi. Cornelius Sylla had the first intimation of the sudden febrile attack with which he was seized, from an apparition who addressed him by his name; concluding, therefore, that his death was at hand, he prepared himself for the event, which took place the following evening. The poet Cassius Severus, a short time before he was slain by order of Augustus, saw, during the night, a human form of gigantic size,—his skin black, his beard squalid, and his hair dishevelled. The phantasm was, perhaps, not unlike the evil genius of Lord Byron’s Manfred:—

The emperor Julian was struck with a spectre clad in rags, yet bearing in his hands a horn of plenty, which was covered with a linen cloth. Thus emblematically attired, the spirit walked mournfully past the hangings of the apostate’s tent^[57].

We may now advert to the superstitious narratives of the middle ages, which are replete with the notices of similar marvellous apparitions. 325When Bruno, the Archbishop of Wirtzburg, a short period before his sudden death, was sailing with Henry the Third, he descried a terrific spectre standing upon a rock which overhung the foaming waters, by whom he was hailed in the following words:—“Ho! Bishop, I am thy evil genius. Go whether thou choosest, thou art and shalt be mine. I am not now sent for thee, but soon thou shalt see me again.” To a spirit commissioned on a similar errand, the prophetic voice may be probably referred, which was said to have been heard by John Cameron, the Bishop of Glasgow, immediately before his decease. He was summoned by it, says Spottiswood, “to appear before the tribunal of Christ, there to atone for his violence and oppressions.”

“I shall not pursue the subject of Genii much farther. The notion of every man being attended by an evil genius, was abandoned much earlier than the far more agreeable part of the same doctrine, which taught that, as an antidote to this influence, each individual was also accompanied by a benignant spirit. “The ministration of angels,” says a writer in the Athenian oracle, “is certain, but the manner how, is the knot to be untied.” ’Twas generally thought by the ancient philosophers, that not only kingdoms had their tutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular genius, or good angel, to protect and admonish him by dreams, visions, &c. We read that Origin, Hierome, Plato, and Empedocles, in Plutarch, were also of this opinion; and the Jews themselves, as appears by that instance of Peter’s deliverance out 326of prison. They believed it could not be Peter, but his angel. But for the particular attendance of bad angels, we believe it not; and we must deny it, till it finds better proof than conjecture.”

Such were the objects of superstitious reverence, derived from the Pantheon of Greece and Rome, the whole synod of which was supposed to consist of demons, who were still actively bestirring themselves to delude mankind. But in the West of Europe, a host of other demons, far more formidable, were brought into play, who had their origin in Celtic, Teutonic, and even Eastern fables; and as their existence, as well as influence, was not only by the early Christians, but even by the reformers, boldly asserted, it was long before the rites to which they had been accustomed were totally eradicated. Thus in Orkney, for instance, it was customary, even during the last century, for lovers to meet within the pale of a large circle of stones, which had been dedicated to the chief of the ancient Scandinavian deities. Through a hole in one of the pillars, the hands of contracting parties were joined, and the faith they plighted, was named the promise of Odin, to violate which was infamous. But the influence of the Dii Majores of the Edda was slight and transient, in comparison with that of the duergar or dwarfs, who figure away in the same mythology, and whose origin is thus recited. Odin and his brothers killed the giant Ymor, from whose wound ran so much blood that all the families of the earth were drowned, except one that saved himself on board a bark. These gods then made, of the giant’s bones of his 327flesh and his blood, the earth, the waters, and the heavens. But in the body of the monster, several worms had in the course of putrefaction been engendered, which, by order of the gods, partook of both human shape and reason. These little beings possessed the most delicate figures, and always dwelt in subterraneous caverns or clefts in the rocks. They were remarkable for their riches, their activity, and their malevolence^[58]. This is the origin of our modern faries, who, at the present day, are described as a people of small stature, gaily drest in habiliments of green^[59]. They possess material shapes, with the means, however, of making themselves invisible. They multiply their species; they have a relish for the same kind of food that affords sustenance to the human race, and when, for some festal occasion, they would regale themselves with good beef or mutton, they employ elf arrows to bring down their victims. At the same time, they delude the shepherds with the substitution of some vile substance, or illusory 328image, possessing the same form as that of the animal they had taken away. These spirits are much addicted to music, and when they make their excursions, a most exquisite band of music never fails to accompany them in their course. They are addicted to the abstraction of the human species, in whose place they leave substitutes for living beings, named Changelings, the unearthly origin of whom is known by their mortal imbecility, or some wasting disease. When a limb is touched with paralysis, a suspicion often arises that it has been touched by these spirits, or that, instead of the sound member, an insensible mass of matter has been substituted in its place.

In England, the opinions originally entertained relative to the duergar or dwarfs, have sustained considerable modifications, from the same attributes being assigned to them as to the Persian peris, an imaginary race of intelligences, whose offices of benevolence were opposed to the spightful interference of evil spirits. Whence this confusion in proper Teutonic mythology has originated, is doubtful; conjectures have been advanced, that it may be traced to the intercourse the Crusaders had with the Saracens; and that from Palestine was imported the corrupted name, derived from the peris, of faries; for under such a title the duegar of the Edda are now generally recognized; the malevolent character of the dwarfs being thus sunk in the opposite qualities of the peris, the fairies. Blessing became in England, proverbial: “Grant that the sweet fairies may nightly put 329money in your shoes, and sweep your house clean.” In more general terms, the wish denoted, “Peace be to the house^[60].

Fairies, for many centuries, have been the objects of spectral impressions. In the case of a poor woman of Scotland, Alison Pearson, who suffered for witchcraft in the year 1586, they probably resulted from some plethoric state of the system, which was followed by paralysis. Yet, for these illusive images, to which the popular superstition of the times had given rise, the poor creature was indicted for holding communication with demons, under which light fairies were then considered, and burnt at a stake. During her illness, she was not unfrequently impressed with sleeping and waking visions, in which she held an intercourse with the queen of the Elfland and the good neighbours. Occasionally, these capricious spirits would condescend to afford her bodily relief; at other times, they would add to the severity of her pains. In such trances or dreams, she would observe her cousin, Mr. William Sympsoune, of Stirling, who had been conveyed away to the hills by the fairies, from whom she received a salve that would cure every disease, and of which the Archbishop of St. Andrews deigned himself to reap the benefit. It is said in the indictment against her, that “being in Grange Muir with some other folke, she, being sick, lay downe; and, 330when alone, there came a man to her clad in green, who said to her, if she would be faithful, he would do her good; but she being feared, cried out; but nae bodie came to her, so she said, if he came in God’s name, and for the gude of her soul, it was all well; but he gaed away; he appeared another tyme like a lustie man, and many men and women with him—at seeing him she signed herself, and pray and past with them, and saw them making merrie with pypes, and gude cheir and wine;—she was carried with them, and when she telled any of these things, she was sairlie tormented by them, and the first time she gaid with them, she gat a sair straike frae one of them, which took all the poustie (power) of her side frae her, and left an ill-far’d mark on her side.

“She saw the gude neighbours make their saws (salves) with panns and fyres, and they gathered the herbs before the sun was up, and they cam verie fearful sometimes to her, and flaire (scared) her very sair, which made her cry, and threatened they would use her worse than before; and at last, they tuck away the power of her haile syde frae her, and made her lye many weeks. Sometimes they would come and sit by her, and promise that she should never want if she would be faithful, but if she would speak and telle of them, they would murther her. Mr. William Sympsoune is with them who healed her, and telt her all things;—he is a young man, not six yeares older than herself, and he will appear to her before the court comes;—he told her he was taken away by them; and he bid her sign herself that she be not taken 331away, for the teind of them are tane to hell every yeare^[61].”

Another apparition of a similar kind may be found on the pamphlet which was published A. D. 1696, under the patronage of Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Glocester, relative to Ann Jefferies, “who was fed for six months by a small sort of airy people, called fairies.” There is every reason to suppose, that this female was either affected with hysteria, or with that highly excited state of nervous irritability, which, as I have shewn, gives rise to ecstatic illusions. The account of her first fit is the only one which relates to the present subject. In the year 1695, says her historian, “she then being nineteen years of age, and one day knitting in an arbour in the garden, there came over the hedges to her (as she affirmed) six persons of small stature, all clothed in green, and which she called fairies: upon which she was so frightened, that she fell into a kind of convulsive fit: but when we found her in this condition, we brought her into the house, and put her to bed, and took great care of her. As soon as she was recovered out of the fit, she cries out, ‘they are just gone out of the window; they are just gone out of the window. Do you not see them?’ And thus, in the height of her sickness, she would often cry out, and that with eagerness; which expressions we attributed to her distemper, supposing her light-headed.” This narrative of the girl seemed highly interesting to her superstitious neighbours, and she was 332induced to relate far more wonderful stories, upon which not the least dependance can be placed, as the sympathy she excited eventually induced her to become a rank impostor^[62].

But besides fairies, or elves, which formed the subject of many spectral illusions, a domestic spirit deserves to be mentioned, who was once held in no small degree of reverence. In most northern countries of Europe there were few families that were without a shrewd and knavish sprite, who, in return for the attention or neglect which he experienced, was known to

Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, has shewn, that the Samogitæ, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic, who remained idolatrous so late as the 15th century, had a deity named Putseet, whom they invoked to live with them, by placing in the barn, every night, a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale. If these were taken away, good fortune was to be expected; but if they were left, nothing but bad luck. This spirit is the same as the goblin-groom, Puck, or Robin 333Good-fellow of the English, whose face and hands were either of a russet or green colour, who was attired in a suit of leather, and armed with a flail. For a much lesser fee than was originally given him, he would assist in threshing, churning, grinding malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight^[63]. A similar tall “lubbar fiend,” habited in a brown garb, was known in Scotland. Upon the condition of a little wort being laid by for him, or the occasional sprinkling, upon a sacrificial stone, of a small quantity of milk, he would ensure the success of many domestic operations. According to Olaus Magnus, the northern nations regarded domestic spirits of this description, as the souls of men who had given themselves up during life to illicit pleasures, and were doomed, as a punishment, to wander about the earth, for a certain time, in the peculiar shape which they assumed, and to be bound to mortals in a sort of servitude. It is natural, therefore, to expect, that these familiar spirits would be the subjects of many apparitions, of which a few relations are given in Martin’s Account of the Second Sight in Scotland. “A spirit,” says this writer, “called Browny, was frequently seen in all the most considerable families in the isles and the north of Scotland, in the shape of a tall man; but within 334these twenty or thirty years, he is seen but rarely.”

It is useless to pursue this subject much farther: in the course of a few centuries, the realms of superstition were increased to almost an immeasurable extent; the consequence was, that the air, the rocks, the seas, the rivers, nay, every lake, pool, brook, or spring, were so filled with spirits, both good and evil, that of each province it might be said, in the words of the Roman satirist, “Nosiba regio tam plena est numinibus, ut facilius possis deum quam hominem invenire.” Hence the modification which took place of systems of demonology, so as to admit of the classification of all descriptions of devils, whether Teutonic, Celtic, or Eastern systems of mythology. “Our schoolmen and other divines,” says Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, “make nine kinds of bad devils, as Dionysius hath of angels. In the first rank, are those false gods of the Gentiles, which were adored heretofore in several idols, and gave oracles at Delphos and elsewhere, whose prince is Beelzebub. The second rank is of liars and equivocators, as Apollo, Pythias, and the like. The third are those vessels of anger, inventors of all mischief, as that of Theutus in Plato. Esay calls them vessels of fury: their prince is Belial. The fourth are malicious, revengeful devils, and their prince is Asmodeus. The fifth kind are coseners, such as belong to magicians and witches; their prince is Satan. The sixth are those aërial devils that corrupt the air, and cause plagues, thunders, 335fires, &c. spoken of in Apocalypse and Paule; the Ephesians name them the prince of the air: Meresin is their prince. The seventh is a destroyer, captaine of the furies, causing wars, tumults, combustions, uproares, mentioned in the Apocalypse, and called Abaddon. The eighth is that accusing or calumniating devil, whom the Greeks call Διάβολος, that drives us to despair. The ninth are those tempters in several kindes, and their prince is Mammon.”

But this arrangement was not comprehensive enough; for, as Burton adds, “no place was void, but all full of spirits, devils, or other inhabitants; not so much as an haire-breadth was empty in heaven, earth, or waters, above or under the earth; the earth was not so full of flies in summer as it was at all times of invisible devils.” Pneumatologists, therefore, made two grand distinctions of demons; there were celestial demons, who inhabited the regions higher than the moon; while those of an inferior rank, as the Manes or Lemures, were either nearer the earth, or grovelled on the ground. Psellus, however, “a great observer of the nature of devils,” seems to have thought, that such a classification destroyed all distinction between good and evil spirits: he, therefore, denied that the latter ever ascended the regions above the moon, and contending for this principle, founded a system of demonology, which had for its basis the natural history and habitations of all demons. He named his first class fiery devils. They wandered in the region near the moon, but were restrained from entering into 336that luminary; they displayed their power in blazing stars, in fire-drakes, in counterfeit suns and moons, and in the euerpo santo, or meteoric lights, which, in vessels at sea, flit from mast to mast, and forebode foul weather. It was supposed that these demons occasionally resided in the furnaces of Hecla, Etna, or Vesuvius. The second class consisted of aërial devils. They inhabited the atmosphere, causing tempests, thunder and lightning; rending asunder oaks, firing steeples and houses, smiting men and beasts, showering down from the skies, stones^[64], wool, and even frogs; counterfeiting in the clouds the battles of armies, raising whirlwinds, fires, and corrupting the air, so as to induce plagues. The third class was terrestrial devils, such as lares, genii, fawns, satyrs, wood-nymphs, foliots, Robin good-fellows, or trulli. The fourth class were aqueous devils; as the various description of water-nymph, or mermen, or of merwomen. The fifth were subterranean devils, better known by the name dæmones itallici, metal-men, Getuli or Cobals. They preserved treasure in the earth, and prevented it from being suddenly revealed; they were also the cause of horrible earthquakes. Psellus’s sixth class of devils were named lucifugi; they delighted in darkness; they entered into the bowels of men, and tormented those 337whom they possessed with phrenzy and the falling sickness. By this power they were distinguished from earthly and aërial devils; they could only enter into the human mind, which they either deceived or provoked with unlawful affections.

Nor were speculations wanting with regard to the common nature of these demons. Psellus conceived that their bodies did not consist merely of one element, although he was far from denying that this might have been the case before the fall of Lucifer. It was his opinion, that devils possessed corporeal frames capable of sensation; that they could both feel and be felt; they could injure and be hurt; that they lamented when they were beaten, and that if struck into the fire, they even left behind them ashes,—a fact which was demonstrated in a very satisfactory experiment made by some philosophers upon the borders of Italy; that they were nourished with food peculiar to themselves, not receiving the aliment through the gullet, but absorbing it from the exterior surface of their bodies, after the manner of a sponge; that they did not hurt cattle from malevolence, but from mere love of the natural and temperate heat and moisture of these animals; that they disliked the heat of the sun, because it dried too fast; and, lastly, that they attained a great age. Thus, Cardan had a fiend bound to him twenty-eight years, who was forty-two years old, and yet considered very young. He was informed, from this very authentic source of intelligence, that devils lived from two to three hundred years, and that their souls died 338with their bodies. The very philosophical statement was, nevertheless, combated by other observers. “Manie,” says Scot, “affirmed that spirits were of aier, because they had been cut in sunder and closed presentlie againe, and also because they vanished away so suddenlie.”

“The Narrative of the Demon of Tedworth, or the disturbances at Mr. Monpesson’s house, caused by Witchcraft and Villainy of the Drummer.”

“Mr. John Monpesson of Tedworth, in the County of Wilts, being about the middle of March, in the year 1661, at a neighbouring town called Ludlow, and hearing a drummer beat there, he enquired of the bailiff of the town at whose house he then was, what it meant. The bailiff told him, that they had for some days past been annoyed by an idle drummer, who demanded money of the constable by virtue of a pretended pass, which he thought was counterfeited. On hearing this, Mr. Monpesson sent for the fellow, and asked him by what authority he went up and down the country in that manner with his drum. The drummer answered, that he had good authority, and produced his pass, with a warrant under the hands of Sir William Cawley, and Colonel Ayliff, of Gretenham. Mr. Monpesson, however, being acquainted with the hand-writing 339of these gentlemen, discovered that the pass and warrant were counterfeit, upon which he commanded the vagrant to lay down his drum, and at the same time gave him in charge to a constable, to carry him before the next justice of the peace, to be farther examined and punished. The fellow then confessed that the pass and warrant were forged, and begged earnestly to be forgiven and to have his drum restored: upon this Mr. Monpesson told him, that if, upon enquiry from Colonel Ayliff, whose drummer he represented himself to be, he should turn out to be an honest man, he should listen to his entreaty and have the drum back again; but that, in the mean time, he would take care of it. The drum, therefore, was left in the bailiff’s hand; and the drummer went off in charge of the constable, who, it appears, was prevailed upon, by the fellow’s entreaties, to allow him to escape.

About the middle of April following, at a time when Mr. Monpesson was preparing for a journey to London, the bailiff sent the drum to his house. On his return from his journey, his wife informed him that they had been very much alarmed in the night by thieves, and that the house had like to have been torn down. In confirmation of this alarm, Mr. Monpesson had not been above three nights at home, when the same noise was again heard which had disturbed the family in his absence. It consisted of a tremendous knocking at the doors, and thumping on the walls of the house; upon which Mr. M. got out of bed, armed himself with a brace of pistols, opened the street door to 340ascertain the cause, which he had no sooner done, than the noise removed to another door, which he also opened, went out, and walked round the house; but could discover nothing, although he heard a strange noise and hollow sound. He had no sooner returned and got into bed, than he was again disturbed by a noise and drumming on the top of the house, which continued for a length of time, and then gradually subsided, as if it went off into the air.

The noise of thumping and drumming, after this, was very frequent; usually for five nights together, when there would be an intermission of three. The noise was on the outside of the house, which principally consisted of board; and usually came on just as the family was going to bed, whether that happened early or late. After continuing these annoyances for a month on the outside of the house, it at length made bold to come into the room where the drum lay, four or five nights in every seven; coming always on after they had got into bed, and continuing for two hours after. The signal for the appearance of the noise was the hearing of a hurling of the air over the house; and when it was about to retire, the drum would beat the same as if a guard were being relieved. It continued in this room for the space of two months, during which time Mr. Monpesson lay there to observe it. In the early part of the night, it used to be very troublesome, but after it had continued two hours, all would be quiet again.

During the prevalence of this disturbance, 341Mrs. Monpesson was brought to bed, and the night on which this occurrence took place, there was but very little noise made, nor any at all for the three subsequent weeks of her confinement. After this polite and well-timed cessation, it returned in a sudden and more violent manner than before; it followed and teased their youngest children, and beat against their bedstead so violently that every moment they were expected to be broken to pieces. On placing their hands upon them at this time, no blows were felt, although they were perceived to shake exceedingly. For an hour together the drum would beat roundheads and cuckold, the tat-too, and several other martial pieces, as well as any drummer could possibly execute them. After this, a scratching would be heard under the children’s beds, as if something that had iron claws were at work. It would lift the children up in their beds, follow them from one room to another, and for a while only haunted them, without playing any other pranks.

There was a cockloft in the house, which had not been observed to be troubled; and to this place the children were removed; and were always put to bed before daylight disappeared, but here they were no sooner laid, than their disturber was at his work again with them.

On the fifth of November, 1661, a terrible noise was kept up; and one of Mr. Monpesson’s servants observing two boards moving in the children’s room, asked that one might be given to him; upon which a board came (nothing moving it that he saw) within a yard of him; the man said again, 342let me have it in my hand; when it was brought quite close to him, and in this manner it was continued moving up and down, to and fro, for at least twenty minutes together. Mr. Monpesson, however, forbade his servant to take liberties with the invisible and troublesome guest in future. This circumstance took place in the day-time, and was witnessed by a whole room full of people. The morning this occurred, it left a very offensive sulphureous smell behind it. At night, the minister of the parish, one Mr. Cragg, and several of the neighbours, paid Mr. M. a visit. The minister prayed at the children’s bedside, when the demon was then extremely troublesome and boisterous. During time of prayer it retired into the cockloft, but as soon as prayers were over it returned; when in the presence and sight of the company, the chairs began to walk and strut about the room of their own accord, the children’s shoes were thrown over their heads, and every thing loose moved about the room. At the same time, a bedpost was thrown at the minister, which struck him on the leg, but so gently that a lock of wool could not have fallen more gently; and it was observed, that it stopped just where it fell, without rolling or otherwise moving from the place.

In consequence of the demon tormenting the children so incessantly, he had them removed to a neighbour’s house, taking his eldest daughter, who was about ten years of age, into his own chamber, where it had not been for a month before; but, as soon as she was in bed, the noise began 343there again, and the drumming continued for three weeks with other noises; and if any particular thing was called for to be beaten on the drum, it would perform it. The children were brought home again, in consequence of the house where they were placed being crowded with strangers. They were now placed in the parlour, which, it was remarked, had hitherto not been disturbed; but no sooner were they here, than their tormentor, while they were in bed, amused himself with pulling their hair and bedgowns, without offering any other violence.

It was remarked, that when the noise was loudest, and when it came with the most sudden and surprising violence, no dog about the house would move or bark, though the knocking and thumping were often so boisterous and rude, that they were heard at a considerable distance in the fields, and awakened the neighbours in the village, some of whom lived very near this house. Not unfrequently the servants would be lifted up, with their bed, to a considerable height, and then let gently down again without harm; at other times it would lie like a great weight upon their feet.

About the end of December, 1661, the drumming was less frequent, but then a noise like the chinking of money was substituted for it, occasioned, as it was thought, in consequence of something Mr. Monpesson’s mother had said the day before to a neighbour, who spoke about fairies leaving money behind them; viz. that she should like it well, if it would leave them some to make them amends for the trouble it had caused them. 344The following night, a great chinking and jingling of money was heard all over the house. After this it left off its ruder pranks, and amused itself in little apish and less troublesome tricks. On Christmas morning, a little before daylight, one of the little boys was hit, as he was getting out of bed, upon a sore place on his heel, with the latch of the door, the pin of which, that fastened it to the door, was so small, that it was a matter of no little difficulty for any one else to pick it. The night after Christmas, it threw the old gentlewoman’s clothes about the room, and hid her bible in the ashes; with a number of other mischievous tricks of the same kind.

After this, it became very troublesome to one of Mr. Monpesson’s servant men, a stout fellow, and of sober conversation. This man slept in the house during the greater part of the disturbance; and for several nights something would attempt to pull the bedclothes off him, which he often, though not always, prevented by main force; his shoes were frequently thrown at his head, and sometimes he would find himself forcibly held, as it were, hand and feet; but he found that when he could use a sword which he had by him, and struck with it, the spirit let go his hold.

Some short time after these contests, a son of Mr. Thomas Bennet, for whom the drummer had sometimes worked, came to the house, and mentioned some words to Mr. Monpesson that the drummer had spoken, which it seems were not well taken; for they were no sooner in bed, than the drum began to beat in a most violent manner: 345the gentleman got up and called his man, who was lying with Mr. Monpesson’s servant just mentioned, whose name was John. As soon as Mr. Bennet’s man was gone, John heard a rustling noise in his chamber, as if a person in silks were moving up and down; he immediately put out his hand for his sword, which he felt was withheld by some one, and it was with difficulty and much tugging, that he got it again into his possession, which he had no sooner done, than the spectre left him; and it was always remarked it avoided a sword. About the beginning of January, 1662, they used to hear a singing in the chimney before it descended; and one night, about this time, lights were seen in the house. One of them came into Mr. Monpesson’s chamber, which appeared blue and glimmering, and caused a great stiffness in the eyes of those who beheld it. After the light disappeared, something was heard walking or creeping up stairs, as if without shoes. The light was seen four or five times in the children’s chamber; and the maids confidently affirm, that the doors were at least ten times opened or shut in their presence; and that, when they were opened, they heard a noise as if half a dozen had entered together; some of which were afterwards heard to walk about the room, and one rustled about as if it had been dressed in silk, similar to that Mr. Monpesson himself heard.

While the demon was in one of his knocking moods, and at a time when many were present, a gentleman of the company said, “Satan, if the drummer set thee to work, give three knocks and 346no more;” which it did very distinctly, and stopped. The same gentleman then knocked to hear if it would answer him as it was accustomed to do. For further proof, he required it, if it actually were the drummer that employed him as the agent of his malice, to give five knocks and no more that night; which it did, and quietly left the house for the remainder of the night. This was done in the presence of Sir Thomas Chamberlaine of Oxfordshire, and many other creditable persons.

On Saturday morning, an hour before daylight, January 10, a drum was heard beating upon the outside of Mr. Monpesson’s chamber, from whence it went to the other end of the house, where some gentlemen strangers lay, and commenced playing at their door four or five different tunes; and at length flew off in the air. The next night, a blacksmith in the village, and Mr. Monpesson’s man John, who was lying with him, heard a noise in the room, as if somebody were shoeing a horse; and something came with something like a pair of pincers, and nipped at the blacksmith’s nose the whole of the night.

Getting up one morning to go a journey, Mr. Monpesson heard a great noise below, where the children lay; and on running down instantly with a pistol in his hand, he heard a voice cry out, a witch! a witch! similar to one they had heard on a former occasion. On his entering the apartment, all became quiet again.

The demon having one night played some little pranks at the foot of Mr. Monpesson’s bed, it went into another bed, where one of his daughters 347lay, and passed from one side to the other, lifting her up as it passed under her. At that time there were three kinds of noises in the bed. They attempted to thrust at it with a sword, but it continually evaded them. The following night it came panting like a dog out of breath, when some one present took a bedpost to strike at it, when it was immediately snatched out of her hand; and company coming up stairs at the same time, the room was filled with a nauseous stench, and very hot, although there was no fire on, and during a very sharp winter’s night. It continued panting an hour and a half, panting and scratching; and afterwards went into the adjoining chamber, where it began to knock a little, and seemed to rattle a chair; thus it continued for two or three nights in succession. The old lady’s bible after this was found again among the ashes, with the leaves downwards. It was taken up by Mr. Monpesson, who observed that it lay open at the third chapter of St. Mark, where mention is made of the unclean spirits falling down before our Saviour, and of his giving power to the twelve Apostles to cast out devils, and of the Scribes’ opinion, and that he cast them out through Beelzebub.

The following morning ashes were scattered over the chamber floor, to see what impressions would be left upon it; in the morning, in one place they found the resemblance of a great claw in another that of a smaller one, some letters in another, which could not be decyphered, besides a 348number of circles and scratches in the ashes, which no one understood except the demon itself.

About this time, the author of the narration went to the house to enquire after the truth of the circumstances which made so much noise in that part of the country. The demon had left off drumming, and the terrible noises it was in the habit of making before he arrived; but most of the remarkable facts already related, were confirmed to him there by several of the neighbours, on whose veracity he could depend, who had witnessed them. It now used to haunt the children after they were gone to bed. On the night he was there, the children went to bed about 8 o’clock; a maid servant immediately came down and informed us that the spirit was come. The neighbours then present went away, as well as two ministers who had previously been some time in the house, but Mr. Monpesson the author, and another gentleman who came with him, went up to the room where the children were in bed. A scratching was heard as they went up stairs, and just as they got into the room, it was perceived just behind the bolster of the bed in which the children lay, and appeared to be lying against the tick. The noise it made was like that made with long nails upon the bolster. There were two little girls, about seven or eight years of age, in the bed. Their hands were outside the bedclothes, so that it was perfectly visible the noise was not made by them which was behind their heads: they had been so used to it of late, and always with some present 349in the chamber, that they seemed to take very little notice of it. The narrator, who was standing at the head of the bed, thrust his hand behind the bolster from whence the noise proceeded, when it was immediately heard in another part of the bed; but as soon as his hand was taken away, it returned to the same place as before. On being told that it would imitate noises, he made trial by scratching several times upon the sheet, as five, seven, and ten times: it exactly replied to them by equal numbers. He looked under and behind the bed, grasped the bolster, sounded the wall, and made every possible search to find out any trick, contrivance, or other cause, as well as his friend, but could discover nothing. So that in truth he concluded, that the noise was made by some spirit or demon. After it had scratched about for half an hour or more, it got into the middle of the bed under the children, where it lay panting loudly, like a dog out of breath. The author then put his hand upon the place, and plainly felt the bed bearing up against it, as if it contained something within thrusting it up. He grasped the feather to feel if he could distinguish any thing alive; then looked every where about to see if there were any dog or cat, or other creature, in the room; every one present followed his example, but still they discovered nothing. The motion it caused by its panting was so violent, that it had a visible effect on the room and windows. In this manner it continued for half an hour, the time the author was present. During this panting, something was seen in a linen bag that was hung up against 350another bed, that was taken for a mouse or rat, but upon the closest examination of it, nothing was found in it of any description.

The author and his friend afterwards slept in the very identical chamber where the principal disturbance had been first made. He was awakened by a terrible noise made on the outside of the chamber door. He awoke his friend, and asked three distinct times who was there, but received no answer. At last he exclaimed, “in the name of God who is it, and what would you have? To which a voice answered, nothing with you. Thinking it was some of the servants of the house, they went to sleep again. Mentioning, however, the circumstance the next morning to Mr. Monpesson, he declared that no one of the house lay that way, or had any business thereabouts, and that none of his servants had got up until they were called by him some time after daylight. This the servants confirmed, and protested that the noise was not made by them. Previous to this, Mr. Monpesson had told us, that it would go away in the middle of the night, and return at different times about four o’clock, which was supposed to be about the hour it was heard by the author and his friend.

Another circumstance connected with this seemingly mysterious business was, that the author’s servant coming up to him in the morning, told him, that one of his horses, the one which he had rode, was all in a sweat, and appeared in every other respect as if it had been out all night. His friend and him went down to the stable, and actually 351found him in the state he was represented to be. On inquiry how the horse had been treated, he was assured that the animal had been well fed, and taken care of as he used to be; his servant besides was extremely careful of his horses. “The horse,” says the author, “I had had a good time, and never knew but he was very sound. But after I had rid him a mile or two very gently over a plain down from Mr. Monpesson’s house, he fell lame, and having made a hard shift to bring me home, died in two or three days, no one being able to imagine what he ailed. This, I confess, might be the consequence of an accident, or some unusual distemper, but all things put together, it seems very probable that it was somewhat else.”

Mr. Monpesson then stated, that one morning a light appeared in the children’s chamber, and a voice was heard crying—a witch! a witch! for at least an hundred times together. At another time, seeing some wood move on the chimney of a room where he was, he fired a pistol among it; and on examining the place afterwards, several drops of blood were discovered on the hearth, and on several parts of the stairs. For two or three nights after the discharge of the pistol nothing was heard, but it returned, and so persecuted a little child newly taken from the nurse, that the poor infant was not suffered to rest either day or night; nor would the mischievous demon suffer a candle to burn in the room, but either ran up the chimney with them alight, or threw them under the bed. It so frightened this child by leaping upon it, that 352it continued in fits for several hours; and ultimately they were obliged to remove the children out of the house. Something was heard the next night, about the hour of midnight, coming up stairs; it knocked at Mr. Monpesson’s door, but he not answering, it went up another pair of stairs to his man’s chamber, and appeared to him at his bed foot. The exact shape and proportion of the demon he could not discover; all he saw was a great body, with two red and glaring eyes, which for some time were steadily fixed upon him; and at length they disappeared.

On another occasion, in the presence of strangers, it purred in the children’s bed like a cat, and lifted the children up so forcibly, that six men could not keep them down; upon which they removed the children to another bed, but no sooner were they laid here than this became more troubled than the first. In this manner it continued for four hours, and so unmercifully beat the poor children’s legs against the posts, that they were obliged to sit up all night. It then emptied chamber-pots, and threw ashes into the beds, and placed a long iron pike in Mr. Monpesson’s, and a knife into his mother’s. It would fill porringers with ashes, throw every thing about, and kick up the devil’s diversion from morning till night, and from night till morning.

About the beginning of April, 1663, a gentleman that lay in the house, had all his money turned black in his pockets; and one morning Mr. Monpesson going into his stable, found the horse he was accustomed to ride upon, lying on the ground 353with one of its hind legs in its mouth, and fastened there in such a manner, that several men with a leaver, had the greatest difficulty in getting it out. After this there were a number of other remarkable things occurred, but the author’s account extends no farther; with the exception that Mr. Monpesson wrote him word, that the house was afterwards, for several nights, beset with seven or eight beings in the shape of men, who, as soon as a gun was discharged, would scud away into an adjoining arbour.

The drummer, however, it appears, was apprehended in consequence of these strange and mysterious occurrences. He was first, it seems, committed to Gloucester jail for stealing, where a Wiltshire man going to see him, the drummer enquired the news in Wiltshire: the reply was, none: No, returned he, do you not hear of the drumming at a gentleman’s house at Tedworth? That I do, said the other, enough: “I, quoth the drummer, I have plagued him (or something to that purpose) and he never shall be quiet until he has made me satisfaction for taking away my drum. Upon information made to this effect, the drummer was tried for a wizzard at Sarum, and all the main circumstances here related being sworn to at the assizes, by the minister of the parish, and several others of the most intelligent and substantial inhabitants, who had been eye and earwitnesses of them, from time to time, for many years past; the drummer was sentenced to transportation, and accordingly sent away; and as the story runs, ’tis said, that by raising storms, and 354terrifying the seamen, he contrived, some how or other, to get back again. And what is still as remarkable, is, that during his restraint and absence, Mr. Monpesson’s house remained undisturbed; but as soon as the demon of his quiet returned, he fell to his old tricks again as bad as ever.”

The drummer had been a soldier under Cromwell, and used to talk much of “gallant books” which he had of an old fellow, who was counted a wizzard.

On the authority of Mr. Glanvil, who had it from Mr. Monpesson, we have the following story.

“The gentleman, Mr. Hill, who was with me, being in company with one Compton of Somersetshire, who practised physic, and pretends to strange matters, related to him this story of Mr. Monpesson’s disturbance. The physician told him, he was sure it was nothing but a rendezvous of witches, and that for an hundred pounds he would undertake to rid the house of all disturbance. In pursuit of this discourse, he talkt of many high things, and having drawn my friend into another room, apart from the rest of the company, said, he would make him sensible that he could do something more than ordinary, and asked him who he desired to see; Mr. Hill had no great confidence in his talk, but yet being earnestly pressed to name some one, he said he desired to see no one so much as his wife, who was then many miles distant from them at her home. Upon this, Compton took up a looking-glass that was in the room, and setting it down again, bid my friend look into it, which he did, and then, as he 355most solemnly and seriously professeth, he saw the exact image of his wife, in that habit which she then wore, and working at her needle in such a part of the room, there also represented, in which and about which time she really was, as he found upon enquiring upon his return home. The gentleman himself averred this to me, and he is a sober, intelligent, and credible person. Compton had no knowledge of him before, and was an utter stranger to the person of his wife. The same man is again alluded to, in the story of the witchcrafts of Elizabeth Styles, whom he discovered to be a witch, by foretelling her coming into a house, and going out again without speaking. He was by all accounted a very odd person.”

In 1752, when Captain Archibald Douglass, who was then on a recruiting party in the South of Scotland, his native country, lay in the town of Jedburgh, his serjeant complained to him that the house in which he was quartered was haunted by a spirit, which had several times appeared to him by candle light in a very frightful form. The captain, who was a man of sense and far from being superstitious, treated the serjeant as a person who had lost his reason, threatened to cane him as a coward, and told him that goblins and spirits were beneath the notice of a soldier. The captain the 356night following had a strange dream, in which he saw the landlady of the inn, where the serjeant lay, in company with a great number of other females, ascending in the air, some riding on brooms, some on asses, and others on cats, &c. The landlady invited him to accompany them in their aërial excursion, to which consenting, he got upon a goat behind one of the women, and was carried with great velocity to a large heath near London, which he well knew on their arrival.

When all the females had alighted, his ears were suddenly alarmed with a thousand yells the most hideous that could be conceived, to the sound of which they all danced in a circle. The captain was placed in the centre; beholding all the wild vagaries with wonder and horror. When the music had ceased and the dancing closed, suddenly he found himself by a phalanx of infernal furies, whose forks were all aimed at his breast. The horror of this scene suddenly awaked the captain, who was glad to find himself safe and in a sound skin at his mother’s house, where he lay that night.

The next morning the serjeant, like the knight of the sorrowful countenance, waited on the captain for fresh orders, again declaring that he had seen the apparition which had threatened his life. The captain heard him with less impatience and inattention than he had the preceding day, saying, I myself have had a restless night and a terrible dream, but these things, I tell you again, are beneath the notice of a soldier. However, continued the captain, I am resolved to sift this matter till I discover the ground of your complaint. I have a 357notion that you, like myself, have been making too free with the bottle. The serjeant replied, most solemnly declaring that he was most perfectly in his senses when he saw a frightful spectre standing at the side of his bed, and which changing its appearance, retired in the shape of a great black cat, jumping from the window over the church steeple. Now to let your honour into a secret, continued the soldier, I was informed this morning, that the landlady is neither more nor less than a witch, and her goodman is second-sighted, and can tell, awake him from his sleep when you please, the precise hour of the night, and the exact minute.

To cut short our story, the captain at night accompanied the serjeant, well provided with fire arms, and a sword, to the chamber alluded to. Having placed the arms upon the table, he lay down by the soldier’s side in a bed without curtains, but enclosed with a frame of wainscoting with sliding doors. At midnight, they heard three knocks on one of the pannels, when the captain arose, ran to the door, which he found fast locked, and having a candle, searched every corner of the room without making any discovery. He lay down a second time, and about an hour after again heard the knocking three distinct times as before. Attempting to get up, the whole wainscoting tumbled down upon the bed, the violent noise of which alarmed the serjeant, who cried out, the witch! the witch is within! It was a considerable time before they could extricate themselves from the boarding, but so sooner was the captain disentangled than he saw a prodigious large sable cat 358flying to the window, at which he fired a pistol, and shot off one of its ears.

Next morning the captain called the landlord, and enquired how long his house had been haunted. The landlord replied, you must ask my wife, when she returns home, for she is seldom in bed after midnight. Just as the husband was so saying, the wife came into the kitchen, and falling into a swoon upon seeing the captain, fell down prostrate on the floor, discomposed her head-dress, and discovered a terrible wound on the left side of her head and the want of an ear. The captain swore that he would take her before the provost, in order that she might be committed for trial, but the husband interfering, and the captain well knowing that he could not continue in the country till the next circuit, contented himself with telling the story among the circle of his friends, none of whom had the least reason to doubt his veracity, as he was a gentleman of strict honour, undaunted courage, and tried integrity.—It may be inferred from this that witches have a capacity of changing their outward form, and appearing in the shape of a cat, or the like, at the will; but this might only be in the imagination of the captain and the serjeant, for it would be hard to account for the loss of this witch’s real ear, had she changed her body to that of the animal upon which the captain supposed he had fired.

How to reconcile these and various similar stories to the standard of common credence, is a task no less difficult than problematical; and to ascertain the real cause of the scarcity, now-a-days, 359of such mysterious and unaccountable occurrences, is at least a proof that the devil has been losing latterly, from some cause or other, much of his ascendancy over the human mind. To attempt to explain, or do away with the supposition, that spirits, apparitions, demons, or other preternatural agents, “hobgoblins damned,” or undamned, would be to attack the fundamental parts of the christian religion, which we are told and taught to believe constitutes a part of the law of the land. The wisest philosophers, heroes, and vagrants, have all, from the remotest antiquity downwards, testified to their appearance; and divines themselves have been equally orthodox, and active in promulgating the force of their testimony in support of the doctrine of preternatural agency; which neither the supposition of a morbid imagination, “contained in tabular views^[65] of the various comparative degrees of faintness, vividness, or intensity, supposed to exist between sensations and ideas, when conjointly excited or depressed,” can account for on rational principles, when the mind is curious to be divested of all these presumed causes. That there are states and conditions of the mind, when, from intensity of excitement, the imagination may be played upon no one will deny; but that such causes should always have existed, is equally as preposterous and absurd—still between these and imposture, perhaps truth may lie; and then it is a point of scepticism that does little honour to the social compact, to cast even a shade of doubt on the moral character of a man, whose 360veracity was never before impeached on any other subject.

Marcus Brutus, one of the murderers of Julius Cæsar, being one night in his tent, saw a monstrous figure come in about the third hour of the night. Brutus immediately cried out, what art thou, a man or a god? and why art thou come hither? The spectre answered, I am thy evil genius; thou shalt see me at Philippi. Brutus calmly answered, I will meet thee there. However, he did not go, but relating the affair to Cassius, who being of the sect of Epicurus, and believing nothing of these matters, told him it was a mere fancy; that there was no such thing as genii or other spirits, which could appear to men; that even if they should appear, they could not assume a human shape or voice, and had no power over men. Though Brutus was somewhat encouraged by those reasons, he could not entirely get the better of his uneasiness: but this very Cassius, in the midst of the battle of Philippi, saw Julius Cæsar, whom he had assassinated, riding up to him full speed, which terrified him so much, that he fell upon his own sword.

The ghosts of the slain at the battle of Marathon.

Pausanias writes, that four hundred years after the battle of Marathon, there were still heard in 361the place where it was fought, the neighing of horses, and the shouts of soldiers, animating one another to the fight. Plutarch also speaks of spectres seen, and dreadful howlings heard in the public baths, where several citizens of Chœronea, his native town, had been murdered. He says, that the inhabitants had been obliged to shut up these baths, but that, notwithstanding the precaution, great noises were still heard, and dreadful spectres frequently seen by the neighbours. Plutarch, who is an author of acknowledged gravity and good sense, frequently makes mention of spectres and apparitions; particularly he says, that in the famous battle above alluded to, several soldiers saw the apparition of Theseus fighting for the Greeks and against the Persians.

Familiar spirit or ancient Brownie.

It is recorded in Socrates, that after the defeat of the Athenian army under the prætor Laches, as he was flying in company with the Athenian general, and came to a place where several roads met, he refused to go the same road that the others took, and the reason being asked him, he answered that his genus, or familiar spirit, who frequently attended him, dissuaded him from it; and the event justified the precaution, for all those who went a different way, were killed, or made prisoners by the enemy’s cavalry.

In most parts of the continent the gipsies are called Cingari, or Zingari; the Spaniards call them Gitanos, the French Bohemiens or Bohemiennes.

It is not certain when the Gipsies, as they are now termed, first appeared in Europe; but mention is made of them in Hungary and Germany, so early as the year 1417. Within 10 years afterwards we hear of them in France, Switzerland and Italy. The date of their arrival in England is more uncertain; it is most probable that it was not until near a century afterward. In the year 1530, they are spoken of in the following manner, in the penal statutes.

“Forasmuch as before this time, divers and many outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of merchandize, have come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company, and used great subtil and crafty means to deceive the people; bearing them in mind that they, by palmistry, could tell men’s and women’s fortunes; and so many times, by craft and subtilty, have deceived the people of their money; and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies, to the great hurt and deceit of the people they have come among,” &c.

This is the preamble to an act, by which the Gipsies were ordered to quit the realm under heavy penalties. Two subsequent acts, passed in 1555 and 1565, made it death for them to remain in the kingdom; and it is still on record, that thirteen were executed under these acts, in the county of Suffolk, a few years before the restoration. 363It was not till about the year 1783, that they were repealed.

The Gipsies were expelled France in 1560, and Spain in 1591: but it does not appear they have been extirpated in any country. Their collective numbers, in every quarter of the globe, have been calculated at 7 or 800,000^[66]. They are most numerous in Asia, and in the northern parts of Europe. Various have been the opinion relative to their origin. That they came from Egypt, has been the most prevalent. This opinion (which has procured them here the name of Gipsies, and in Spain that of Gittanos) arose from some of the first who arrived in Europe, pretending that they came from that country; which they did, perhaps, to heighten their reputation for skill in palmistry and the occult sciences. It is now we believe pretty generally agreed, that they came originally from Hindostan; since their language so far coincides with the Hindostanic, that even now, after a lapse of nearly four centuries, during which they have been dispersed in various foreign countries, nearly one half of their words are precisely those of Hindostan^[67]; and scarcely any variation is to be found in vocabularies procured from the Gipsies in Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and those in England^[68]. Their manners, for the most part, coincide, as well as the language, in every quarter of the 364globe where they are found; being the same idle wandering set of beings, and seldom professing any mode of acquiring a livelihood, except that of fortune-telling^[69]. Their religion is always that of 365the country in which they reside; and though they are no great frequenters either of mosques or churches, they generally conform to rites and ceremonies as they find them established.

Grellman says that, in Germany, they seldom think of any marriage ceremony; but their children are baptized and the mothers churched. In England their children are baptized, and their dead buried, according to the rites of the church; perhaps the marriage ceremony is not more regarded than in Germany; but it is certain they are sometimes married in churches. Upon the whole, as Grellman observes, we may certainly regard the Gipsies as a singular phenomenon in Europe. For the space of between three and four hundred years they have gone wandering about like pilgrims and strangers, yet neither time nor example has made in them any alteration: they remain ever and every where what their fathers were: Africa makes them no blacker, nor does Europe make them whiter.

Few of the descendants of the aboriginal Gipsies are to be found any where in Europe, and in England less than any where else. The severity of the police against this description of the degenerate vagabonds existing at the present day, have considerably thinned their phalanxes, and brought them to something like a due sense of the laws and expectations of civilized society. What remains of them, nevertheless, contrive one way or other to elude the vigilance of the laws by different masked callings, under 366which they ostensibly appear to carry on their usual traffic.

The modern Gipsies pretend that they derive their origin from the ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their knowledge in astronomy and other sciences; and, under the pretence of fortune-telling, find means to rob or defraud the ignorant and superstitious. To colour their impostures, they artificially discolour their faces, and speak a kind of gibberish or cant peculiar to themselves. They rove up and down the country in large companies, to the great terror of the farmers, from whose geese, turkeys, and fowls, they take considerable contributions.

When a fresh recruit is admitted into the fraternity, he is to take the following oath, administered by the principal marauder, after going through the annexed forms:—

First, a new name is given to him, by which he is ever after to be called; then standing up in the middle of the assembly, and directing his face to the dimber damber, or principal man of the gang, he repeats the following oath, which is dictated to him by some experienced member of the fraternity; namely, “I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will, in all things, obey the commands of the great tawny prince, and keep his counsel, and not divulge the secrets of my brethren.

“I will never leave nor forsake the company, but observe and keep all the times of appointment, either by day or by night, in every place whatever.

367“I will not teach any one to cant, nor will I disclose any of our mysteries to them.

“I will take my prince’s part against all that shall oppose him, or any of us, according to the utmost of my ability; nor will I suffer him, or any one belonging to us, to be abused by any strange Abrams, Rufflers, Hookers, Paillards, Swaddlers, Irish Toyles, Swigmen, Whip Jacks, Jackmen, Bawdy Baskets, Dommerars, Clapper Dogeons, Patricoes, or Curtals; but will defend him, or them, as much as I can, against all other outliers whatever. I will not conceal aught I win out of Libkins^[70], or pun the Ruffmans^[71], but will preserve it for the use of the company. Lastly, I will cleave to my Doxy-wap^[72], stifly, and will bring her Duds^[73], Margery Prators^[74], Goblers^[75], Grunting Cheats^[76], or Tibs of the Buttery^[77], or any thing else I can come at, as winning^[78] for her wappings.”

The canters, it would appear, have a tradition, that from the three first articles of this oath, the first founders of a certain boastful, worshipful fraternity, (who pretend to derive their origin from the earliest times) borrowed both the hint and the form of their establishment; and that their pretended derivation of the first word Adam is a forgery, it being only from the first Adam Tyler^[70]. At the admission of a new brother, a general stock is raised for booze or drink, to 368make themselves merry on the occasion. As for peckage or eatables, this they can procure without money, for while some are sent to break the ruffmans, or woods and bushes, for firing, others are detached to filch geese, chickens, hens, ducks, or mallards, and pigs. Their morts, or women, are their butchers, who presently make bloody work with what living things are brought to them; and having made holes in the ground under some remote hedge, in an obscure place, they make a fire, and boil or broil their food; and when it is done enough, fall to work tooth and nail; and having eaten more like beasts than human beings, they drink more like swine than men, entertaining each other during the time with songs in the canting dialect. As they live, so they lie together, promiscuously, and know not how to claim a property either in their goods or children; and this general interest ties them more firmly together, than if all their rags were twisted into ropes, to bind them indissolubly from a separation, which detestable union is farther consolidated by the preceding oath.

They stroll up and down all summer-time in droves, and dexterously pick pockets while they are telling fortunes; and the money, rings, silver thimbles, &c. which they get, are instantly conveyed from one hand to another, till the remotest person of the gang (who is not suspected, because they come not near the person robbed) gets possession of it; so that in the strictest search, it is impossible to recover it, while the wretches, with 369imprecations, oaths, and protestations, disclaim the thievery.

That by which they were said to get the most money, was, when young gentlewomen of good families and reputation, have happened to be with child before marriage, a round sum is often bestowed among Gipsies, for some mort to take the child; and, as in these cases it was never heard of more by the true mother and family, so the disgrace was kept concealed from the world; and, in the event of the child surviving, its parents are never known.

The following account of these wandering beings, is taken from Evelyn’s Journal, which throws some light on their degeneracy from the primitive tribes.

“In our statutes they are called Egyptians, which implies a counterfeit kind of rogues, who ‘being English or Welsh people,’ disguise themselves in uncouth habits, smearing their faces and bodies, and framing to themselves an unknown, canting language, wander up and down; and under pretence of telling fortunes, curing diseases, &c. abuse the common people, trick them of their money, and steal all that is not too hot or too heavy for them. See several statutes made against them, 28 Henry VIII. c. 10. 1 & 2. Philip and Mary, c. 4 & 5. Eliz. c. 20.

“The origin of this tribe of vagabonds called Egyptians, and popularly Gipsies, is somewhat obscure; at least the reason of the denomination is so. It is certain, the ancient Egyptians had the name of great cheats, and were famous for the 370subtilty of their impostures, whence the name might afterwards pass proverbially into other languages, as is pretty certain it did into the Greek and Latin, or else the ancient Egyptians, being much versed in astronomy, which in those days was little better than Astrology, the name was on that score assumed by these diseurs de bonne avanture, as the French call them, or tellers of good fortune. Be this as it may, there is scarce any country in Europe, even at the present day, but has its Egyptians, though not all of them under this denomination: the Latins called them Egyptii; the Italians, Cingani, and Cingari; the Germans, Zigeuna; the French, Bohemiens; others Saracens, and others Tartars, &c.

Munster, Geogr. L. III. c. 5. relates, that they made their first appearance in Germany, in 1417, exceedingly tawny and sun-burnt, and in pitiful array, though they affected quality, and travelled with a train of hunting dogs after them, like nobles. He adds, that they had passports from King Sigismund of Bohemia, and other princes. Ten years afterwards they came into France, and thence passed into England.

Pasquier, in his Recherches, L. IV. c. 19, relates the origin of the Gipsies thus: On the 17th of April, 1427, there came to Paris twelve penitents, or persons, as they said, adjudged to penance; viz. one duke, one count, and ten cavaliers, or persons on horseback; they took on themselves the characters of Christians of the Lower Egypt, expelled by the Saracens; who having made application to the Pope, and confessed 371their sins, received for penance, that they should travel through the world for seven years, without ever lying in a bed. Their train consisted of 120 persons, men, women, and children, which were all that were left of 1200, who came together out of Egypt. They had lodgings assigned them in the chapel, and people went in crowds to see them. Their ears were perforated, and silver buckles hung to them. Their hair was exceedingly black and frizzled; their women were ugly, thieves, and pretenders to telling of fortunes. The bishop soon after obliged them to retire, and excommunicated such as had shewn them their hands.

By an ordinance of the estates of Orleans, in the year 1560, it was enjoined, that all these impostors under the name of Bohemians and Egyptians, do quit the kingdom on the penalty of the gallies. Upon this they dispersed into lesser companies, and spread themselves over Europe. The first time we hear of them in England was three years afterwards, viz. anno 1563.

Ralph Volaterranus, making mention of them, affirms, that they first proceeded or strolled from among the Uxii, a people of Persis or Persia. (See Gipsies.)

The following characteristic sketch of one of the primitive gipsies, is ably delineated in the popular novel of Quentin Durward; with which we shall close this article:

Orleans, who could not love the match provided for him by the King, could love Isabelle, and follows her escort. Quentin, however, unhorses 372him, and sustains a noble combat with his companion the renowned Dunais; till a body of the archers ride up to his relief. The assailants are carried off prisoners, and our victorious Scot pursues his dangerous way, under uncertain guidance, as the following extract will shew:

“While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of his followers, he heard the blast of a horn, and looking in the direction from which the sound came, beheld a horseman riding very fast towards them. The low size, and wild, shaggy, untrained state of the animal, reminded Quentin of the mountain breed of horses in his own country; but this was much more finely limbed, and, with the same appearance of hardness, was more rapid in its movements. The head particularly, which, in the Scottish poney, is often lumpish and heavy, was small and well placed in the neck of this animal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes, and expanded nostrils.

“The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in broad stirrups, something resembling a shovel, so short, that his knees were well nigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His dress was a red turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume, secured by a clasp of silver; his tunic, which was shaped like those of the Estradiots, a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time levied in the provinces, on the eastern side of their gulf, was green in colour, 373and tawdrily laced with gold; he wore very wide drawers or trowsers of white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered beneath the knee, and his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the complicated laces which bound a pair of sandals on his feet; he had no spurs, the edge of his large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to goad the horse in a very severe manner. In a crimson sash this singular horseman wore a dagger on the right side, and on the left a short crooked Moorish sword, and by a tarnished baldrick over the shoulder hung the horn which announced his approach. He had a swarthy and sun-burnt visage, with a thin beard, and piercing dark eyes, a well-formed mouth and nose, and other features which might have been pronounced handsome, but for the black elf-locks which hung around his face, and the air of wildness and emaciation, which rather seemed to indicate a savage than a civilized man.

“Quentin rode up to the Bohemian, and said to him, as he suddenly assumed his proper position on the horse, ‘Methinks, friend, you will prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather than his ears.’

“‘And if I were actually blind,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘I could guide you through any county in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to it.’

“‘Yet you are no Frenchman born,’ said the Scot.

“‘I am not,’ answered the guide.

“‘What countryman, then, are you?’ demanded Quentin.

374“‘I am of no country,’ answered the guide.

“‘How! of no country?’ repeated the Scot.

“‘No!’ answered the Bohemian, ‘of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may chuse to call our people; but I have no country.’

“‘Are you a Christian?’ asked the Scotchman.

“The Bohemian shook his head.

“‘Dog,’ said Quentin, (for there was little toleration in the spirit of Catholicism in those days,) ‘dost thou worship Mahoun?’

“‘No,’ was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither seemed offended nor surprised at the young man’s violence of manner.

“‘Are you a Pagan then, or what are you?’

“‘I have no religion,’ answered the Bohemian.

“Durward started back; for, though he had heard of Saracens and idolaters, it had never entered into his ideas or belief, that any body of men could exist who practised no mode of worship whatsoever. He recovered from his astonishment, to ask where his guide usually dwelt.

“‘Wherever I chance to be for the time,’ replied the Bohemian. ‘I have no home.’

“‘How do you guard your property?’

“‘Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse I ride on, I have no property.’

“‘Yet you dress gaily, and ride gallantly,’ said Durward. ‘What are your means of subsistence?’

375“‘I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, and have no other means of subsistence than chance throws in my way,’ replied the vagabond.

“‘Under whose laws do you live?’

“‘I acknowledge obedience to none, but as it suits my pleasure,’ said the Bohemian.

“‘Who is your leader, and commands you?’

“‘The father of our tribe—if I chuse to obey him,’ said the guide—‘otherwise I have no commander.’

“‘You are then,’ said the wondering querist, ‘destitute of all that other men are combined by—you have no law, no leader, no settled means of subsistence, no house, or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate you, no country—and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?’

“‘I have liberty,’ said the Bohemian—‘I crouch to no one—obey no one—respect no one.—I go where I will—live as I can—and die when my day comes.’

“‘But you are subject to instant execution, at the pleasure of the Judge.’

“‘Be it so,’ returned the Bohemian; ‘I can but die so much the sooner.’

“‘And to imprisonment also,’ said the Scot; ‘and where, then, is your boasted freedom?’

“‘In my thoughts,’ said the Bohemian, ‘which no chains can bind; while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your laws and 376your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in spirit when our limbs are chained—You are imprisoned in mind, even when your limbs are most at freedom.’

“‘Yet the freedom of your thoughts,’ said the Scot, ‘relieves not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs.’

“‘For a brief time that may be endured; and if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect freedom of all.’

There was a deep pause of some duration, which Quentin at length broke, by resuming his queries.

“‘Yours is a wandering race, unknown to the nations of Europe—Whence do they derive their origin?’

“‘I may not tell you,’ answered the Bohemian.

“‘When will they relieve this kingdom from their presence, and return to the land from whence they came?’ said the Scot.

“‘When the day of their pilgrimage shall be accomplished,’ replied his vagrant guide.

“‘Are you not sprung from those tribes of Israel which were carried into captivity beyond the great river Euphrates?’ said Quentin, who had not forgotten the lore which had been taught him at Aberbrothock.

“‘Had we been so,’ answered the Bohemian, ‘we had followed their faith, and practised their rites.’

“‘What is thine own name?’ said Durward.

377“‘My proper name is only known to my brethren—The men beyond our tents call me Hayraddin Maugrabin, that is, Hayraddin the African Moor.’

“‘Thou speakest too well for one who hath lived always in thy filthy horde,’ said the Scot.

“‘I have learned some of the knowledge of this land,’ said Heyraddin.—‘When I was a little boy, our tribe was chased by the hunters after human flesh. An arrow went through my mother’s head, and she died. I was entangled in the blanket on her shoulders, and was taken by the pursuers. A priest begged me from the Provost’s archers, and trained me up in Frankish learning for two or three years.’

“‘How came you to part with him?’ demanded Durward.

“‘I stole money from him—even the God which he worshipped,’ answered Hayraddin, with perfect composure; ‘he detected me, and beat me—I stabbed him with my knife, fled to the woods, and was again united to my people.’

“‘Wretch!’ said Durward, ‘did you murder your benefactor?’

“‘What had he to do to burden me with his benefits?—The Zingaro boy was no house-bred cur to dog the heels of his master and crouch beneath his blows, for scraps of food—He was the imprisoned wolf-whelp, which at the first opportunity broke his chain, rended his master, and returned to his wilderness.’

“There was another pause, when the young Scot, with a view of still farther investigating the 378character and purpose of this suspicious guide, asked Hayraddin, ‘Whether it was not true that his people, amid their ignorance, pretended to a knowledge of futurity, which was not given to the sages, philosophers, and divines, of more polished society?’

“‘We pretend to it,’ said Hayraddin, ‘and it is with justice.’

“‘How can it be that so high a gift is bestowed on so abject a race?’ said Quentin.

“‘Can I tell you?’ answered Hayraddin—‘Yes, I may indeed; but it is when you shall explain to me why the dog can trace the footsteps of a man, while man, the noble animal, hath no power to trace those of the dog. These powers, which seem to you so wonderful, are instinctive in our race. From the lines on the face and on the hand, we can tell the future fate of those who consult us, even as surely as you know from the blossom of the tree in spring, what fruit it will bear in the harvest.’”

Those occupations which were of the most absolute necessity to the support of existence, were, doubtless, the earliest, and, in the infancy of society, the sole employments that engaged attention. But when the art and industry of a few 379were found sufficient for the maintenance of many, property began to accumulate in the hands of individuals, and as all could no longer be engaged in the productions of the necessaries of life, those who were excluded applied their ingenuity to those arts which, by contributing to the convenience of the former, might enable them to participate in the fruits of their labour; and several of these have acquired a pre-eminence over the more useful avocations. A taste for the wonderful seems to be natural to man in every stage of society, and at almost every period of life; we, therefore, cannot wonder that, from the earliest ages, persons have been found, who, more idle or more ingenious than others, have availed themselves of this propensity, to obtain an easy livelihood by levying contributions on the curiosity of the public. Whether this taste is to be considered as a proof of the weakness of our judgment, or of innate inquisitiveness, which stimulates us to enlarge the sphere of our knowledge, must be left to the decision of metaphysicians; it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that it gave rise to a numerous class of persons, whom, whether performers of sleight of hand, rope-dancers, mountebanks, teachers of animals to perform extraordinary tricks, or, in short, who delude the senses, and practice harmless deception on spectators, we include under the common title of Jugglers.

If these arts served no other purpose than that of mere amusement, they yet merit a certain degree of encouragement, as affording at once a cheap and innocent diversion: but Jugglers frequently 380exhibit instructive experiments in natural philosophy, chemistry, and mechanics; thus, the solar microscope was invented from an instrument to reflect shadows, with which a Savoyard amused a German populace; and the celebrated Sir Richard Arkwright is said to have conceived the idea of the spinning machines, which have so largely contributed to the prosperity of the cotton manufacture in this country, from a toy which he purchased for his child of an itinerant showman. These deceptions have, besides, acted as an agreeable and most powerful antidote to superstition, and to that popular belief in miracles, conjuration, sorcery, and witchcraft, which preyed upon the minds of our ancestors; and the effects of shadows, electricity, mirrors, and the magnet, once formidable instruments in the hands of interested persons for keeping the vulgar in awe, have been stripped of their terrors, and are no longer frightful in their most terrific forms.

That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many innocent beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, is too well known to require illustration: our own statute books are loaded with penalties against sorcery; at no very distant period our courts of law have been disgraced by criminal trials of that nature; and judges who are still cited as models of legal knowledge and discernment, not only permitted such cases to go to a jury, but allowed sentences to be recorded which consigned reputed wizards to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late as the year 1739, a Juggler was exposed to the torture, 381until a confession was extracted from him that he was a sorcerer, upon which, without further proof, he was immediately hanged; and instances in other countries might be multiplied without end. But this, although it exceeds in atrocity, does not equal in absurdity, the infatuation of the tribunal of the inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned to the flames, as being possessed with the devil, a horse belonging to an Englishman, who had taught it to perform some uncommon tricks; and the poor animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon, in conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601.

The only parts of Europe in which the arts of sorcery now obtain any credit, is Lapland; where, indeed, supposed wizards still practise incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of future events, and in which the credulity of the people induces them to place the most implicit confidence. On such occasions a magic drum is usually employed. This instrument is formed of a piece of wood of a semi-oval form, hollow on the flat side, and there covered with a skin, in which various uncouth figures are depicted; among which, since the introduction of Christianity into that country, an attempt is usually made to represent the acts of our Saviour and the Apostles. On this covering several brass rings of different sizes are laid, while the attendants dispose themselves in many antic postures, in order to facilitate the charm; the drum is then beat with the horn of a rein-deer, which occasioning the skin to vibrate, puts the rings in motion round the figures, and, according 382to the positions which they occupy, the officiating seer pronounces his prediction.

It is unfortunate that of all the books (and there were several) which treated of the arts of conjuration, as they were practised among the ancients, not one is now extant, and all that we know upon the subject is collected from isolated facts which have been incidentally mentioned in other writings. From these it would, however, appear, that many of the deceptions which still continue to excite astonishment, were then common.

A century and a half before our æra, during the revolt of the slaves in Sicily, a Syrian of their number, named Eunus, a man of considerable talent, who after having witnessed many vicissitudes, was reduced to that state, became the leader of his companions by pretending to an inspiration from the gods; and in order to confirm the divinity of his mission by miracles, he used to breath flames from his mouth when addressing his followers. By this art the Rabbi Barchschebas also made the credulous Jews believe that he was the Messiah, during the sedition which he excited among them in the reign of Adrian; and, two centuries afterwards, the Emperor Constantius was impressed with great dread, when informed that one of the body-guards had been seen to breathe out fire. Historians tell us that these deceptions were performed by putting inflammable substances into a nut-shell pierced at both ends, which was then secretly conveyed into the mouth and breathed through. Our own fire-eaters content themselves with rolling a little flax, so as to form a small ball, 383which is suffered to burn until nearly consumed; more flax is then tightly rolled round it, and the fire will thus remain within for a long time, and sparks may be blown from it without injury, provided the air be inspired, not by the mouth but through the nostrils. The ancients also performed some curious experiments with that inflammable mineral oil called Naphtha, which kindles on merely exposing near a fire. Allusion is supposed to have been made to this in the story of the dress of Herculus, when it is said to have been dipped in the blood of Nessus. Many assert that it was with this substance Medea destroyed Creusa, by sending to her a dress impregnated with it, which burst into flames when she drew near the fire of the altar; and there can be no doubt that it was used by the priests on those occasions when the sacrificial offerings took fire imperceptibly.

The trial by Ordeal, in the middle ages, in which persons accused of certain crimes were forced to prove their innocence by walking blindfold among burning ploughshares, or by holding heated iron in their hands, was probably little else than a juggling trick, which the priests conducted as best suited their views. The accused was committed to their care during three entire days previous to the trial, and remained in their custody for the same space after it was over; the Ordeal took place in the church under their own immediate inspection; they not only consecrated, but heated, the iron themselves; mass was then said, and various ceremonies were performed, all calculated to divert the attention of the spectators; and when the operation was over, the part which had been exposed to the 384fire was carefully bound up and sealed, not to be opened until the end of the third day; doubtless, therefore, the time before the trial was occupied in preparing the skin to resist the effects of the heat, and that afterwards in obliterating the marks of any injury it might have sustained. That such was the fact has, indeed, been acknowledged in the works of Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar, who, after the trial by Ordeal had been abolished, published the secret of the art, which, if his account be correct, consisted in nothing more than covering the hands and feet at repeated intervals with a paste made of the sap of certain herbs mixed together with the white of an egg.

This deception was, however, practised in times more remote than the period to which we have alluded. There was anciently an annual festival held on Mount Soracte, in Etruria, at which certain people called Hirpi, used to walk over live embers, for which performance they were allowed some peculiar privileges by the Roman senate; the same feat was achieved by women at the temple of Diana, at Castabala, in Cappadocia; and allusion is even made, in the Antigone of the Grecian poet Sophocles, who wrote nearly five centuries anterior to our æra, to the very species of Ordeal which has been just noticed.

In modern times, much notice has been excited by jugglers, who practised deceptions by fire. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, one Richardson, an Englishman, excited great astonishment at Paris, by pretending to chew burning coals and to swallow melted lead, with many other 385equally extraordinary feats; some of which are thus recorded in Evelyn’s diary:—“October the 8th, 1672, took leave of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to the Hague to my Lord, now ambassador there. She made me stay dinner at Leicester House, and afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He, before us, devoured brimstone on glowing coals, chewing and swallowing them. He melted a beere glasse and eate it quite up; then taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was blowne on with bellows till it flamed and sparkled in his mouth, and so remained until the oyster was quite boiled; then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he dranke down as it flamed.” Many of our readers must recollect Signora Girardelli; and Miss Rogers, the American fire-eater, who was announced as having entered a heated oven with a leg of mutton in her hand, and having remained there until it was baked! This young lady exhibited all the tricks usually performed by such persons; she washed her hands in boiling oil, and then suffered aquafortis to be poured over them; but below the oil, there, no doubt, was a quantity of water, the air from which, when heated, forcing itself through the supernatant oil, gave it the appearance of boiling, when in reality its temperature probably did not exceed a hundred degrees of Fahrenheit; and when the hands were once well coated with oil, there was no danger from the aquafortis. She had also a ladle of melted lead, out of which she appeared to take a little with a spoon and pour into her mouth, and then to return in the 386shape of a solid lump; but in pretending to take the lead into the spoon, it was, in fact, quicksilver that was received, through a dexterous contrivance in the ladle, and this she swallowed, the solid lead having been previously placed in her mouth. She, besides, repeatedly placed her foot on a bar of hot iron; but the rapidity with which she removed it scarcely allowed time to injure the most delicate skin, even had it not been previously prepared: the cuticle of the hands and of the soles of the feet may, however, be easily rendered sufficiently callous to support a longer experiment. This effect will be produced if it be frequently punctured, or injured by being in continual contact with hard substances; repeatedly moistening it with spirit of vitriol will also at length render it horny and insensible; and thus it is not uncommon to see the labourers at copper-works take the melted ore into their hands.

The exhibition of cups and balls is of great antiquity, and depends entirely on manual dexterity. It is mentioned in the works of various ancient authors, one of whom relates the astonishment of a countryman, who, on first witnessing the performance, exclaimed, “that it was well he had no such animal on his farm, for under such hands no doubt all his property would soon disappear.”

Feats of strength have been common to all countries in every age. More than fifteen hundred years ago, there were persons who excited astonishment by the since ordinary exhibition of supporting vast weights upon the breast, and of even suffering iron to be forged on an anvil placed 387upon it. But these were mere tricks: to support the former, it is only necessary to place the body in such a position, with the shoulders and feet resting against some support, as that it shall form an arch; and as for the latter, if the anvil be large and the hammer small, the stroke will scarcely be felt; for the action and reaction being equal and reciprocal, an anvil of two hundred pounds weight will resist the stroke of a hammer of two pounds, wielded with the force of one hundred pounds, or of four pounds with the impetus of fifty, without injury to the body.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a German, who travelled over Europe under the appropriate name of Sampson, and who rendered himself celebrated by the uncommon strength which he displayed: among many other extraordinary feats, it is said, that he could so fix himself between two posts, as that two or even more horses, could not draw him from his position. The same exploit was attempted not many years back, in this country, by a person who placed himself with his feet resting in a horizontal posture against a strong bar; only one horse was employed, and the man was enabled to resist the entire force of the animal, until both his thigh bones suddenly snapped asunder. Another had the temerity to try the same experiment, and, in like manner, broke both his legs. These instances clearly show, that apparent strength is often nothing more than a judicious application of the mechanical powers to the human frame; and from the catastrophe attending the two latter may be deduced the anatomical 388fact, that the sinews of the arms possess a greater power of resistance than the largest bones of the body.

Feats of tumbling, rope dancing, and horsemanship, were practised at very early periods. Xenophon mentions a female dancer at Athens, who wrote and read while standing on a wheel which revolved with the greatest velocity; but the manner in which this was performed is not explained. Juvenal seems also to have alluded to a similar performance at Rome, in that passage where he says:

which, however, also wants explanation, although one of his most judicious translators has rendered it

Addison tells us, that, in his travels through Italy, he witnessed an annual exhibition that is peculiar to the Venetians. “A set of artisans, by the help of poles, which they laid across each others’ shoulders, built themselves up in a kind of pyramid; so that you saw a pile of men in the air, of four or five rows, rising one above another. The weight was so equally distributed that every man was well able to bear his part of it; the stories, if they might be so called, growing less and less as they advanced higher and higher. A 389little boy presented the top of the pyramid, who, after a short space, leaped off, with a great deal of dexterity, into the arms of one who caught him at the bottom.” But this was only the revival of an ancient feat, which, as we learn from the following verses of the poet Claudian, was formerly practised among the Romans:—

In the thirteenth century, these performances were introduced at Constantinople, by a strolling company from Egypt, who afterwards travelled to Rome, and thence through great part of Europe. They could stand in various postures on horses while at full speed, and both mount and dismount without stopping them; and their rope-dancers sometimes extended the rope on which they poised themselves between the masts of ships.

It appears also that the ancients taught animals to perform many tricks that are still exhibited, and some even yet more extraordinary. In the year 543, a learned dog was shown at the Byzantine court, which not only selected, and returned to the several owners, the rings and ornaments of the 390spectators, which were thrown together before him, but on being asked his opinion respecting the character of some of the females who were present, he expressed it by signs at once so significant and correct, that the people were persuaded he possessed the spirit of divination. In the reign of Galba, an elephant was exhibited at Rome which walked upon a rope stretched across the theatre; and such was the confidence reposed in his dexterity, that a person was mounted on him while he performed the feat.

It must require the exercise not alone of vast patience, but also of extraordinary cruelty, mingled perhaps with much kindness, to train animals to exhibit a degree of intelligence approaching to that of human beings. It is said that bears are taught to dance by being placed in a den with a floor of heated iron: the animal, endeavouring to avoid the smart to which his paws are thus exposed, rears himself on his hind legs, and alternately raises them with the utmost rapidity, during all which time a flageolet is played to him; and after this lesson has been frequently repeated, he becomes so impressed with the associated recollection of the music and the pain, that, whenever he hears the same tune, he instinctively recurs to the same efforts, in order to escape the fancied danger.

In the middle of the last century, there was an Englishman, named Wildman, who excited great attention by the possession of a secret through the means of which he enticed bees to follow him, and to settle on his person without stinging him. A similar circumstance is related in Francis Bruce’s 391voyage to Africa in 1698, in which mention is made of a man who was constantly surrounded by a swarm of these insects, and who had thence obtained the title of “King of the bees.”

Only one instance is recorded in ancient history of the art of supplying the deficiency of hands by the use of toes; and that is of an Indian slave belonging to the emperor Augustus, who, being without arms, could, notwithstanding, wield a bow and arrows and put a trumpet to his mouth with his feet.

Of late years some persons have exhibited themselves in the character of stone-eaters; but although these are to be considered as mere jugglers, yet it would appear that there have been others who actually possessed the faculty of digesting similar substances. Of the instances on record we shall merely select one, from the “Dictionnaire Physique,” of father Paulian:—“The beginning of May 1760, there was brought to Avignon a true lithophagus, or stone-eater, who had been found, about three years before that time, in a northern island, by the crew of a Dutch ship. He not only swallowed flints of an inch and a half long, a full inch broad, and half an inch thick, but such stones as he could reduce to powder, such as marble, pebbles, &c., he made up into paste, which was to him a most agreeable and wholesome food. I examined this man with all the attention I possibly could; I found his gullet very large, his teeth exceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, and his stomach lower than ordinary, which I imputed to the vast quantity of flints he had swallowed, 392being about five and twenty, one day with another. His keeper made him eat raw flesh with the stones, but could never induce him to swallow bread; he would, however, drink water, wine, and brandy, which last liquor appeared to afford him infinite pleasure. He usually slept twelve hours a day, sitting on the ground, with one knee over the other, and his chin resting on it; and when not asleep he passed the greater part of his time in smoking.” In the year 1802, there was a Frenchman, who, indeed, did not profess to eat stones, but who publicly devoured at the amphitheatre, in the city of Lisbon, a side of raw mutton, with a rabbit and a fowl, both alive: he advertised a repetition of the experiment, with the addition of a live cat; but the magistrates, deeming the exhibition too brutal for the public eye, would not again allow its performance. Notwithstanding the public display of this man, and the extraordinary fact of his having appeared to swallow living animals, may rank him in the class of jugglers, it is still probable that he was no impostor; for instances of such uncommon powers of the stomach are by no means rare, and among others we read of another Frenchman who was in the constant habit, as an amateur, of eating cats alive, and was even strongly suspected of having devoured a child.

A Legend^[79] was originally a book used in the old Romish churches, containing the lessons that were to be read in divine service. Hence also the lives of saints and martyrs came to be called legends, because chapters were read out of them at matins, and in the refectories of the religious houses. The Golden Legend is a collection of the lives of the Saints, compiled by James De Varasse, better known by the Latin name of J. De Veragine, Vicar-General of the Dominicans, and afterwards Bishop of Genoa, who died in 1298. It was received into the church with the most enthusiastic applause, which it maintained for 200 years; but, in fact, it is so full of ridiculous and absurd romantic monstrosities, that the Romanists themselves are now generally ashamed of it. On this very account alone the word Legend got into general disrepute.

The following is stated to be the origin of those ecclesiastical histories entitled Legends:—The professors in rhetoric, before colleges were established in the monasteries where the schools were held, frequently gave their pupils the life of some saint for a trial of their talent at amplification. The students, being constantly at a loss to furnish out their pages, invented most of these wonderful adventures. Jortin observes, that the Christians 394used to collect out of Ovid, Livy, and other pagan poets and historians, the miracles and portents, so found there, and accommodated them to their own monks and saints. The good fathers of that age, whose simplicity was not inferior to their devotion, were so delighted with these flowers of rhetoric, that they were induced to make a collection of these miraculous compositions; not imagining that, at some distant period, they would become matters of faith. Yet when James De Veragine, Peter Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira, wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought for the materials in the libraries of these monasteries; and, awakening from the dust the manuscripts of amplification, imagined they made an invaluable present to the world, by laying before them these voluminous absurdities. The people received these pious fictions with all imaginable simplicity; and as the book is adorned with a number of cuts, these miracles were perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Fleury, Tillemont, Baillet, Launoi, and Ballendus, cleared away much of the rubbish. The enviable title of Golden Legend, by which James De Veragine called his work, has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly express the character of this folio.

The monks, when the world became more critical in their reading, gave a graver turn to their narratives, and became more penurious of their absurdities. The faithful Catholic contends that the line of tradition has been preserved unbroken; notwithstanding that the originals were lost in the general wreck of literature from the barbarians, or came down in a most imperfect state. Baronius 395has given the lives of many apocryphal saints; for instance, of a Saint Xenoris, whom he calls a Martyr of Antioch; but it appears that Baronius having read this work in Chrysostom, which signifies a couple or pair, he mistook it for the name of a saint, and continued to give the most authentic biography of a saint who never existed! The Catholics confess this sort of blunder is not uncommon, but then it is only fools who laugh!

As a specimen of the happier inventions, one is given, embellished by the diction of Gibbon the historian.

“Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers, whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern on the side of an adjacent mountain, where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured by a pile of stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end of that time the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice. The light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake: after a slumber, as they thought, of a 396few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if we may still employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on suspicion of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual inquiries produced the amazing discovery that two centuries were almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, it is said, the emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story, and at the same instant peaceably expired.

“This popular tale Mahomet learned when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria; and he has introduced it, as a divine revelation, into the Koran.” The same story has been adopted and adorned, by the natives from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion.

These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a saint’s filthiness. St. Ignatius delighted, say they, to appear abroad with old dirty shoes; he never used a comb, but suffered 397his hair to run into clots, and religiously abstained from paring his nails. One saint attained to such a pitch of piety as to have near three hundred patches on his breeches; which, after his death, were exhibited in public as a stimulus to imitate such a holy life. St. Francis discovered, by certain experience, that the devil was frightened away by similar kinds of unmentionables; but was animated by clean clothing to tempt and seduce the wearers; and one of their heroes declares that the purest souls are in the dirtiest bodies. On this subject a story is told by them which may not be very agreeable to fastidious delicacy. Brother Juniper was a gentleman perfectly pious in this principle; indeed so great was his merit in this species of mortification, that a brother declared he could always nose Brother Juniper when within a mile of the monastery, provided he was at the due point. Once, when the blessed Juniper, for he was no saint, was a guest, his host, proud of the honour of entertaining so pious a personage, the intimate friend of St. Francis, provided an excellent bed and the finest sheets. Brother abhorred such luxury; and this too evidently appeared after his sudden departure in the morning, unknown to his kind host. The great Juniper did this, says his biographer, (having told us what he did) not so much from his habitual inclinations for which he was so justly celebrated, as from his excessive piety, and as much as he could to mortify worldly pride, and to shew how a true saint despised clean sheets.

Among other grotesque miracles we find, in the 398life of St. Francis, that he preached a sermon in a desert, but he soon collected an immense audience. The birds shrilly warbled to every sentence, and stretched out their necks, opened their beaks, and when he finished, dispersed with a holy rapture into four companies, to report his sermon to all the birds of the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during the absence of the Virgin Mary, and fastened on his head. He grew so companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to twitter, he hushed them, by desiring them not to tittle tattle of his sister the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign manual of the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint, followed him through towns, and became half a Christian. This same St. Francis had such a detestation of the good things of this world, that he would never suffer his followers to touch money. A friar having placed some money in a window collected at the altar, he observed him to take it in his mouth and throw it on the dung of an ass! St. Phillip Nerius was such an admirer of poverty that he frequently prayed God would bring him to that state as to stand in need of a penny, and find none that would give him one! But St. Macaire was so shocked at having killed a louse that he endured seven years of penitence among the thorns and briars of a forest.

The following miraculous incident is given respecting two pious maidens. The night of the Nativity of Christ, after the first mass, they both 399retired into a solitary spot of their nunnery till the second mass was rung. One asked the other, “why do you want two cushions, when I have only one?” The other replied, “I would place it between us, for the child Jesus; as the Evangelist says, “Where there are two or three persons assembled I am in the midst of them.”—This being done, they sat down, feeling a most lively pleasure at their fancy; and there they remained from the nativity of Christ to that of John the Baptist; but this great interval of time passed with these saintly maidens, as two hours would appear to others. The abbess and her nuns were alarmed at their absence, for no one could give any account of them. On the eve of St. John, a cowherd passing by them, beheld a beautiful child seated on a cushion between this pair of run-away nuns. He hastened to the abbess with news of this stray sheep, who saw this lovely child playfully seated between these nymphs, who, with blushing countenances, enquired if the second bell had already rung? Both parties were equally astonished to find our young devotees had been there since the birth of Christ to that of John the Baptist. The abbess inquired after the child who sat between them: they solemnly declared they saw no child between them, and persisted in their story.”

“Such,” observes a late writer on this subject, “is one of the miracles of the ‘Golden Legend,’ which a wicked wit might comment on, and see nothing extraordinary in the whole story. The two nuns might be missing between the nativities, and be found at last with a child seated between 400them. They might not choose to account either for their absence or their child: the only touch of miracle is, that they asseverated they saw no child, that I confess is a little (child) too much.

Ribadeneira’s Lives of the Saints exhibit more of the legendary spirit than Alban Butler’s work on the same subject, (which, by the bye, is the most sensible history of these legends;) for wanting judgment and not faith, the former is more voluminous in his details, and more ridiculous in his narratives.

Alban Butler affirms that St. Genevieve, the patron of Paris, was born in 422, at Nanterre, four miles from Paris, near the present Calvary there, and that she died a virgin on this day in 512, and was buried in 545, near the steps of the high altar, in a magnificent church, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, began by Clovis, where he also was interred. Her relics were afterwards taken up and put into a costly shrine about 630. Of course they worked miracles. Her shrine of gold and silver, covered with precious stones, the presents of kings and queens, and with a cluster of diamonds on the top, presented by the intriguing Mary de Medicis, is, on calamitous occasions, carried about Paris in procession, accompanied by shrines equally miraculous, and by the canons of St. Genevieve walking barefoot.

The miracles of St. Genevieve, as related in the Golden Legend, were equally numerous and equally credible. It relates that when she was a child, St. Germaine said to her mother, “Know ye for certain that on the day of Genevieve’s nativity the 401angels sung with joy and gladness,” and looking on the ground he saw a penny signed with the cross, which came there by the will of God; he took it up, and gave it to Genevieve, requiring her to bear in mind that she was the spouse of Christ. She promised him accordingly, and often went to the minister, that she might be worthy of her espousals. “Then,” says the Legend, “the mother was angry, and smote her on the cheek—God avenged the child, so that the mother became blind,” and so remained for one and twenty months, when Genevieve fetched her some holy water, signed her with the sign of the cross, washed her eyes, and she recovered her sight. It further relates, that by the Holy Ghost she showed many people their secret thoughts, and that from fifteen years to fifty, she fasted every day except Sunday and Thursday, when she ate beans, and barley bread of three weeks old. Desiring to build a church, and dedicate it to St. Denis and other martyrs, she required materials of the priests for that purpose. “Dame,” answered the priests, “we would; but we can get no chalk nor lime.” She desired them to go to the bridge of Paris, and bring what they found there. They did so till two swineherds came by, one of whom said to the other, ‘I went yesterday after one of my sows and found a bed of lime;’ the other replied that he had also found one under the root of a tree that the wind had blown down. St. Genevieve’s priests of course inquired where these discoveries were made, and bearing the tidings to Genevieve, the church of St. Denis was began. During its 402progress the workmen wanted drink, whereupon Genevieve called for a vessel, prayed over it, signed it with the cross, and the vessel was immediately filled; “so,” says the Legend, “the workmen drank their belly full,” and the vessel continued to be supplied in the same way with “drink” for the workmen till the church was finished. At another time a woman stole St. Genevieve’s shoes, but as soon as she got home lost her sight for the theft, and remained blind, till, having restored the shoes, St. Genevieve restored the woman’s sight. Desiring the liberation of certain prisoners condemned to death at Paris, she went thither and found the city gates were shut against her, but they opened without any other key than her own presence. She prayed over twelve men in that city possessed with devils, till the men were suspended in the air, and the devils were expelled. A child of four years old fell into a pit, and was killed; St. Genevieve only covered her with her mantle and prayed over her, and the child came to life, and was baptised at Easter. On a voyage to Spain she arrived at a port “where, as of custom, ships were wont to perish.” Her own vessel was likely to strike on a tree in the water, which seems to have caused the wrecks; she commanded the tree to be cut down, and began to pray; when lo, just as the tree began to fall, “two wild heads, grey and horrible, issued thereout, which stank so sore, that the people there were envenomed by the space of two hours, and never after perished ship there; thanks be to God and this holy saint.”

403At Meaux, a master not forgiving his servant his faults, though St. Genevieve prayed him, she prayed against him. He was immediately seized with a hot ague: “on the morrow he came to the holy virgin, running with open mouth like a German bear, his tongue hanging out like a boar, and requiring pardon.” She then blessed him, the fever left him, and the servant was pardoned. A girl going out with a bottle, St. Genevieve called to her, and asked what she carried: she answered oil, which she had bought; but St. Genevieve seeing the devil sitting on the bottle, blew upon it, and the bottle broke, but the saint blessed the oil, and caused her to bear it home safely notwithstanding. The Golden Legend says, that the people who saw this, marvelled that the saint could see the devil, and were greatly edified.

It was to be expected that a saint of such miraculous powers in her lifetime should possess them after her death, and accordingly the reputation of her relics is very high.

Several stories of St. Genevieve’s miraculous faculties, represent them as very convenient in vexatious cases of ordinary occurrence; one of these will serve as a specimen. On a dark wet night she was going to church with her maidens, with a candle borne before her, which the wind and rain put out; the saint merely called for the candle, and as soon as she took it in her hand it was lighted again, “without any fire of this world.”

Other stories of her lighting candles in this way, call to mind a candle, greatly venerated by 404E. Worsley, in a “Discourse of Miracles wrought in the Roman Catholic Church, or, a full refutation of Dr. Stillingfleet’s unjust Exceptions against Miracles,” octavo, 1676. At p. 64, he says, “that the miraculous wax candle, yet seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois, may give the reader entertainment, being most certain, and never doubted of by any. In 1105, that is, much above 720 years ago, (of so great antiquity the candle is,) a merciless plague reigned in Arras. The whole city, ever devout to the Mother of God, experienced her, in this their necessity, to be a true mother of mercy; the manner was thus: The Virgin Mary appeared to two men, and enjoined them to tell the bishop of Arras, that on the next Saturday towards morning she would appear in the great church, and put into his hands a wax candle burning; from whence drops of wax should fall into a vessel of water prepared by the bishop. She said, moreover, that all the diseased that drank of this water, should forthwith be cured. This truly promised, truly happened. Our blessed Lady appeared all beautiful, having in her hands a wax candle burning, which diffused light over the whole church; this she presented to the bishop; he blessing it with the sign of the cross, set it in the urn of water; when drops of wax plentifully fell down into the vessel. The diseased drank of it; all were cured; the contagion ceased; and the candle to this day, preserved with great veneration, spends itself, yet loses nothing; and therefore remains still of the same length and greatness it did 720 years ago. A vast quantity of wax, made up 405of the many drops which fall into the water upon those festival days, when the candle burns, may be justly called a standing indeficient miracle.”

This candle story, though gravely related by a catholic writer, as “not doubted of by any,” and as therefore not to be doubted, miraculously failed in convincing the protestant Stillingfleet, that “miracles wrought in the Roman catholic church,” ought to be believed.

The early monks attracted the notice of the people by the rigid exercise of their devotions. The greater part of them passed their time in deserted places, in divine contemplation, and in the acquisition of useful knowledge; in consequence of which, they began to be venerated and considered as heavenly-minded men, approaching to the perfection of angels; but in the course of time, and on this very account, their reclusion, and the regard in which they were held, soon induced multitudes to betake themselves to the same courses of life, though not with the same views; as being more profitable than the remuneration resulting from their own homely and industrious avocations. The numbers that embraced this profession became at length so overwhelming and intolerant, that factions burst out amongst them, to which the spirit of the people soon became subject, and to cause grievous disturbances thereby, both to church and state. Many of the wandering hordes, under the denomination of monks, are 406represented by Gregory Nazianzen, as crews of ruffians and banditti, rather than as sober-minded men, professing a scrupulous morality, with a view to the amelioration of society and the welfare of mankind in general. They were cruel, rapacious, insinuating, cunning, and not unfrequently malignant in the extreme, indulging in the vilest propensities that shock and disgust human nature; and if we may believe their contemporaries, no species of vice was unknown to, or left unpractised by them.

The first dawn of monkish influence and power in the western world, was ushered in by St. Jerome, who, though represented as a very pious and good man, but having some passions the world had not yet gratified, grew wroth with and retired into the east, where he turned monk; and, as if to be revenged of the ungrateful world, he openly professed, that it were hardly possible to receive salvation in it without adopting the same course as he had done, that was, to become a monk. And although thus far monkery had its way paved in the west by the resolutions of Jerome, it was many years after his death, before any order of monkhood was instituted in that quarter.

Benedict, who lived about an hundred years after St. Jerome, being reckoned the father of the order in the western parts, and although it does not appear that he formed any order of monks, with the three vows, yet since the oldest monkish order in the Roman church is called by his name, we shall give first a short sketch of him and his order; leaving the reader to take, as well in this instance 407as in those that follow, as much for granted as he can well swallow, without danger of being choked.

Of the birth, parentage, and education of the Blessed Benedict, all we can state is, that his holiness drew his first pious and miraculous breath in Rome, about the year 480; and that having, whilst a boy, become weary of a wicked world, he retired to the Desert of Sabulea in Italy, where he was kindly received and hospitably entertained by a monk, whose name was Roman, who lived retired from man, in the cleft of an immense high rock, of difficult and hazardous access. The generous and christianlike Roman supplied his young guest with a portion of all he begged, borrowed, or stole, or could possibly spare out of his own all devouring paunch. But it would appear, that getting tired of his protegé, whose appetite, perhaps, might be too great a drawback upon his fortuitous resources, or whether in the midst of an accidental and unexpected blow out that he met with, somewhere or other, on an Easter-eve, he forgot to supply his guest in the cranny with his usual fare; be this as it may, all protecting Providence, that “feeds the young ravens,” and who “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” was not on this occasion unmindful of young Benedict; for it turned out that a certain priest, whose name we are not favoured with, and who it appears had been on a similar foraging expedition as Roman, against Eastertide, was hailed by a voice from heaven, and bid “not to take so much care of his own gut, but to carry that he had provided to the place where Benedict 408was.” The priest obeyed; gave Benedict the contents of his market basket, and also told him that it was Easter-day, an event that was unknown to him previous to this unexpected visit. Having, however, been subsequently forced out of his den to procure food, for it does not appear that either Roman or the priest ever returned, some shepherds discovered him crawling among the bushes covered with “beasts’ hair;” at which they became so terrified, that taking him for some savage monster, they were about to depart, when they had a glimpse of his physog, which certainly formed an encouraging contrast when compared with the preter human developement of his body; the result was, the shepherds took courage and approached him; and having, as the story goes, been much edified with his discourse, they informed the neighbourhood of the affair, which was the means of young Benedict being well supplied with every thing he stood in need of; in return for which, they were as well repaid with godly exhortations. But the devil, who, no doubt, is always on the que vive when any of his opponents are getting a-head of him, was resolved to put young ’Dict’s chastity to the test, appeared to him in the shape of a blackbird, and approached so near to his mouth that ’dict might, had he thought proper, have grabbed him; but, instead of availing himself of this opportunity to crush old Beelzebub, he heroically suffered him to escape, although he, the devil, left behind him “so terrible a dishonest carnal temptation,” that Benedict never before nor after this time, felt such queer and indescribable 409sensations; in short, he was in such a quandary, that he hesitated and doubted whether it would not be better for him to return once more to the world, the flesh, sin and the devil; yet, having recovered himself a little from the paroxysm with which the devil had contrived to possess him, he threw off his clothes and rolled among thorns. But whereas Benedict, for sundry causes and reasons moving him thereunto, did keep a raven, which said raven the aforesaid Benedict did constantly every day feed with his own hand, which raven, Benedict, whether from similarity of appetite or other latent and peculiar passion, always addressed by the familiar and consanguineous appellation of brother; on this occasion, having offered him a part of the poisoned loaf, the sagacious raven rejected it with indignation, and commenced flying and croaking about his master, pointing out to him, in the most ravenous manner, the evil intended him. Alarmed at such conduct, Benedict said, Brother, I did not offer you this loaf that you should eat it, but that you might carry it and hide it somewhere, that it may never do any hurt. This was done, the raven disposed of the poisoned loaf, returned, and had his dinner as usual^[80].

Notwithstanding this disappointment, Florentino did not cease to persecute Benedict. He got together, for this purpose, a number of common strumpets, whom he sent to dance naked before the holy Friar; this ordinance, to the great joy of Florentino, they correctly performed to the letter, 410which compelled Benedict to leave the place, lest peradventure he might be tempted di novo to sin against the flesh, as he was in the wilderness, by the Devil in the shape of a blackbird. But that joy was not of long duration, for soon after Florentino’s house fell down upon him and killed him. When Benedict heard of his death, he was exceedingly troubled, not because he died during his wicked courses, but because he had, he said, lost an enemy, who, if he had lived, would have increased his merits much. After this great loss, Benedict was informed, that Apollo still had a temple on the mountain of Callino, and was worshipped in it with sacrifices; he accordingly mustered together some of his brethren, and went and pulled it down to the ground, set fire to all the groves that surrounded it, and having built a monastery on the same spot, he converted the whole country round to christianity.

The Devil, as may easily be supposed, got very angry with Benedict for having deprived him of that mountain, called out Benedict, Benedict, for the purpose of speaking to him, but Benedict, it appears, did not vouchsafe to answer him; in consequence of which, the Devil left him, ejaculating, as he fled away, Maledict, Maledict, what hast thou to do with me? Why do you persecute me so much? And, in the height of his diabolical passion and despair, threw down a wall that was building, which unfortunately fell upon a boy and killed him; but Benedict, to be revenged of the Devil, soon brought him to life again. Brother Plaudo had been drowned, if brother Mauro had not been sent by Benedict to draw him out of the 411water. There was a great fuss made to know who was the author of that miracle; Benedict conferring the merit on Mauro, and Mauro, equally courteous and condescending, attributing it to Benedict.

The order styled the Benedictine, was not only the oldest but the richest in the Roman church. The costume was black, in compliment, no doubt, to the Raven, who had the honour of being Benedict’s first brother; and the leather belt which they wore, was believed to possess so much virtue, that it was kissed kneeling by all who visited them, if they wished to be well received.

The second order of monks, and which, similar to the others, arose out of the relaxations of the Benedictines, was that of Cluny in France, instituted about the year 900, by Abbot Odo.

This order differed very little from the Benedictine. When Odo was a boy he was much delighted with Virgil: “he was cured of that dangerous appetite by a vessel, which was very curious, being shewn to him, but which was within full of deadly serpents; and lest Odo should, by his great fondness for Virgil, have been hindered from applying that vision right, the application was made by a voice from Heaven; and which Odo having heard, he flung away his Virgil and all his serpents with it. And having been after that much devoted to St. Martin, though he met with no serpents in his way, as he went by night to St. Martin’s church to pray to him, he met with herds of foxes, which so pestered him, that he scarcely knew what to do; this plague continued until a 412kind wolf came, and did offer Odo his assistance, and of which Odo having accepted, that wolf, when he travelled, was such a guard to him, and when he was within doors such a porter, that the foxes never molested him any more.”

The third order of monks in the Roman church was the Camalduman in Italy, instituted by Romualdus about the year 970. He was born at Ravenna, and had been sentenced to live 40 days in a monastery, for having been concerned in a duel, in which his father, who was a duke, had killed his adversary; and it was from this circumstance that he was miraculously converted into a monk, an honour which he had previously frequently refused, at the solicitation of a brother of the order with whom he had contracted an acquaintance. The monk at length asked whether he would consent to be one of them, if St. Apolonar appeared to him, to which he replied he would. It was therefore contrived that St. Apolonar, or his representative, should actually appear; and in order to receive this visit, his friend, the monk and himself, spent the night in prayer before an altar. Just as the cock crowed, St. Apolonar emerged from under the identical altar, where, no doubt, his proxy had previously been concealed, “clothed with light and having a golden censor in his hand: he went about in his pontificalibus, and incensed all the altars in the church, and after he had done that, went back by the same way that he came. And though it is not said that Apolonar did speak a word to Romualdus of turning monk, he did nevertheless, upon that vision, take the habit upon 413him; and not having learnt to read and sing his psalter, he was taught it by a monk whose name was Marinus, and who switched him so severely on the left-side of his head, that his left ear lost its hearing; and which was borne with that cheerfulness, that he spoke to Marinus to switch him on the other side of the head, when he deserved to be corrected.”

Never was monk so kicked and cuffed about, persecuted and tormented by the Devil, as poor Romualdus. At first the Devil knocked such a dust at the door of his cell whenever he went to bed, that he could not get a wink of sleep for the noise. Being at length so much exhausted for want of a nap, he began, notwithstanding the horrid noise, to snooze a little, when the Devil turned himself into some heavy body and laid so heavy upon his thighs and legs, that he severely bruised them, and broke some of the bones. And though monk Romualdus often made his tormentor slink out of his cell, ashamed of his evil doings, he would, nevertheless, not cease to molest him. So frequently, in fact, was he visited by Armadeus, and so numerous were their conflicts, that a brother monk could not approach the cell of Romualdus without being mistaken for the Devil by him: and believing this to be the case, he would cry out as loud as his lungs would permit—“Accursed, what would’st thou have? Bold dog, I forbid thee to come here; thou poisonous serpent, that was thrown down from Heaven, I do forbid thee!” These were the weapons with which this miraculously converted monk had always ready to meet the 414Devil whenever he made his appearance. One evening, however, as he was muttering over his Completus, a whole squadron of Devils rushed in upon him, knocked him down, kicked him for falling, and inflicted several very severe wounds upon his precious body; and although he was weary and faint with loss of blood, he continued saying all the while his Completus till he completed, when by a short prayer he dispersed the whole battalion.

After this great and glorious victory, the Devil would never grapple with him again; but would, sometimes, in the shape of a Raven, a Bustard, an Ethiopian, or some savage beast, stand at a distance, loll out his tongue, and make wry faces at him. And although Romualdus was a bit of a duellist, as we have already shewn, would challenge and dare the Devil to come up to the mark, his devilship was too good a judge to venture near him; and finding at length that he was no match for Romualdus, he stirred up divers monks to persecute him, which, in fact, they did with great fury, but with as ill success as he who prompted them.

The fourth order of monks is that of the Valle Umbrosa, instituted by one Gilbert, from whom his fraternity assumed the name of Gilbertines. The reader will at once know enough of this Mr. Gilbert when we inform him, at once, that he was the pupil of Romualdus, and that he was called to be a monk by a crucifix, which, when he was in the act of worshipping it, nodded its head and smiled at him.

The fifth order is the Carthusian, instituted towards 415the end of the eleventh century; it is governed by institutions of its own making, and is the strictest order in the Roman church. This monastery was generally the last refuge of the discontented, rather than the retreat of unfeigned piety and devotion, who threw themselves into this solitary state of life, to which they fettered themselves, by indissoluble vows, for the remainder of their days. They were allowed enough of good bread and wine, and although they abstained from flesh, and every thing that had touched it, they had a plentiful supply of good fish and fruit.

This inhuman order was instituted by one Bruno, a German, but who was a canon of the church of Rheims; of whom the reader will learn enough, when we inform him that he was driven to this determination by a Parisian doctor, with whom he had been intimately acquainted, and of whose piety as well as learning, he entertained a very high opinion, and who for three days following after his death, when he was on the point of being committed to the grave, sate up, and loudly declared, that by the just judgment of God he was damned; which, as soon as he had pronounced, he lay down again.^[81]

There is another story that the bishop of Grenoble, the night before Bruno and his six companions came to him, in quest of a solitary place to live in, had a vision, in which he saw Christ come down from Heaven, and in a desert place of his diocese, called the Chartreuse, built a palace. He likewise beheld seven stars of the colour of 416gold, which having joined themselves together, they made a crown, which by degrees raised itself from the earth, and ascended up into heaven. The bishop at first sight knew Bruno and his companions to be the seven stars he had seen; and in consequence of this recognition, he bestowed upon them all the lands called the Chartreuse. In order, also, that Bruno should be as little remiss in his duty and gratitude, he erected the monastery as conformable to the vision of the bishop as means and materials would allow.

The sixth order of monks in the Roman church is the Cistertian, said to have been instituted by Abbot Robert; but whether it was so or otherwise, Bernard has always been named as the founder.

Bernard was born in France in the 12th century; and to do him justice, he seems to have had the best natural parts, and the most learning of any of the monastic founders; and had it not been for the tragical fraud he adopted to promote a very unfortunate cruzado, and the other frauds he used in favour of the Pope, to whom he adhered during the time of a schism, his sincerity and piety might have been judged equal to his other talents.

His mother, during the time she was pregnant with him, dreamed she had a white dog in her womb, which in all probability was the reason the Cistertian monks dressed in white, in the same manner as Benedict’s raven might have suggested the colour to the vestments of the Benedictines.

During his infancy Bernard was much troubled with head-ach; and an old woman having been 417sent for to cure him, he would not suffer her to come near him, from the belief that she made use of charms. One Christmas-day, when he was at church, during his boyhood, he prayed that the very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and when that hour came, he saw a new-born infant. What a pity it is that Bernard, who has written so much, did not record that hour, the day, the month, and the year, about which chronologers are still so much divided.

During a hard frosty night, Bernard was seized with a violent paroxysm of satyriasis, or strong carnal inclination: he precipitated himself into a pond of water, and remained there until he was almost frozen to death.

On another occasion, during the time he was preaching to a very numerous congregation, who were listening to him, a temptation of vain glory invaded him, and he heard a voice within him saying, see, how all the people do attend unto your words. He was just going to leave off preaching to mortify this temptation, but perceiving it was the Devil who had addressed him, for the purpose of interrupting his sermon, he turned about his head to the tempter, and thus coolly spoke to him—As I did not begin this sermon for thee, so neither will I end it for thee, and so went on preaching as before. He was always very sickly, and not only rejoiced that he was so himself, but he judged it fit that all monks ought to be so: for which reason he built Claraval, and all his other monasteries, in low damp places.

Bernard laboured hard to bring all his monks to 418an uninterrupted attention to their devotions; and having one day, as he was riding, been told by a peasant, “that he found that to be an easy thing;” he promised him the mule he rode upon, if he would but say the Lord’s prayer without any distraction of thought. The peasant began the prayer, but before he got half through it, he confessed that “it came into his mind, whether with the mule he was to have the saddle and bridle also.”

Being at Pavia, a woman possessed of a devil was brought before him; but before Bernard had time to utter a word to the woman, the devil cried out, “do you think that such an onion and leek carrier as this, is able to throw me out of possession?” Upon which Bernard ordered the woman to be carried to St. Sirus’ church, in which, though Sirus had previously dispossessed all that had ever come before him, he would not do it at this time, that Bernard might have the honour of it himself. The devil, however, set them both at defiance, and in a scoffing manner told them, that neither little Siry nor little Barny should turn him out. But the devil was mistaken for once in his life; little Barny, as he styled him, soon served an ejectment upon him. To another woman in the same city, on whom the devil had lain in a very dishonest manner, he gave a stick, with which she so belaboured him, that he never troubled her any more.

After Bernard had persuaded the kings of England and France to submit to the Pope; but not being able to prevail upon the Duke of Aquitaine, 419he went one day to him with the sacrament in his hand, when the Duke threw himself down at his feet; on which Bernard gave him a lusty kick, and bade him rise and acknowledge the true Pope. The Duke rose immediately, and being thus kicked into it, made his submission, and acknowledged the Vicegerent of Heaven.

The seventh order of monks is the Cælestine, instituted by Petrus Moronus, who having afterwards become Pope, took the name of Cælestine. This poor monk was persuaded by Cardinal Cagestan, who took the name of Boniface the 8th, to abdicate the Roman chair, that he might spend his whole time in devotion. But his successor, Boniface, fearing that were he at liberty in his monastery, it might come into his head to return to the pontifical chair, kept him a close prisoner as long as he lived.

The eighth order of monks is the Williamite, called also the order of Montes Virginis, and of Montis Oliveti, instituted by one William, a noble Italian, which at one time possessed 47 monasteries. There were Hermits who were likewise called Williamites, from William, Duke of Aquitaine, but they were amalgamated with the mendicant order of the monks of St. Austin.

The ninth order was the Sylvestern. There was also another instituted by the nobles of Milan, called the Humiliate, who having quarrelled with Cardinal Borromeus, Archbishop of Milan, dissolved the order and seized all their revenues, which were immense.

All the preceding orders, besides the Carthusians, 420were all under the Benedictine rule, whose monks were both the oldest and richest pertaining to the Roman church, in which the monastic rules are four in number—namely, the rule of St. Bazil, St. Austin, and St. Benedict.

The order of monks under St. Austin’s rule, as it was called, were the canons regular, the Premonstratenses; the Dominicans; the Hieronomites, in various shapes; the Servites; the Jesuits; the Crucigeri; the Boni Jesu; the Trinitarians; the Eremites of St. Augustin; the Theatines; the Pautestæ; the military orders of St. John of Jerusalem, of St. James of Compostella, of the Teutonick order, of St. Lazarus, and of St. Mauritius.

The Dominican order, of which only we shall here allude, is the third under the rule of St. Austin, was instituted about the beginning of the 13th century, and is both the first mendicant order and the first order that had a solemn confirmation from the Pope. They are very numerous, and have still many convents in Spain and Portugal.

Dominick, the founder of this order, was born in Spain, in 1170. His mother, when she was with child with him, dreamed that she was delivered of a hog, with a flaming torch in his mouth, an emblem appropriate enough for an inquisitor; and when he was baptized, his god mother, although it was visible to no one else, saw a star that illuminated all the world; and as he lay in his cradle, a swarm of bees pitched upon his lips. And, although from the day of his baptism to the day of his death, he is said never to have committed one mortal sin, he would, nevertheless, before 421he was seven years old, rise out of his costly bed, for his parents were said to have been very rich, and lie upon the ground. When he was a boy he would never play or use any pastimes; and when he arrived at man’s estate, he gave all that had been left him by his father, with the exception of his books, among the poor; and having nothing else left to give, he gave them his books also.

Seeing a woman one day weeping bitterly for the loss of her brother, who had been taken captive by the Moors, he begged her to take him, and to sell him to those infidels, and with the money he should fetch, redeem her brother; but, to his extreme mortification, the woman refused to comply with his desire.

One day, when Dominick was in his study, the devil so pestered him in the shape of a flea, leaping and frisking about on the leaves of his book, that he found it impossible to continue his reading: irritated at length by such unhandsome treatment, he fixed him on the very spot where he finished reading, and in this shape made use of him to find the place again. Having at last, however, released old nick from this demonological dilemma, he appeared to him again in his study in the guise of a monkey, and grinned so “horribly a ghastly grin,” and skipped about so, that he was more annoyed now than before. To put a stop to these monkey tricks, Dominick forthwith commanded him, the said monkey, to take the candlestick and hold it for him; this the monkey did, and Dominick made him continue holding it, 422until it was burnt down to the bottom of the wick, and although the monkey made a horrid noise at burning his fingers, he was forced to hold it until it was burnt out, which it did until it had burnt the devil’s monkey fingers to the bone.

Having gone into France with the bishop of Osma, of whose church Dominick was a canon, though by preaching and working miracles he converted the Albigenses about Toulouse by thousands in a day, he, nevertheless, so roused Simon de Montford, who was general of the Pope’s cruzado against those christians, by which Montfort, and his cruzado, to which Dominick was the chief chaplain, that many thousands of those poor christians were butchered.

That part of France must necessarily, at that time, have been very populous, otherwise there could not have been so many of those christians left for Montfort to murder, after Dominick had made such extensive conversions among them, for assuredly Montfort would not lay violent hands on any of his proselytes. The greatest conversion ever made by Dominick was after he had the rosary given him by the blessed virgin, whose virtues Dominick successfully eulogized with all the eloquence he was master of. There was one, however, desperate enough to ridicule both the rosary and the mountebank oratory upon its virtues; but he was soon punished for his audacity, by a great number of devils getting into him; but Dominick relenting at the sufferings of the demoniac, although he did not deserve such commiseration 423at his hands, called the devils to an account for the uproarious noise they made; when the following colloquy passed between them.

Dominick.—How came you to enter this man, and how many are you in number?

Devils.—(After tremendous howlings.) We came into him for having spoken disrespectfully of the rosary; and for his having laughed and made “merry game” of your sermons. We are 15,000 in number, and have been forced much against our inclination to enter one who might have done us infinite services.

Dom.—Why did so many as 15,000 of you enter him?

Dev.—Because there are 15 decads in the rosary which he derided.

Dom.—Why did you suffer this man to be brought to me?

Dev.—(All together roaring out.) It was done to our great confusion: we could not prevent it.

Dom.—Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary?

Dev.—(After the most hideous bellowing.) Cursed be the hour in which we entered into this statue? Woe be unto us for ever! Why did we not suffocate him before he was brought hither? But it is now too late and we cannot do it, for thou holdest us in burning flames and chains of fire, so that we are forced to declare the truth to thee, to our great prejudice. O yes! O yes! Know all christian men and women, that this cruel Dominick, this implacable enemy of ours, has never said one word concerning the virtues of the rosary 424that is not most true; and know ye further, that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.

Dom.—Who was the man in the world the devil hated the most?

Dev. (All of them.) Thou art the very man, who, by thy prayers, and by thy severe ways of penance, and by thy sermons, hast shown the way to Paradise to every one, and hast snatched our prey. But know thou, that our dark congregation and infernal troop are so enraged against thee, that a brigade of the strongest and most mischievous spirits have a commission to fall upon thee and them.

Dom. (turning to the people.) God forbid, O Christians! that you should believe all that is said by the devils, who are liars, and inventors of lies. Not but that the Almighty is able to communicate so much strength to the vilest and most miserable sinner, as will overcome all infernal hosts, as you see I do at this time, who am the greatest of sinners.

Dev.—Cursed be so great humility as this, which tears and torments us so much.

Dom. (Throwing his stole, for he had not his scapulary yet, which has much more virtue, about the neck of the Demoniac.) Of which state of men among Christians are there the most damned?

Here an extraordinary circumstance took place, for no sooner had Dominick’s stole touched the neck of the demoniac than a great quantity of thick gory blood burst out at his nose, and a poisonous 425clay from his ears. At this sight, Dominick commanded the rebellious devils to desist from tormenting the poor sinner.

Dev. We will with all our heart, if ye will suffer us to depart.

Dom. Ye shall not stir until ye have answered the question put you.

Dev. In hell there are a great many bishops and princes, but not many country people, who, though not perfect, are not very great sinners. There are also a great many merchants, and townspeople, such as pawnbrokers, fraudulent bakers, grocers, Jews, apothecaries, gamblers, rakes, &c. who were sent there for covetousness, cheating, voluptuousness, &c.

Dom. Are there any priests or monks in Hell?

Dev. There are a great number of priests, but no monks, with the exception of such as had transgressed the rule of their order.

Dom. How are you off for Franciscans?

Dev. Alas! alas! we have not one yet, but we expect a great number of them after their devotion is a little cooled.

Dom. What saint in heaven does the devil fear most?

Instead of returning any answer to this question, the devils begged Dominick by all that was sacred to be satisfied with the torments he had already inflicted upon them, and with those to which they were condemned in hell, begging he would not insist upon a true answer to that question before so great a congregation, to the ruin of their kingdom; telling him, that if he would ask the 426angels they would tell him who it was. This, however, would not satisfy Dominick, who, whatever virtues he might have, had little mercy in his composition, especially, it would appear, towards devils. He persisted upon their telling; and, perceiving how reluctant the demons were to comply with his wishes, he threw himself upon the ground, and went to work, hammer and tongs, with his rosary; upon which sulphureous flames of fire burst forth from his nose, mouth, eyes and ears; after this above an hundred angels, clad in golden armour, appeared with the blessed virgin in the midst of them, holding a golden rod in her hand, with which she gave the demoniac a switch on the back, commanding, at the same time, the devils to return true answers to Dominick’s questions; at this they all roared out lustily, O our enemy! O our damner! O our confusion! Why didst thou come down from heaven to torment us here? Why art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners? O thou most certain and secure way to heaven; but since thou commandest it, we must tell the truth, though it will confound us, and bring woe and misery on our princes of darkness for ever. Hear, O Christians, continued the devils, this mother of Christ is too powerful in preserving all her servants from hell; it is she that, as a sun, dissipates all our darkness, and enervates and brings to nought all our machinations. We are forced to confess that nobody is damned who perseveres in her holy worship, and is devoted to her. One sigh from her has more power than the prayers of all the saints; and we fear her more than all the citizens of Paradise; 427and you must all know, that vast numbers of Christians are, contrary to right, saved by calling upon her at the time of their death; and that we should long ago have destroyed the church, if it had not been for this little Mary; and being now forced to it, we must own, that none who persevere in the exercise of the rosary, can undergo the eternal torments of hell, for she obtains contrition for all her devout servants.

Here the confab ended between 15,000 cowardly devils, and Dominick, who exhorted the congregation to join with him in reciting the rosary: and behold a great miracle: at every angelical salutation, a multitude of devils rushed out of the demoniac in the shape of burning coals, and the blessed virgin having given the congregation her benediction, disappeared, leaving Dominick in quest of fresh enterprises against the devil and his horde.

Dominick was a proud designing man, and of a very ferocious disposition. The stories related of the St. Franciscan order, are equally absurd and ridiculous.

Similar stories are too numerous: we shall therefore close this subject with

The Hermit of the Pillar.
(St. Simeon Stylites, St. Telesephorus, St. Syncletia.)

We are informed by Alban Butler, that St. Simeon Stylites, the ycleped hermit of the pillar, astonished the whole Roman Empire by his mortifications. In the monastery of Heliodorus, a 428man 65 years of age, who had spent 62 years so abstracted from the world that he was ignorant of the most obvious things in it; the monks ate but once a day; Simeon joined the communities, and ate but once a week. Heliodorus required Simeon to be more private in his mortifications: “with this view,” says Butler, “judging the rough rope of the well, made of twisted palm tree leaves, a proper instrument of penance; Simeon tied it close about his naked body, where it remained unknown both to the community and his superior, till such time as it having ate into his flesh, what he had privately done was discovered by the effluvia proceeding from the wound.” Butler says, that it took three days to disengage the saint’s clothes, and that “the incisions of the physician, to cut the cord out of his body, were attended with such anguish and pain, that he lay for some time as dead.” After this he determined to pass the whole forty days of Lent in total abstinence, and retired to a hermitage for that purpose. Bassus, an abbot, left with him ten loaves and water, and coming to visit him at the end of the forty days, found both loaves and water untouched, and the saint stretched on the ground without signs of life. Bassus dipped a sponge in water, moistened his lips, gave him the eucharist, and Simeon by degrees swallowed a few lettuce leaves and other herbs. He passed twenty-six Lents in the same manner. In the first part of a Lent he prayed standing: growing weaker, he prayed sitting; and towards the end, being almost exhausted, he prayed lying on the ground. At the end of three years 429he left his hermitage for the top of a mountain, made an inclosure of loose stones, without a roof, and having resolved to live exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, he fixed his resolution by fastening his right leg to a rock with a great iron chain. Multitudes thronged to the mountain to receive his benediction, and many of the sick recovered their health. But as some were not satisfied unless they touched him in his enclosure, and Simeon desired retirement from the daily concourse, he projected a new and unprecedented manner of life. He erected a pillar six cubits high, (each cubit being eighteen inches,) and dwelt on it four years; on a second of twelve cubits high, he lived three years; on a third of twenty-two cubits high, ten years; and on a fourth, of forty cubits, or sixty feet high, which the people built for him, he spent the last twenty years of his life. This occasioned him to be called Stylites, from the Greek word stylos, a pillar. This pillar did not exceed three feet in diameter at the top, so that he could not lie extended on it; he had no seat with him; he only stooped or leaned to take a little rest, and bowed his body in prayer so often, that a certain person who counted these positions, found that he made one thousand two hundred and forty-four reverences in one day, which if he began at four o’clock in the morning, and finished at eight o’clock at night, gives a bow to every three quarters of a minute; besides which, he exhorted the people twice a day. His garments were the skins of beasts; he wore an iron collar round his neck, and had a horrible ulcer in his 430foot. During his forty days’ abstinence throughout Lent, he tied himself to a pole. He treated himself as the outcast of the world and the worst of sinners, worked miracles, delivered prophecies, had the sacrament delivered to him on the pillar, and died bowing upon it, in the sixty-ninth of his age, after having lived upon pillars for six and thirty years. His corpse was carried to Antioch attended by the bishops and the whole country, and worked miracles on its way. So far this account is from Alban Butler.

Without mentioning circumstances and miracles in the Golden Legend, which are too numerous, and some not fit to be related; it may be observed, that it is there affirmed of him, that after his residence on the pillars, one of his thighs rotted a whole year, during which time he stood on one leg only. Near Simeon’s pillar was the dwelling of a dragon, so very venemous that nothing grew near his cave. This dragon met with an accident; he had a stake in his eye, and coming all blind to the saint’s pillar, and placing his eye upon it for three days, without doing harm to any one, Simeon ordered earth and water to be placed on the dragon’s eye, which being done, out came the stake, a cubit in length; when the people saw this miracle, they glorified God, and ran away for fear of the dragon, who arose and adored for two hours, and returned to his cave. A woman swallowed a little serpent, which tormented her for many years, till she came to Simeon, who causing earth and water to be laid on her mouth, the little serpent came out four feet 431and a half long. It is affirmed by the Golden Legend, that when Simeon died, Anthony smelt a precious odour proceeding from his body; that the birds cried so much, that both men and beasts cried; that an angel came down in a cloud; that the Patriarch of Antioch, taking Simeon’s beard to put among his relics, his hand withered, and remained so, till multitudes of prayers were said for him, and it was healed; and that more miracles were worked at and after Simeon’s sepulture, than he had wrought all his life.

On the first introduction of the relics of saints, the mania became universal; they were bought and sold, and, like other collectors, made no scruple to steal them. It is not a little amusing to remark the singular ardour and grasping avidity of some to enrich themselves with religious morsels; their little discernment, the curious impositions and resources of the vender to impose on the good faith and sincerity of the purchaser. It was not uncommon for the prelate of the place to ordain a fast, in order to implore God that they might not be cheated with the relics of saints, which he sometimes purchased for the holy benefit of the village or town. Guibert de Nogen wrote a treatise on the relics of saints: acknowledging that there were many false ones, as well as false legends, he reprobates the inventors of those lying miracles. It was on the occasion of one of our Saviour’s teeth, that De Nogen took up his 432pen on this subject, by which the monks of St. Medard de Soissons pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he asserted to be as chimerical as that of several persons who believed they possessed the navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of Christ.

There is a history of the translation of Saint Lewin, a virgin and a martyr, by a monk of Bergavinck; her relics were brought from England to Bergs. The facts were collected from her brethren with religious care, especially from the conductor of these relics from England. After the history of the translation, and a panegyric on the saint, he relates the miracles performed in Flanders since the arrival of her relics. The prevailing passion of the times to possess fragments of saints is well marked, when the author particularises, with a certain complacency, all the knavish modes they resorted to, to carry off those in question. None then objected to this sort of robbery, because the gratification of the ruling passion had made it worth while to supply the market.

There is a history, by a monk of Cluny, of the translation of the body of St. Indalece, one of the earliest Spanish bishops; written by order of the Abbot of St. Juan de la Penna; wherein the author protests to advance nothing but facts; having himself seen, or learnt from other witnesses, all he relates. It was not difficult for him to gain his information, since it was to the monastery of St. Juan de la Penna that the holy relics were transported, and those who brought them were two monks of that house. His minute detail of 433circumstances, he has authenticated by giving the names of persons and places; and the account was written for the great festival immediately instituted in honour of this translation. He informs us of the miraculous manner by which they were so fortunate as to discover the body of this bishop, and the different plans that were concerted to carry it off; with the itinerary of the two monks who accompanied the holy remains; during which they were not a little cheered in their long and hazardous journey by visions and miracles.

Another has written a history of what he terms the translation of the relics of St. Majean to the monastery of Villemagne. Translation is, in fact, only a softened expression for the robbery committed on the relics of the saints, by two monks who carried them off secretly, to enrich their monastery; and they did not stick at any artifice, or lie, to achieve their undertaking. They imagined every thing was permitted to get possession of these fragments of mortality, which now had become such an important branch of commerce. They even regarded their possessors with a hostile eye. Such was the religious opinion from the ninth to the twelfth century. Our Canute commissioned his agent at Rome to purchase St. Augustine’s arm for one hundred talents of silver and one of gold! a much greater sum, observes Granger, than the finest statue of antiquity would then have sold for. Another monk describes a strange act of devotion, attested by several contemporary writers. When the saints did not readily comply 434with the prayers of their votaries, they flogged their relics with rods, in a spirit of impatience, which they conceived necessary to enforce obedience. To raise our admiration, Theofroy, abbot of Epternac, relates the daily miracles performed by the relics of saints—their ashes, their clothes, or other mortal spoils, and even by the instruments of their martyrdom. He inveighs against that luxury of ornaments which was indulged in under a religious pretext. “It is not to be supposed that the saints are desirous of such a profusion of gold and silver. They wish not that we should raise to them magnificent churches, to exhibit that ingenious order of pillars, which shine with gold; nor those rich ceilings, nor those altars sparkling with jewels. They desire not the purple parchment for their writings, the liquid gold to decorate the letters, nor the precious stones to embellish their covers, while you have such little care for the ministers.” The pious writer has not forgotten himself, in his partnership-account with the saints.

Bayle observes, the Roman church not being able to deny that there have been false relics which have wrought miracles, they reply that the good intentions of those believers who have recourse to them, obtained from God the reward for their good faith! In the same spirit, when it was shown that three bodies of the same saint are said to exist in several places, and that therefore they could not all be authentic, it was answered, that they were all genuine! for God had multiplied and miraculously 435reproduced them, for the comfort of the faithful! A curious specimen of the intolerance of good sense.

Prince Radzivil was so much affected by the Reformation being spread in Lithuania, that he went in person to pay the Pope all personal honours. On this occasion his holiness presented him with a precious box of relics. On his return home, some monks entreated the prince’s permission to try the effects of them on a demoniac, who hitherto had resisted every exorcism. They were brought into the church with solemn pomp, accompanied by an innumerable crowd, and deposited on the altar. After the usual conjurations, which were unsuccessful, the relics were applied. The demoniac instantly recovered. The people called out a miracle! and the Prince raising his hands and eyes to heaven, felt his faith confirmed. During this transport of pious joy, he observed that a young gentleman, who was keeper of his treasure of relics, smiled, and by his motions ridiculed the miracle. The Prince, indignantly, took the young keeper of the relics to task; who, on promise of pardon, gave the following secret intelligence concerning them. In travelling from Rome he had lost the box of relics; and not daring to mention it, he had procured a similar one, which he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats, and other trifles similar to those that were lost. He hoped he might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of rubbish was eulogized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of expelling demons. It was by 436the assistance of this box that the Prince discovered the gross impositions of the monks and demoniacs, and Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lutheran.

Frederick the Elector, surnamed the Wise, was an indefatigable collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him, solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for our wise Elector; but the times had changed! He was advised to resign this business; the relics for which he desired payment they were willing to return; that since the Reformation of Luther, the price of such ware had considerably fallen; and that they would be more esteemed, and find a better market in Italy than in Germany!

In his “Traité preparatif à l’Apologie pour Herodote,” c. 39, Stephens says, “A monk of St. Anthony, having been at Jerusalem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost, as sound and entire as it had ever been; the snout of the seraphim that appeared to St. Francis; one of the nails of a cherubim; one of the ribs of the Verbum caro factum, (the Word was made flesh,) some rays of the star that appeared to the three kings of the east; a phial of St. Michael’s sweat, when he was fighting against the devil; a hem of Joseph’s garment, which he wore when he cleaved wood, &c. All which things,” observes our treasurer of relics, “I have brought with me home very devoutly.” Henry III. who was deeply tainted with the superstition of the age, summoned all the great in the kingdom to meet in London. This summons excited 437the most general curiosity, and multitudes appeared. The king then acquainted them that the great master of the knights templars had sent him a phial containing a small portion of the sacred blood of Christ, which he had shed upon the cross! and attested to be genuine by the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. He commanded a procession on the following day, and, adds the historian, that though the road between St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey was very deep and miry, the king kept his eyes constantly fixed on the phial. Two monks received it, and deposited the phial in the abbey, “which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to God and St. Edward.”

In his life of Henry VIII. Lord Herbert notices the great fall of the price of relics at the dissolution of the monasteries. “The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell, insomuch as I find by our records, that a piece of St. Andrew’s finger, (covered only with an ounce of silver,) being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king’s commissioners, who, upon surrender of any foundation, undertook to pay the debts, refusing to pay the price again;” that is, they did not choose to repay the forty pounds, to receive a piece of the finger of St. Andrew. About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-Sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Road of Grace, at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace, and a far-famed relic at Hales in Gloucestershire, 438of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was showed in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin: and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrim at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the blood of a duck, renewed every week, and put into a phial; one side of which was opaque, and the other transparent; either side of which was turned to the pilgrim which the monk thought proper. The success of the pilgrim depended on the oblations he had made. Those who were scanty in their offerings, were the longest in getting a sight of the blood. When a man was in despair he usually became generous.