THE SECEET BOOK OP THE^^ BLACK ARTS. CONTAINTNG AXL THAT IS KNOWN UPON THE OCCULT SCIENCES OF D.EMCNOLOGY, SPTKIT EAPriNGS, WITCHCiiAFT, SOKCEllY, ASTKOLOGY, TAL^kllSrilY, MIND READING, SPIRITUALISM, TABLE TURNING, GHOSTS AND APPAR- ITIONS, OMENS, LUCKY AND UN- LUCKY SIGNS AND DAYS, DREAMS, CHARMS, DIVINATION, SECOND SIGH T, MESMERISM, CLAIRVOY ANCE, PSYCHOLOGICAL FASCINATION, ETC. ALSO GIVING FULL I^•FC^.JIAT^ON AEOCT THE WoNPT.T^FUL Akts OF Tkansmutino Bafe TO PEECiors Metals AND THE Actual Manufacture of the Puecious Gems, SUCH AS JASPER, nJBY, EMELALD, OJFX, AMETUYST, J QAPrniBE, ETC., ETC. Together witli a mass of other matter CtTVTNG INNER YILVrS OF TEE ARIS AND SCIEN'CES wnETHEB elcondite akd cescuue, oe plain and PK^ CXICAL. New Yoek: HURST & CO., PUBLISHERS, 122 Nassau Stkest, CoiJj'rij^Ut 1876, oy Hurst ic Co. PREFACE. We need malce no apology for introducing this book to th« public. The subjects treated of are of so deeply interesting a nature that they have ever engaged, and ever will engage the at- tention of every thinking being. They are themes that never can bo buried out of sight. They demand our close attention. We must face them all: willingly or unwillingly. Much of the vast amount of information to be found in the following pages has been dilligently and laboriously culled from the great store- house ot facts accumulated by men who have devoted their time, energies and learning to prove, investigate, and explain tht various deep and mystical beliefs and practices so universally and expressively designated the " Black Arts." All those dark mysteries that have captivated the imaginations, stimulated the investigations, and often baffled the keenest in- tellectual acumen of both by-gone and modern philosophers are here revealed in all their naked truthfulness. The fleshy integuments are stripped away, and the skeleton itself revealed. This book is written in the interest of no sect or party in re- ligion or science. All the following subjects are treated of fully, fairly, candidly and exhaustively: Sorcery, Astrology, Mind- Eeading, Midnight Apparitions, tho Churchyard Ghost, the Threatening Omen, the Unlucky Day, the Cattle-Charm, thfli Spell on the Living, the Second-Sight ot the Highland Seer, the Clairvoyance of modern Times, the Table-Tippings. These, however, are but a very few of the subjects, described and dis- cussed in these pages, There is no dodging any question how- ever enshrined by superstition, and no attacking of any belief simply because it is the belief of some confiding souls. Many of the most awful and tsriible secietj ^re icalt with in a fearless but honest manner. The belief, for instance, in the visits of departed spirits to those still in the flesh is treated with that fairness and impartiality that should ever be atccrdcd to the faith held by a large body of honest people. We have been forced to tear down many a ricketty pile merely upheld by its antiquity and turned the calcium light of truth upon the scat- tering rats and bats of superstition. Cn tie other hand we are compelled to admit that some secrets are too deep and profound to be explained satisfactorily by the sharpest human intel- lect. But it must not be supposed that this book deals mainly with ideas and beliefs. Many practical, useful money-making Arts are fully described, and the proper manner in which to practice them clearly explained. We commend this book, in all honesty, to every fearless soul ■who is willing to accept our guidance, and who is resolved to investigate for himself every subject that mortal man feels touches his pocket, his principles and his happiness. The AuTBoiL THE BLACK ART. SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT. Waivino the consideration of the many controversies formerly kept up on this subject, founded on misinterpretation of various passages in the sacred writings, it is my purpose in the present section to consider witchcraft only as a striking article of popu- lar mythology; which, however, bids fair in another century to be entirely forgotten. "Witchcraft is defined by Reginald Scot, in his Discovery, p. 284, to be, " in estimation of the vulgar i)eople, a supernatural work between a corporal old woman and a spiritual devil;" but, he adds, speaking his own sentiments on tho subject, •* it is, in truth, a cozening art, wherein tho name of God is abused, i)ro- phaned, and blasphemed, and his power attributed to a vile creature." Perkins defines witchcraft to be " an art serving for the working of wonders by the assistance of the Devil, so far as God will permit;*' and Delrio, an art in which, by the power of the contract entered into with the Devil, some wonders are wrought which pass the common understanding of men." Witc'icraft, in modera estimation, is a kind of sorcery (espec- ially in M'omea), in which it is ridiculously supposed that an old woman, by entering into a contract with th« Dovil, is ta- 8 SORCEnr AND WITCirCBAFT. abled in many instances to change the course of Nature, to raise winds, perform actions that require more than human strength, and to afflict those that offend her w ith the sharpest pains. King James's reason, in his Dsenionology, why there are or ■were twenty women given to witchcraft for one man, is curious. " The reason is easy," as this sagacious monarch thinks, " for, AS that sex is frailer than man is, so is it easier, to be entranped in these gross snares of the Divell, as was over well proved to be true by the serpent's deceiving of Eva at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sexe sensine." His majesty, in this work, quaintly calls the Devil " God's ape end hangman.'" Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Reman E:npire, vili. ed. 1789-90, p. 157, speaking of the laws of the Lombards, a.d. 643, tells us : The ignorance of the Lombards, in the state of Paganism or Christianity, gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of witchcraft ; but the judges of the seventeenth cen- tury might have been instructed and confounded by the wis- dom of Rotharis, who de/ides the absurd superstition, and pro- tects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty." He adds in a note : "See Leges Rotharis, No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used as the name of witch. It is of the purest classic origin (Horat. Epod. v. 20 ; Petron. c. 134) ; and from the words of Petronius (quaa Striges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may be in- ferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than barbaric extraction." Gaule, in his Select Cases of Conscience, touching Witches and "Witchcrafts, 1G46, observes, p. 4 , "In every place and parish, every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a scolding tongue, having a rugged coate on her her back, a skud- cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspected but pronounced lor a witch. * * ♦ Every new dicease, notable accident, miracle of Nature, rarity of art, nay, and strange work or just judgment cf God, is by them accounted for no other but an act or effect of witchcraft** He says, p. 10 : Some say the devill was the first witch when he plaied the imposter with our first parents, possessing tho SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT. cerpent (as his impe) to their delusion (Gen. iii.) : and it ii •whispered that our grandame Eve was a lictle guilty of such kind of society." Henry in his history of Great Britain, iv. 543, 4to., speaking of our manners between a.d. 1399 and 1485, says : " There was not a man then in England who entertained the least doubt of ;jic reality of sorcery, necromancy, and other diabolical arts." According to the popular belief on this subject, there are three sorts of witches : the first kind can hurt but not help, and are with singular propriety called the black witches. The second kind, very properly called white ones, have gifts directly opposite to those of the fomier ; they can help but not hurt, Gauie, as cited before, says; "Accoiding to the vulgar con- ceit, distinction is usually made between the white and tho hlack ucitch ; the good and the bad witch. The odd witch they are wont to call him or her that workes malefice or mischiefe to the bodies of men or beasts ; the good witch they count him or her that helps to reveale, prevcnr, or remove the same." Cotla, in the Tryall of Witchcraft, p. CO, says : "Thiskinde is not obscure, at this day swarming in this kingdom, whereof no man can be ignorant who lusteth to observe the uncon- trouled liberty and licence of open and ordinary resort in all places unto wise men and wise women, so vulgarly termed for their reputed knowledge concerning such deceased persons as are supposed to be bewitched," The same author, in his Short Discoverie of Unobserved Dangers, 1612, p. 71, says : "The mention of witchcraft doth now occasion the remembrance in the next place of a sort (company) of practitioners whom our custome and country doth call wise men and wise women, re- puted a kind of good and honest harmless witches or wizards, who by good words, by hallowed herbcs and salves, and other superstitious ceremonies, promise to allay and calme divels, practices of other witches, and the forces of many diseases," Perkins by Pickering, 8vo, Cambr. IGlO, p. 256, eoncludea with observing : "It were a thousand times better for the land if ail witches, but especially the blessing witch, might suffer death. Men doe commonly hate and spit at the damnifying sor- IS BORCERT AXD WITCHCRAFT. etrer, m unworthie to live among them, -wbereag tbey flic untc the other in necessitie, tbey depciicl upon bim as tbeir God, and by tbis meaner tbousands are cnriied aw ay to tbeir finall confusion. Deatb, therefore, is the just and deserved portion •f ihe good wUch." Baxter, in bis "World of Spirits, p. 184, speaks of those men that tell men of things stolen and lost, and that show men the face of a thief in a glass, and cause the goods to be brought back, who are commonly called ichUe witches. " "When I lived," he says, " at Dudley, Hodges, at Sedglej-, two miles off, was long and commonly accounted such a one, and when I lived at Kederminster, one of my neighbors affirmed, that, having bis yam stolen, be went tollodges (ten miles off,\ and bo told bim that at such an hour be should have it brought home rgain and put in at the window, and so it was ; and as I remember be showed bim the person's face in a glass. Yet I do not think that Hodges made any known contract with the devil, but thought it an effect of art.' The third species, as a mixture of white and black, are styled the gray witches ; for they can both help and hurt. Thus the tnd and effect of witchcraft seems to be sometimes good and sometimes the direct contrary. In the first case the sick are healed, thieves are bewrayed, and true men come to their goods. In the second, men, women, children, or animals as also grass, trees or corn, &c., are hurt. The Laplanders, says Schefifer, have a cord tied with knots for the raising of the wind : they, as Ziegler relates it, tie three ma- gical knots in tbis cord : when tbey untie the first there blows a favorable gale of wind ; when the second, a brisker ; when the third, the sea and wind grow mighty, stormy, and tempestuous. This, he adds, that wo have reported concerning the Laplan- ders, does not in fact belong to them, but to the Finlanders of Norwav, because no other writers mention it, and because the Laplanders live in and iuland country. However, the method of selling winds is tbis : " They deliver a small rope with three knots upon it, with this caution, that when they loose the first they shall have a good wind; if the second, a stronger; if the third, such a storm will arise that they can neither see how to soncrnr Ayp witciicbaft. 11 direct the sliip nnd ftvoid rocks, or so much ns stand upon lb© decks, or handle the tackling." The same is admitted by King James in his Dsemonology, p. 117. The following passage is from Scot's Discovery, p. 33: '* No one endued with common sense but w ill deny that the elements are obedient to witches and at their commandment, or that they may, at their pleasure, send rafn, hail, tempests, thunder, light- ning, when she, being but an old doting w oman, casteth a flint stone over her left shoulder towards the west, or hurleth a little sea-sand up into the dement, or wetteih a brccm^piigin water and sprinkleth the s ame in the air; or diggeth a pit in the earth, and, putting water therein, stirreth it about with her finger; or boileth hog's bristles; or layeth sticks across upon a bank "wher© never a drop of water is; or bury eth sage till it be rotten: all which things are confessed by witches, and affirmed by writers to be the means that witches use to move extraordinary tempests and rain." Ignorance," says Osboume; in his Advice to his Son, 8vo. Oxf. 1CC6, reports of witches that they are unable to hurt till they have received nn nlmes; which, though ridiculous in it- selfe, yet in this sense is verified, that charity seldom goes to the gate but it meets with ingratitude," p. 94. Spotiswood, as cited 1 y Andrews, in Lis Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, p. t.CZ, snys, In the North " (of Britain) there were '* matron-like witches and ignorant witches." It was to one of the superior sort that Satan, being pressed to kill James the Sixth, thus excused himself in French, " II est homme de Dieu." Camden, in his Ancient and Modem Manners of the Irish says: " If a cow becomes dry, a w itch is applied to, who, in- spiring her with a londness for some other calf, makes her yield her milk." (Gough's Camden, iii. C59.) He tells us, ibid. : " The women who are turned off (by their husbands) have re- course to witches, who are supposed to inflict barrenness, impo- tence, or the most dangerous diseases, on the former husband or his new wife." Also, "They account every woman who fetches fire on May-day a witch, nor will they give it to any but sick persons, and that with An imprecation, believing she will 12 SORCERY Ay D WITCHCRAFT steal all the butter next summer. On May-day they liill all hares they find among their cattle, supi-)osing them the old wo- men who have designs on the butter. They imagine the butter 60 stolen may be recovered if they take some of the thatch hang- ing over the door and burn it. The mode of becoming a witch, according to Grose, is as fol- lows: A decrepit 8uperanuated old woman is tempted by a man in black to sign a contract to become his both soul and body. On the conclusion of the agreement he gives her a piece of money, and causes her to write her name and make her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. Sometimes, also, on this occasion, the witch uses the ceremony of putting one hand to the sole of her foot, and the other to the crown of her head. On departing, he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The fam- iliar, in the shape of a cat or a kitten, a mole, millerfly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day, BV.cks he blood through teats on different jiarts of her body." There is a great variety of the names of these imps or familiars. A witch," (as I read in the curious tract entitled, Eound about our Coal Fire,) " according to my nurse's account, must be a haggard old woman, living in a little rotten cottage, under a hill, by a wood-side, and must be frequently si)inning at the door; she must have a black cat, two or three broomsticks, an imp or two, and two or three diabolical teats to suckle her imps. She must be of so dry a nature, that if j'ou lling her into a river she will not sink; so hard then is her fate, that, if she is to un- dergo the trial, if she does not drown, she must be burnt, as many have been within the memory of man." In the Relation of the Swedish Witches, at the end of Glan- vil's Sadducismus Triumphatus, we are told that " the devil gives them a beast about the bigness r.nd shape cf a yoi:ng cat which they call a carrier. "What this carrier brings they must receive for the devil. These carriers fill themselves so full sometimes, that they are forced to spew by the way, which spewing is found in several gardens where colworts grow, and not far from the houces of those witches. It is of a yellow color like gold, and is called ' butter of witches,'" p. •494, Probably SORCZnT AXD WITCHCRAFT. 13 this is the s4 arc marvellously increjised within your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine away, even unto the death, their color fadeth, their ilesh rolteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are berett. I pray God they never practice further than upon the subject This," Strypo adds, I make no doubt was the occasion of bringing in a bill, the next parliament, for making enchantments and witchcraft felony." One of the bishop's strong expressions is, "These eyes bave seen most evident and manifesl marks of their wicked- ness." Andrews, in his Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, 4to, p. 93, tells us. speaking of Ferdinand Earl of Derby, who in the reign of Queen Elizabeth died by poison ; "The credulity of the ago attributed bis death to witchcraft. The disease was odd, and operated as a perpetual emetic ; and 16 SORCEIlTAyD WITCnCRAFT a waxen image wUh hair like ihat of the imfortunate earl, found in his chamber, reduced every suspicion of certainty." Blagrave, in his Astrological Practice of Pbysiclr, p. 89, observes that "the -way which the witches usually take for to afflict man or beast in this kind is, as I conceive, done by image or model, made in the likeness of that man or beast th3y intend to work mischief upon, and by the subtilty of the devil made .\t such hours and times when it shall work most powerfully upon them by thorn, pin, or needle, pricked into that limb or member of the body afflicted." Coles, in his Art of Simpling, p. C6, says that witches ** take likewise the roots of mandrake, according to some, or as I rather suppose the roots of hriony, which simple folks take for the trxi9> mandrake, and make thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they intend to exercise their witchcraft." H3 tells us, ibi.l, p. 2G ; "Some plants have roots with a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the form of the face at the the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard down to the feet." Sometimes witches content themselves with a revenge less mortal, causing the objects of their hatred to swallow pins, crooked nails, dirt, cinders, and trash of all sorts ; or by dry- ing up their cows and killing their oxen ; or by preventing butter from coming in the churn, or beer from working. Sometimes, to vex squires, justices, and country parsons, fond of hunting, they change themselves into hares, and elude the speed of the fleetest dogs. It was a supposed remedy against witchcraft to put some of the bewitched person's water, with a quantity of pins, needels, and nails, into a bottle, cork them up, and set them before the fire, in order to confine the spirit ; but this sometimes did not prove sufficient, as it would often force the cork out with a loud noise, like that of a pistol, and cast the contents of the bottle to a considerable height. Bewitched i^ersons were said SOnCERT AXD WITCIICEAFT. 17 to fall frequently into violent fits and to vomit needles, pins, Btones, nails, stiibbs, wool, and straw. [Witchcraft.— Our Wick contemporary gives tbo following recpnt instance of gross ignorance and credulii^y ; '-Not far from Louisbnrgli there lives a girl who, until a few days ago, was suspected of being a witcb. In order to cure ber of tbe Avitcbcraft, a neighbor actually put bar into a creed balf-fiUed with wood and shavings, and bung ber above a fire setting tbo sbavings in a blaze. Fortunately for tbe child and himself she was not injured, and it is said that tbe gift of sorcery has been taken away from ber. At all events, tbe intelligent neighbors aver that she is not half so wiich-like in ber appear- ance since she was singed." — luterness Courier, — Times, Dec. 8, 1845.] In ancient times even tbe pleasures of tbe chase were checked by the superstitions concerning witchcraft. Thu-, in Scott's Discovery, p. 152: "That naver hunters nor their dogs may be bewircbed, they cleave an oaken branch, and both they and t :eir dogs pass over it," Warner, in bis Topographical Remarks relating to tbe South- western Paris of Hampshire, 1793, i. 241, mtntioning Mary Dore, the "parochial witch of Beaulieu," who died about half a century since, saj's : '* Her spells were chiefly used for purposes of self-extrication in situations of danger; and I bavo conversed with a rustic whose father had seen tlie old bidy con- vert herself more than once into the form of a bare, or cat, when likely to be appreliended in wood-stealing, to wliiob sho was somewhat adv.icted." Butler, in Lis Hudibras, II. iii. 149, Ba>s,speaking of tbe witch-finder, that of witches some be banged "for putHng knavish tricks Upon green geese and turkey-chicks, Or pigs that suddenly diseas'd Of griefs unnat'ral, as be guess'd." Henry, in bis History of Great Britian, i. 99, mentions Pomponius Mela as describing a Druidical nunerj--, which, ha says "was situated in an island in the British sea, and con- tained nine of these venerable vestals, who pretended thai It SOnCEnTAXD WITCnCTtAFT. they could raise s'orms and tempests by their incantations, could cure the most incurable diseases, could transform them- selves into all kinds of animals, and foresee future events." For another superstitious notion relating to the enchant- ment of witchraft, see Lupton's First Book of Notable Thing«», 1C60, p. 20, No. 82. See also Guil. Varignana, and Arnold us de Villa Nova. In vexing the parties troubled, witches are visible to them only ; sometimes such parties act on the defensive against them, striking at them with a knife, &c. Preventives, according to the popular belief, are scratching or pricking a witch ; taking the wall of her in a town or street, and the right hand of her in a lane or field ; while passing her, by clinching both hauils, doubling the thumbs beneath the fingers ; and also by saluting her Avith civil words before she speaks ; but no presents of apples, egg??, or other things must be received from her on any account. It was a part of the system of witchcraft that drawing blood from a witch rendered her enchantments ineffectual, as appears from the following authorities : In Glanvill's Account of the Daemon of Tedworth, speaking of a boy that was bewitched, he says ; " The boy drew towards Jane Brooks, the woman who had bewitched him, who was behind her two sisters, and put his hand upon her, which his father perceiving, immediately scratched her face and drew blood from her. The youth then cried out that he was well." Blow at Modern Sadducism, 12mo. 1668, p. 148, This curious doctri:.»e is very fully investigated in Hathaway's trial, published in the State Trials. The following passage is in Arise Evan's Echo to the Voice from Heaven, 1632, p. 34 ; ''I had heard some say that, when a witch l^ad power over one to afflict him, if he could but draw one drop of the wiich's blood, the witch would never after do him Luit." Scot, in his Discovery, p. 157, says : "Men are preserved from ■witchcraft by sprinkling of holy water, receiving consecrated salt, by candles hallowed on Candlemas-day, and by ^reen leavei consecrated on Palm Sunday." Coles, in his Art of SOnCERT AXD WnCJICUAFT. 19 Simpling, p. C7, tells iis that "Mattliiolus sailli tbatberba paris takes awny evil done hy witchcraft, niul af&ims that be knew it to be true by experience." Heath, iu bis History of the Sicilly Islands, p. 1^0, tells us that "bome few of the inhabitants imagine (but mostly old women) that women with child, and the first-born, are exempted from the power of witchcraft." I find the subsequent in Scot's Discovery of "Witchcraft, p. 152 : "To be delivered from witches, they hang in their entries an herb called pentaphyllon, cinquefoil, also an olive branch » also frankincense, myrrh, valerian, verven, palm, antirchmon, &c. ; also hay-thorn, otherwise whitethorn, gathered on May- day." He tells us, p. 151 : "Against witches, in some coun- tries, they nail a wolfs head on the door. Otherwise they hang sciUa (which is either a root, or rather in this place garlick) in the roof of the house, to keep away witches and spirits ; and so they do alicium also. Item. Perfume made of the gall of a black dog, and his blood besmeared on the posts and walls of the housf, driveth out of the doors both devils and witches. Otherwise : the house where herba betonica is sown is free from all mis- chiefs," atient close up in a bottle, and put iuto it three nails, pine, or needles, with a iittle white salt, keeping' the urine always warm. If you let it remain long in the bottle, it will endanger the witch's life ; for I have found by experience that they will be grievously tor- mented, making their water with great difficulty, if any at all, and the moor if the moon be in Scorpio, in square or opposition to his significator, when its done. 4. Another way is either at the new, full, or quarters of the moon, but more especially when the moon is in square or opposition to the planet which doth personate the witch, to let the patient blood, and while the blood is warm put a little white salt into it, then let it burn and smoak through a trivet. I conceive this way doth more afflict the witch than any of the other three before mentioned." He adds, that sometimes the witches will rather endure the misery of the above torments than appear, " by reason country people ofttimes will fall upon them, and scratch and abuse them shrewdly" I fmd the following in Articles to be enquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke, by the Church Wardens and sworno Men, A. D. 1G3— (any year till 1610), 4to. Lond. 6. I : "Whether there bo any man or woman in your parish that useth icitchcrafl, sorcery, charms, or xinlawfxd prayer, or invocations in Latine or Eng- lish, or otherwise, upon any christian body or beast, or any that resorteth to the same for counsell or helpo?" Some persons were supposed by the popular belief to have the faculty of distinguishing witches. These were called witch- finders. The old, the ignorant, and the indigent (says Granger), such as could neither plead their own cause nor hire an advocate, were the miserable victims of this wretch's credulitj', spleen, and avarice. He pretended to be a great critic in special marks, which were only moles, scorbutic spots, or warts, which fre- quently grow large and pendulous in old age, but wero absurd- ly supposed to be teats to suckle imps. His ultimata method of proof was by tying together the thumbs and toes of the sua- 24 SORCEnTAXD WITCIICnAFT. pectecl person, about wliQse waist was fastened a cord, tlie enda of -wliicU were held on tlio banks of a river, by two men, in wlioso power it was to strain or slacken it. Tlie experiment of swiminirg was aMengtli tried upon Hop- kins himself, in his own way, and he was, upon the event, con- demned, and, as it seems, executed, as a wizard. Hopkins had hanged, in one year, no less than sixty reputed witches in his own county of Essex. In Gardiner's England's Grievance in Relation to tho Coal Trade, p. 107, we have an account that, in 1C40 and 1050, tho magistrates of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, sent into Scotland to agreo with a Scotchman, who pretended knowledge to £nd out witches by pricking them with pins. They agreed to give him twenty shillings a-pisce for all he could condemn, and bear his travel- ing expen -os. On Lis arrival the bellman was sent through the town to :nvite .all persons that would bring in an}' complaint against any vroman for a M itch, that she might be sent for and tried by tho persons appointed. Thirty women wei'c, on this, brought into the town-hall and stripped, and then openly had pin? thrust into their bodies, about twenty-seven of whom ho found guilty. His modn was, in the sight cf all the people, to lay the body of the per on suspected naked to tho waist, and then he r.;n a i in into her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall, demanding whether she had nothing cf Lis in her body bat did not bleed : the woman, through fright and shame, being auiazad, replied little ; then he put his hand up her coats and pulled out the pin, settling her aside as a guilty person and a child of the devil. By this sort of evidence, one wizard and fourteen witches wero tried and convicted at the assizes, and afterwards executed. Their names are recorded in tho parish register of St. Andrew's. See Brand's history of Newcastle-up- on-Tyne. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, iL 38, tells us that, " 14th May, 1G60, four persons accused of witchcraft were brought from Kidderminster to Worcester Gaol, one "Widow Ilobinson, and her two daughters, and a man. The eldest daughter was accused of saving that, if they had not been SOnCEUY AXD WlTCnCEAFT. 25 taken, (lie l;ing bIiouIJ. never have come 'to England ; and, tliongli he now doth come, yet he shall not live long, hwi shall die as ill a death as they ; and that they Avould have made corn like pepper. Many great charges against them, and little proved, they were put to the ducking in the river : they would not sink, but swam aloft. The man had live teats, the woman three, and the eldest daughter one. "When they went to search the women none wore visible ; one advised to lay them on their backs and keep open their mouths, and then they would ap- pear ; and so they presently appeared in sight. It appears from a Eehition printed by Matthews, in Long Acre, London, that, in the year 171G, Mrs. Hicks, and her daughter, aged nine years, were hanged in Huntingdon for witchcraft, for selling their souls to the devil, tormenting and destroying their neighbors, by making them vomit pins, raising a storui, so that a ship was almost lost, by pulling off her stock- ings, and making a lather of soap. By the severe laws once in force against witches, to the dis- grace of humanity, great numbers of innocent persons, dis- tressed with poverty and age, were brought to violent and untimely ends. By the 33 Henry VIIL c. viii. the law adjudged all Yv'itchcraft and Sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergj'. By statue 1 Jac. L c. xii. it was (>rdered that all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, enter- taining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit ; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or other- wise hurling any person by such infernal arts, should be gniHy of felony without benefit of clerg}', and sulTer death. And if any person should attempt by sorcery to discover hidden treas- ure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, though the same were not affected, ho or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second. On March 11, 1G13, Margaret and Philip Flower, daughters of Joane Flower, were executed at Lincoln for the supposed crimo of bewitching Henry Lord Kosse, eldest son of Francis Manners, SORCERY A^B WITCHORAFT. Earl of Kutland, and causing his death ; also, for most barbar- ously torturing by a strange sickness Francis, second son of the said Earl, and Lady Katherine, Lis daughter ; and also, for preventing by their diabolical arts, the said earl and his countess from having any more children. They were tried at the Lent As- sizes before Sir Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sir Edward Bromley, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and cast by the evidence of their own confessions. To effect the death of Lord Henry "there was a glove of the said Lord Henry buried in the ground, and as that glove did rot and waste, so did the liver of the said lord rot and waste." The spirit employed on the occasion, called Butterkin, appears not to have had the same power over the lives of Lord Francis and Lady Katherine. Margaret Flower confessed that she had •* two familiar spirit.s sucking on her, the one white, the other black-spotted. The white sucked under her left breast, the black-spotted," &c. "When she first entertained them, she promised them her soul, and they covenanted to do all things ■which she commanded them. In the Diary of Bobert Birrell, preserved in Fragments of Scottish History, 4to. Edinb., 1708, are inserted some curious memorials of persons suffering death for witchcraft in S'jotland. " 1591, 25 of Junii, Enphane M'Kalzen ves brunt for vitchcrafte. 1529. The last of Februarii, Bichard Grahamo wes brunt at ye Crosse of Edinburghe, tor vitchcrafte and sorcery. 1593. The 19 of May, Katherine Muirhead brunt for vitchcrafte, quha con- fest Bundrie poynts therof. 1G03. The 21 of Julii, James Beid brunt for consulting and useing with Sathan and witches, and quha wes notably knawin to be ane counsellor with witches. 1605. July 24th day, Henrie Lowrie brunt on the Castel Hill, for witchcrafte done and committed be him in Kyle, in the par- ochin." The following is from the Gent. Mag. for 1775, xlv. 601 : "Nov. 15. Nine old women were burnt at Kalisk, in Poland, charged with having bewitched and rendered unfruitful the lands belonging to a gentleman in that palatinate." By statute 9 Geo. H. c. v. it was enacted that no prosecution ghould in future be carried on against any person lor con jura- soncERT AID wrrcncRA^T. 27 tion, witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment. However, the mis- demeanor of persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods by skill in the occult sciences, is still deservedly punished with a year' s imprisonment, and till recently by standing four times in the pillory. Thus the Witch Act, a disgrace to the code of English laws, was not repealed till 173t!. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, v. 240, parish of Old Kilpatrick, co. Dumbarton, we read : '* The history of the Bar- garran witches, in the neighboring parish of Erskine, is well known to the curioup. That this parish in the dark ages par- took of the same frenzy, and that innocent persons were sacri- ficed at the shrino of cruelty, bigotry, and suj^erstition, cannot be concealed. As late as the end of tha last century a woman was burnt for witchcraft at Sandyfonl, near the village, and the bones of the unfortanato victim were lately found at the place. Ibid. p. 454, parish of Spott, co. East Lothian, Parochial Hecords. " 1698 : The Session, after a long examination of wit- nesses, refer the case of Marion Lillie, for imprecations and supposed witchcraft, to the Presbyter}', who refer her for trial to the ci\ il magistr.ito. Said Mariou generally called the Eigwoody "NVitch. Oct. 1703 : Many witches burnt on the top of Spott loan." Ibid. vii. 280, parish of East Monklaml, co. Lanark: Upon a rising ground there is still to be seen an upright gran- ite stone, where, it is said, in former times they burnt those imaginary criminals called witches." Ibid. viii. 177, parish of Newburgh, co. Fife: "Tradition continues to preserve the memory of the spot in the lands belonging to the town of New. burgh, on wliich more than one unfortunate victim fell a sacri- fice to the superstition of former times, intent on i uaishing the crime of witchcraft. The humane provisions of the legislature, *oined to the superior knowledge which has, of late years, per- vaded all ranks of men in societj', bid tair to prevent the return of a frenzy which actuated our forefathers universall}', and with fatal violence." The following is extracted from the Parish Eecords : "Newburgh, Sept. 18, 1653. The minister gave in against Eath'rine Key severall poynts that had come tQ 28 SOECEnr AXD WITCnCBAFT Lis hearing, uLicL ho desyred might be pnt to tryelh 1. That, "being refused miih, the how gave nothing hut red blood ; and being sent for to sie the how, she chipped (stroked) the kow, and said the kow will be weill, and thereafter the kow becam weilh 2. (-V similar charge.) 3. That the minister and his wife, having ane purpose to take ane child of theirs from the said Kathrine, which she had in nursing, the child would suck none woman's breast being only one quarter old ; but, being brought again to the said K;ithrino, presently sucked her breast. 4. That, thereafter the chyld was spayned (weaned), she came to sie the chi.d and wold have the bairne (child) in her arms, and thereafter the bairne murned and gratt (vs-eeped sore) in the night, and almost the day tyme ; also, that nothing could stay her until she died. Nevertheless, before her coming to see her and her embracing of her, took as weill with the spaining and rested as weill as any bairne could doe. 5. That she is of ane evill bruttc and fame, and so was her mother before her." The event is not recorded. Ibid. ix. 74, parish of Erskine, is a re- ference to Arnot's Collection ( f Criminrd Trials for an account of tlie Eargarran AYitches. ILid. xii..l97, parish of Kirriemuir, CO. Forfar : "A circular pond, commonly called the WUch-pool, was lately converted into a reservoir for the mills on the Gairie ; a much better use than, if we may judge from the name, the superstition of our ancestors led them to apply it," IbiJ. xiv, 372, parish of Mid Calder, county of Edinburgh : Witches formerly burnt there. The method taken by persons employed to keep those who were suspected of witchcraft awake, when guarded, was, "to pierce their flesh with pins, needles, awls, or other sharp-pointed instruments. To rescue them from that opression which sleep imposed on their almost exhausted nature, they sometimes used irons heated to a state of redness." The reference for this is also to Arnot's Trials. Ibid, xviii. C7, parish of Kirkaldy, county of Fife, it is said: " A man and his wife was burnt here in 1G30, for the supposed crime of witchcraft. At that time the belief ( f witchcraft pre- vailed, and trials and executions on account of it were frequent, in all the kingdoms of Europe. It was in 1G34 that the famous Urban Grandier was, at the instigation of Cardinal Eichelieu, SOllCZnr AKD witciicbajbt. 20 whom he ha'l satirized, tried, and condemned to the stake, for exercising Ibo black art on some nuns of Loudun, ^vho were supposed to bo possessed. And it was much about the samo time that the wifo of the Mureclial d'Ancre (see p. 9) was burnt for a witch, at the Place de Greve, at Paris." Dr. Zoucli, in a note of his edition to "Walton's Lives, 179G, p. 482, says: "The opinion concerning tbe reality of witch- craft was not exploded even at the end of the seventeenth century. The prejudices of popular credulity are not easily effaced. Men of learning, either from conviction or some other equally powerful motive, adopted the system of Dsemon- ology advanced b}' James I. ; and it was only at a recent period that the legislature repealed the Act made in the first year of the reign of that monarch, entitled an Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits." Lord Verulam's reliections on witches, in the tenth century of his Natural History, form a fine contrast to the narrow and bigoted ideas of the royal author of the Daemonology. "Men may not too rashly believe the confession of witches, nor yet the evidence against them ; for the witches themselves are imaginative, and believe oftentimes they do that in which they do not ; and people are credulous in that point, and ready to impute accidents and natural operations to witch- craft. It is worthy the observing that, both in ancient and late times (as in the Thessalian witches, and the meetings of witches that have been recorded by so many late confessions), the great wonders which they tell, of carrying in the air, transforming themselves into other bodies, &c. are still reported to bo wrought, not by incantations or ceremonies, but by ointments and anointing themselves all over. This may justly move a va?.n to think that these fables are the effects of imr.g- inatiou ; for it is certain that ointments do all (if they be laid on anything thick), by stopping of the pores, shut in the vapors, and send them to the head extremely. And for the particular ingredients of those magical ointments, it is like they are opiate and soporiferous: for anointing of the forehead, neck, feet, backbone, we know is ised lor procuring deaa to SOftCERY AKD WIlCnCRAFT. sleepi. And if nny man say that this effect wonld be better done by inward i)otions, answer may be made that the medi- cines which go to the ointments are so strong, that if they were used inwards they would kill those that use them, and there- fore they work potently though outwards." Mr. "Warner in his Topographical Pwemarks relating to the South-western parts of Hampshire already quoted, says: "It would be a curious speculation to trace the origin and progress of that mode of thinking among the northern nations which gave the faculty of divination to females in ancient ages, and the gift of witchcraft to them in more modern times. The learned reader will receive great satisfaction in the i^erusal of a dissertation of Kcysler, entitled De Mulieribus fatidicis, ad calc. Antiq. Select. Septen. p. 371. Much information on the same subject is also to be had in M. Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. ; and in the Notes of the Edda, vol. ii." In an account of witchcraft, the cat, who is the sine qua. non a witch, deserves particular consideration. If I mis. take not, this is a connexion which has cost our domestic animal all that persecution with which it is, by idle boyc at least, 'sncessantly pursued. In ancient times the case was very different. These animals were anciently revered as emblems of the moon, and among the Egyptians were on that account so highly honored to receive sacrifices and devotions, and had stately temples erected to their honor. It is said that in what- ever house a cat died, all the family shaved their eyebrows. No favorite lap-dog among the moderns had received such posthu- mous honors. Diodorus Siculus relates that a Eoman happen- ing accidentally to kill a cat, the mob immediately gathered about the house where he was, and neither the entreaties of some principle men sent by the king, not the fear of the Romans, with whom the Egyptians were then negotiating • peace, could save the man's life. In the remarkable account of witches in Scotland (before James the First's coming to the crown of England), abo'.it 15S1, entitled news from Scotland : the damnable Life and SOBCEnr A2\D WlTCMBAlfT. 31 Death of Dr. Fian * (printed from the old copy in th« Gent. Mag. for 1779, xlis. 440), is the following: "Agni« ThompFcn confessed that, at the time whtn his Majesty was in Denmark, she Leing accompanied with the parties beforo specialy named, look a cat and christened H, and afterwards hound to each part of the cat the chiefest parts of a dead man, rnd several joints cf his hody ; and that in the night following the said cat was conveyed into the midst of the sea by all these witches sailing iu their riddles or cieves, as is aforesaid, and £o left the said cat hcforo the town of Leith, in Scotland ; tLis done, their did arise cuch a tempest in the sea as a greater Lath not been seen ; which tempest was the conso cf the perishing of a boat or vessel coming over trom the town of Eriiiit Island to the town of Leith, wherein wero sundry jewels and rich gifts, which should have been pre- sented to tho now Queen cf Scotland, at her Mr.jestys coming to Leilh. Again it is confessed that the raid christened cat was the cause that the Iling's IM: jcsty's ship, at Lis coming forth of Denmr.rh, had a contrary v, :nd to tho rest of his ships then being in Lis comprny ; v. hich thing was most etrango and true, as tho Hing's llr.jesty acknowledgeth." One plainl}" sees in this publication tho foundation-stones of the royal treatise on Dromonology; and it is said •'these con- fessions made tho Ling in a wonderful admiration," and ho sent for one GeiKis Duncane, who played a reel or dance beforo tho witches, "who upon a ^niall trump, called a Jew's trump, did play tho same dance before tho King's Majesty, who, in, respect cf the strangeness of these matters, took great delight to bo present at all their examinations." V.'ho is there so incurious that would not wish to Lavo seen tho monarch cf Great Britain entertaining himself with a supposed witch's performance on the Jew's-harp ? * This Docter Fian was register of the devil, and sundry times preached at North Baricke Kirke lo a number of notorious witches ; the very persons who in this work are said to have pro»- tended to bewitch and drown his Mcjesty in tho sea commg from Denmark. S0BCER7 AMD mJCHItAFT. We re -produce .1 few wonders borrowed from a celebrated collection Laving for its title ; "The admirable secrets of Al- EEKTrs ilAGKCs," that is of Albert the Great. This illustrioiis scholar, one of the most remarkable men of the ^liddle Ages, was born in 1193, at Savignen, a town in Swabia, on the banks of the Danube. "Wiiliam of Holland, who had been crowned King of tho r.omr.ns. that is to sny, deputy to the Emperor of Germany, made a visit to the celebrated professor. Albertus himself received him with extraordinary magnifi- cence. It was at the time in the depth of winter. Albertus gave his reception in a garden, blooming with the flowers of sj^ring, in which tho t:mper.atare was as mild as that of the month of May, a thing which would appear very extraordinary, even, for our own times and which must have appeared surprisingly marvel- lous in a most unenlightened age. Many r.nalogous facis contributed no little in spreading broad, r.mong tho ignorant classes, rumors as to the magical powers of the professor. lie was without contradiction one of the most extraordinary men of his century and even one of the genuises of past ages. Hence he was regarded for a long lime as a sorcerer. In consequence of this popi;lar error, a great many books have been piiblished over his name, of \\hich that most diffused is the The Admirable Secrets ( f Albertus Magnus." TLis work, composed mainly of natural magic, embraces a •'Troalise on the Generation of Man," £lled with errors, with which we have no business, an "Dssny upon Physiognomy,*' and a "Collection of Secrets" upon the virtues of herbs, stones and animals. In it we read revelations such as the following : To render one's self invisible it is only necessary to possess the stone called ophilialme. Ccnstantine held one in Lis hand and in this wise became invisible. To cure the phthisis you must hang around tho nedc of a sick person the stone called lerlfeiidanus. SOttCEET AyD WITCHCRAFT. 83 To avoid nil dangers, it is necessary to wear upon your person a black agate with wbite veins. A dress, rubbed with Ilhmas, will never burn. .■^** To drive away moles from a locality, it is necessary to catch one and put it in the place with native sulphur and there bum it. A dog who has swallowed the heart of a weazel will never afterwards bark. To make a person talk a good deal, give him the tongu« and heart of a magpie. j^l* The head of a goat, suspended to the neck of a person, afflicted with leprosy will cure him perfectly. The right foot of a tortoise, made fast to the right foot of a gouty man will give him ease. Everything, however, is not of this same stamp throughout the marvellous secrets of Albertus Magnus. In the midst of absurdities, invented at will, there are soma useful receipts. As : * * * * * 0 To CLEAN lEON AEMOR AND WHATEVER TOU WILK — Take lead, pulverized very fine, place it in a pot, well covered, with olive oil ; leave it thus for nine days ; then rub the iron, steel, &c., with this oil and rust will never attack it. ******* To SOFTEN Glass. — Take equal parts of burned lead and crystal, break them upon a stone, put them in a crucible and melt them together ; you can do whatever you like by this means. ******** To SOLDER ALL THINGS, EVEN COLD IRON. — Take an ounco^ of sal ammoniac, an ounce of common salt, as much calcined tar- tar and three ounces of antimonj'. After having pulvarized the whole together, pass through a sieve.: put it into a linen, cov- ered all over the outside with well prepared potter's clay to the thickness of a finger ; let it become dry ; after that place it upon test pots over a slow fire, which augments until the whole becomes of a red heat and melts together. After allowing it to get cold again, reduce it to powder and, when anything ia to FASCINATION OF WITCHES. be soldered, join the two pieces as closely as possible upon'a piece of paper, placed upon a table and introduce between tne two pieces to be joined the aforesaid powder. Now boil borax in wine until it is dissolved and rub with the end of a pen the powder with this liquid and the powder will boil likewise. When it has ceased to boil the solidification and soldering has been accomplished, To ENGEAVE UPON ALL SORTS OF METALS. — Take a part of billot chaicoal, two parts of vitriol, as much sal ammoniac, steep the whole in vinegar until it becomes a soft paste, and when you wish to engrave, trace the design upon the metal which you suffer to dry. Then you place over it the above composition as warm as you can make it and, when all becomes dry, you remove it and wash the engraving well and everything will be as you desire it. Such are the grand secrets of Albertus JIagnus, FASCINATION OF WITCHES. I have no doiibt but that this expression originated in the poi^ular superstition concerning an evil, that is an enchanting heiDitcldng eye. In confirmation of this I must cite the follow- ing passage from Scot's Discovery, p. 291 : " Many writers agree with Yirgil and Theocritus in the effect of bewitching eyes, affirming that in Scythia there are women called Bithise, having two balls, or rather hlacks, in the apples of their eyes. These (forsooth) with their angry looks do bewitch and hurt, not only young lambs, but young children." He says, p. 35 : "The Irishmen affirm that not only their children, but their cattle, are (as they call it) eye-hiiien, when they fall suddenly sick." In Vox Dei, or the great Duty of Self-Eeflection upon a Man's own Wayes, by N. Wanley, M. A. and minister of the Gospel at Beeby, in Leicestershire, 1G58, p. 85, the author, speaking of St. Paul's having said that he was, touching the righteousnesse FASCINATION OF WITCHES. 35 which is in the law, blameless, observes upon it, "No man could say (as the proverb hath it) black was his eye." In Browne's Map of the Microcosme, 164*^, we read : "As those eyes are accounted bewitching, que geminam habent pupillam, sicut Illyrici, which have double-sighted eyes ; so," &c. [The following very curious particulars are taken from a recent number of the Athenaeum : — Turrdngihe Coal ; a Couni- ercharm io the Evil Eye. It is necessary that persons with the power of an evil eye go through certain forms before they can effect their object ; and it is supposed that during these forms the evil they wish is seen by them, by some means, before it takes efiect upon their victim. One of the simplest of these forms is looking steadfastly in the fire, so that a person seen sitting musing with his eyes fixed upon the fire is looked upon with great suspicion. But if he smokes, and in lighting the pipe puts the head into the fire, and takes a draw while it is there, it is an undeniable sign that there is evil brewing. Now, if any pe;-son observe this, and it being a common custom in the country to have a large piece of coal on the fire, the tongs be taken privately, and this coal be turned right over, with the exorcism utterd, either privately or aloud, "Lord be wi' us," it throws the imagination of the evil-disposed person into con- fusion, dispels the vision, and thwarts for the time all evil inten- tions. Or if an individual who is suspected of having wished evil, or cast an ''ill e'e," upon anything, enter the house upon which the evil is, and the coal he turned upon him, as it is termed, that person feels as if the coal was placed upon his heart, and has often been seen to put his hand to his breast, exclaiming, "Oh !" Nay, more ; he is unable to move so long as the coal is held down with the tongs,— and has no more power over that house. In Heron's Journey through Part of Scotland, ii. 228, we read : "Cattle are subject to be injured by what is called an evil eye, for some persons are supposed to have naturally a blast- ing power in their eyes, with which they injure whatever offends or is hopelessly desired by them. Witches and warlocks are also much disposed to wreak their malignity on cattle." "Charms," the writer adds, " are the cheif remedies applied for 86 FASCINATION OF WITCRES. their diseases. I have been, mj-self, acqiTainted with an anti- bnrgher clergyman in these parts, who actually procured from A person who pretended skill in these charms, two small pieces of wood, curiously wrought, to be kept in his lather's cow- house, as a security for the health of his cows. It is common to bind into a cow's tail a small piece of mountain-ash wood, as a charm against witchcraft. Few old women are now suspect- ed of witchcraft ; but many tales are told of the conventions of witches in the kirks in former times. ["Your interesting papers," says a correspondent of the Athenaeum, "upon 'Folk Lore,' have brought to my recollec- tion a number of practices common in the west of Scotland. The lirst is a test for, as a charm to prevent, an 'ill e'e.' Any- individual ailing not sufficiently for the case to be consideped serious, but lingering, is deemed to be the object of ' an ill e'o,' of some one 'that's no canny.' The follov\-ing operation is (hen performed ;— An old sixpence is borrowed from some neighbor, without telling the ol>ject to which it is to be applied ; as much salt as can be lifted upon the sixpence is put into a table- spoonful of water, and melted ; the sixpence is then put into the solution, and the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands of the patient are moistened three times with the salt water ; it is then tasted three times, and the patient afterwards 'scored aboon the breath,' that is, by the operator dipping tho forefinger into the salt water, and drawing it along the brow. When this is done the contents of the spoon are thrown behind, and right over the fire, the thrower saying at the same time, * Lord preserve us frae a' scathe ! ' If recovery follow this, thero is no doubt of the individual having been under the influence of an evil eye."] Volney, in his travels in Egypt and Syria, i. 246, says "The ignorant mothers of many of the modern Egyptians, whose hollow eyes, pale faces, swollen bellies, and meagre ex- tremities make them seem as if they had not long to live, be- lieve this to be the effect of the evil eye of some envious person, who has bewitched them ; and this ancient prejudice is still general in Turkey." " Nothing," says Mr. Dallaway, in his Account of Cojx- TOAD STONE. S7 stantinople, 1797, p. 391, " can exceed the superstition of the Turks respecting ike evil eye of an enemy or infidel. Passages from the Koran are painted on the outside of the houses, globes of glass are suspended from the ceilings, and a sort of the super- fluous capariso'i of their horses is designed to attract attention and divert a minister influence." ♦ That this superstition was known to the Eomans we have the authority of Virgil ; — " Nescio quis tenoros oculus mihi fascinat agnos." Eel. iii. The following passage from one of Lord Bacon's works is cited in Minor Morals, i. 24; "It seems some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke of percussion of an envious e^'^e does most hurt are particularly when the party envied is beheld in glory and triumph." Lupton, in his fourth Book of Notable Things, No. 81 (edit 1660, p. 103), says : "The eyes be not only instruments of enchantment, but also the voyce and evil tongues of certain persons ; for their are found in Africk, as Gellius saith, fami • lies of men, that, if they cliance exceedingly to praise fair trees, pure seeds, goodly children, excellent horses, fair and well- liking cattle, soon after they will wither and pin© away, and so dye ; no cause or hurt known of their withering or death. Thereuj^on the costume came, that when any do praise anything, that we should say, God, blesse it or keep© it. Arist. in Prob. by the report of Mizaldus." TOAD STONE. To the toad-stone Shakespeare alludes in the following b«an- tiful similo : "Sweet are the uses of adversitj', Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." Stevens, in his note upon this passage, says that Thomaii Lupton, in his first Book of Notable Things, bears repeated testimony to the virtues of the toad-stone called crapaudiua. In his seventh book he instructs how to procure it, and after- wards tell us .: "You shall knowe whether the toad-stone bd 88 TOAD STONR the rj'ght and perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a tode, so that he may see it ; and, if it be a right and true stone, the tode will leap towarde it, and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that man should have that stone. " From a physical manuscript in quarto, of the date of 1475, formely in the collection of Mr. Herbert, of Cheshunt, now in my library, I transcribe the following charm against witch- craft : — "Here ys acharme for wyked Wych. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen. Per Yirtutem Domini sint medicina mei pia Cruxijiet passio Christi^. Vulnera quinque Domini sint medicina meit^. Virgo Maria mihi succurre, et defende ab omni maligno demonio, et ab omni maligno spiritu : Amen, iftaifig^lt^a^ Tetragrammaton. Alpha. i{i oo. i{i primogenitus, iji vita, vita. ^ sapiencia, ifi Virtus, ^ Jesus Nazarenus rex judeorum, ^ fill Domini, miserere mei, Amen, ifi Marcus i{i Matheus ifi Lucas i{i Johannes mihi suc- currite et defendite, Amen. iSjf Omnipotens sempiterna Deus, hunc N. famulum tuum hoc breve scriptum super se portantem prospere salvet dormiendo, vigilando, potando, et precipue Bompniando, ab omni maligno demonio, eciam ab omni maligno spiritu iji. ' In Scot's discovery, p. 160, we have "A special Charm to preserve all Cattel from witchcraft. — At Easter, you must take certain drops that lie uppermost of the holy paschal candle, and make a little wax candle thereof ; and upon some Sunday morning rathe, light it, and hold it so as it may drop upon and between the horns and ears of the beast, saying, ' In nomine Patris et Filii,' &c., and burn the beast a little between the horns on the ears with the same wax ; and that which is left thereof, stick it cross-wise about the stable or stall, or upon the threshold, or over the door, where the cattle used to go in and out : and for all that year your cattle shall never be bewitched.' Pennant tells us, in his Tour in Scotland, that the farmers carefully preserve their cattle against witchcraft by placing boughs of mountain-ash and honeysuckle in their cowhouses on the 2d of May. They hope to preserve the milk of their cows, and their wives from miscarriage, by tying threads about SORCERER AND MAGICIAN. 39 them : they bleed' the supposed witch to preserve themselves from her charms. Gaule, as before cited, p. 142, speaking of the preservatives against witchcraft, mentions, as in use among the Papists, "the tolling of a baptized bell, signing with the signe of the crosse, sprinkling with holy water, blessing of oyle, wax, candles, salt, bread, cheese, garments, weapons, &c,, carrying about sainta reliques, with a thousand superstitious foperiers ;" and then enumerates those which are used by men of all religions : " 1. In seeking to a witch to be holpen against a witch. 2, In using a certain or supposed charme, against an uncertaineor suspected witchcraft. 3. In searching anxiously for the witches signe or token left behinde her in the house under the threshold, in the bed-straw ; and to be sure to light upon it, burning every odd ragge, or bone, or feather, that is to be found. 4, In swear- ing, rayling, threatning, cursing, and banning the witch ; as if this were a right way to bewitch the witch from bewitching. 5. In banging and basting, scratching and clawing, to draw blood of the witch. 6. In daring and defying the witch out of a car- nal security and presumptuous temerity." The following passage is taken from Stephens's Characters, p. 375: "The torments therefore of hot iron and mercilesse scratching navies be long thought uppon and much threatned (by the females) before attempted. Meantime she tolerates defiance thorough the wrathfull spittle of matrons, in stead of fuell, or maintenance to her damnable intentions." He goes on — "Children cannot smile upon her without the hazard of a perpetual wry mouth : a very nobleman's request may be denied more safely than her petetions for butter, milke, and small becre ; and a great ladies or queens name may be less doubtfully derided. Her prayers and amen be a charm and a curse ; her contemplations and soules delight bee other men's mischief e : her portions and sutors be her soule and a succubus : her highest adorations beyew-trees, dampish church-yards, and a fayre moonlight : her best preservatives be odde numbers and mightie. Tetragramaton." 40 SOROEllER A YD MAGICIAN, THE SORCERER AND MAGICIAN. A soRCEBER and magician, says Grose, differs from a witch in this : a witch derives all her power from a compact with the devil : a sorcerer commands him, and the infernal spirits, by his skill in powerful charms and invocations; and also soothes and entices them by fumigations. For the devils are observed to havs delicate nostrils, abominating and flying some kind of stinks : witness the flight of the evil spirit into the remote parts of Egypt, driven by the smell of a fish's liver burned by Tobit. They are also found to be peculiarly fond of certain perfumes : insomuch that Lilly informs us that, one Evens having raised n spirit at the request of Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby, and forgotten a suffumigation, the ?-pirit, vexed at the disapoint- ment, snatched him out of his circle, and carried him from his house in the Minories into a field near Batersea Causeway. King James, in his Dremonologia, says : "The art of sorcery -consists in divers forms of circles and conjurations rightly joined together, few or more in number according to the number of persons conjurers (always passing the singular number), According to the qualitie of the circle and form of the appari- tion. Two principle things cannot well in that errand be wanted : holy water (whereby the devil mocks the Papists), and some present of a living thing unto him. There are likewise certain dales and houres that they observe in this purpose. These things being already and prepared, circles are made, triangular, quadrangular, round, double, or single, according to the form of the apparition they crave. But to speake of the di- verse forms of the circles, of the innumerable characters and crosses that are within and without, and out-through the same ; of the diverse forms of apparitions that the craftie spirit illudes them with, and of all such particulars in that action, I remit it over to many that have busied their heads in describing of the same, as being but curious and altogether unprofitable. And this farre only I touch, that, when the conjured spirit appears, which will not be while after many circumstances, long prayers and much muttering and raurmurings of the conjurers, like a pa- pist priest© despatching a hunting masse--how soone, I say, h9 SOnCERER AND MAGICIAN. appeares, if they have missed one jote oi all their rites ; or if any of their feete once slyd over the circle, through terror of this fearful apparition, he paies himself at that time, in his owne hand, of that duo debt which they ought him and other- VI ise would have delaied longer to have paied him ; I meane, he carries them with him, body and soul. " If this be not now a just cause to make them weary of these formes of conjuration, I leave it to you to judge upon ; considering the longsomeness of the labor, the precise keeping, of dai3s and houres (as I have said), the terribleness of th« apparition, and the present peril that they stand in, missing the leest circumstance of freite that they ought to observe : and, on the other part, the devill is glad to moove them to a plain© and squfire dealing with them, as I said before." "This," Grose observes, "is a pretty accurate description of thic mode of conjuration, styled the circular method ; but, with all due respect to his Majesty's learning, square and tri- angular circles are figures not to be found in Euclid or nny of] the common writers on geometry. But perhaps King James learnt his mathematics from the same system as Doctor Sach- everell, who, in one of his speeches or sermons, made use of the following simile : 'They concur like parallel lines, meeting in one common centre.' " The difference between a conjuror, a witch, and an enchanter, according to Minshew, in his dictionarj', is as follows: "The conjuror seemeth by jorairs and invocations of God's powerful names, to compel the divell to say or doe what he commandeth him. The witch dealeth rather by a friendly and voluntarie conference or agreement between him and her and the divell or familar, to have his or her turn served, in lieu or stead of blood or other gift offered unto liim, especially of his or her soule. And both these differ from inchanters or sorcerers, because the former two have personal conference with the divell, and th« other meddles but with medicines and ceremonial formeg of words called charmes, without apparition." Reginald Scot, in his Discourse on Devi lis and spirits, p. 72, tells as that, with regard to conjurors, "The circles by which 42 SORCERER AND MAGICIAN. they defend themselves are commonly nine foot in breath, but the eastern magicians must give seven." Melton, in his astrologaster, p. 16, speaking of conjurors says : "They always observe the time of the moon before they set their figure, and when they have set their figure and spread their circle, first exorcise the wine and water which they sprinkle on their circle, then mumble in an unknown language. Doe they not crosse and exorcise their surplus, their silver wand, gowne, cap, and every instrument they use about their blacke and damn- able art ? Nay, they crosse the place whereon they stand, be- cause they thinke the devill hath no power to come to it when they have blest it." The followinfi passage occurs in A Strange Horse-Bace, by Thomas Dekker, 1613, signat. D. 3 : "He darting an eye upon them, able to confound a thousand conjurers in their own circles (though with a wet finger they could fetch up a little divell)." The old vulgar ceremonies used in raising the divell, such as making a circle with chalk, setting an old hat in the centre of it, repeating the Lord's Prayer backward, &c. &c., are now altogether absolete, and seem to be forgotten even amongst our boys. Mason in his Anatomic of Sorcerie, 1612, p. 86, ridicules " In chanters and charmers — thej', which by using of certain© conceited words, characters, circles, amulets, and such-like vain and wicked trumpery (by God's permission) doe worke great marvailes : as namely in causing of sicknesse, as also in curing diseases in men's bodies. And likewise binding some, that they cannot use their naturall powers and faculties, as we see in night-spells ; insomuch as some of them doe take in hand to bind the divell himselfe by their inchantments." Th6 following spell is from Herrick's Hesperides, p, 304 : " Holy water come and bring : Cast in salt for seasoning ; Set the brush for sprinkling : Sacred spittle bring ye hither ; Meale and it now mix together, And a little oyle to either : SOnCERER A^'D MAGICIAN. 43 Give the tapors here their liE;ht, King the saints-bell to affright Far from hence the evil sprite." Another mode of consulting spirits was hy the berryl, by means of a speculator or seer, who, to have a complete sight, ought to be a pure virgin, a youth who had not known woman, or at least a person of irreproachable life and purity of man- ners. The method of such consultation is this : the conjuror, having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations, with the Litany, or invocation peculiar to the spirits or angels he wishes to call (for every one has his particular form), the seer looks into a crystal or berryl, wherein he will see the answer, represented either by types or figures : and sometimes, though very rarely, will hear the angels or spirits speak articulately. Their pronunciation is, as Lilly says, like the Irish, much in the throat. In Lodge's Devil's Incarnat of this Age, 1596, in the epistle to the reader, are the following quaint allusions to sorcerers and magicians: "Buy therefore this Ch'isiall, and you shall see them in their common appearance : and read these exorcisms advisedly, and you may be sure to conjure them without crossings : but if any man long for a familiar for false dice, a spirit to tell fortunes, a charme to heale disease, this only book can best fit him." Valiancy, in his Collectanea de Eebus Hiber- nicis, No. xiii. 17, says : In the Highlands of Scotland a large chrystal, of a figure somewhat oval, was kept by the priests to work charms by ; wjiter poured upon it at this day is given to cattle against diseases ; these stones are now preserved by the oldest and most superstitious in the country (Shawe). They were once common in Ireland, I am informed the Earl of Tyrone is in jiossession of a very fine one." In Andrew's Con- tinuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, p. C88, we read : "The conjurations of Dr Dee having induced his familiar spirit to visit a kind of talisman, Kelly (a brother adventurer) was ap- pointed to watch and describe his gestures." The dark shining stone used by these impostors was in the Strawberry Hill collec- tion. It appeared like a polished piece of cannel coal. Lilly describes one of these berryls or crystals. It was, ha SORCERER AND MAGICIAN. says, fts large as an orange, set in silver with a cross at the top, and round about engraved the names oi" the angels Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel. A delineation of another is engraved in the frontispiece to Awbrey's Miscellanies. This mode of in- quiry was practised by Dr. Dee, the celebrated mathematician. His speculator was named Kelly. From him, and others practis- ing this art, we have a long muster-roll of the infernal host, their different natures, tempers, and appearances. Dr. Reginald Scot has given us a list of some of the chiefs of these devils or spirits. These sorcerers, or magicians, do not always employ their art to do mischief ; but, on the contrary, frequently exert it to cure diseases inflicted by witches, to discover theives, recover stolen goods, to fortell future events and the state of absent friends. On this account they are frequently called White Witches. Ady, in his candle in the dark, p. 29. speaking of common juglers, that go up and down to play their tricks in fayrs and markets, says: "I will speak of one man more excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself the King's Majesties most ex- cellent Hocus Pocus, and so was he called, becaus that at the playing of every trick he used to say: ' Hocus pocus, tontus, tal- ontus, vade celeriter jubeo,' a dark composure of words to blinde the ej'es of beholders." In the Character of a Quack-Astrologer, 1673, our wise man, "a gipsy of the uper form,"' is called "a three-penny prophet that undertakes the telling of other folks' foriimes, meerly to supply the pinching necessities of his o?cn." Ibid, signat B. 3, our cunning man is said to "begin with theft; and to help people to what they have lost, picks their pocket afresh: not a ring or a spoon is nim'd away, but pays him twelve-pence toll, and the ale-drapers' often-straying tankard yeilds him a con- stant revenue: for that purpose he maintains as strict a corres- pondence with gilts and lifters as a montebank with applauding midwives and recommending nurses: and if at any time, to keep up his credit with the rabble, he discovers anything, 'tis done by the same occult hermetic learning, her«tofor« profast by the renowned Moll Cutpurse." SORCERER AXD MAGICIAN. 45 The following curious passage is from Lodge's Incarnato Devils, lo9H, p. 13: "There are many in London now adaies that are besotted with this sinne, one of whom I saw on a white horse in Fleet street, a tanner knave I never lookt on, who with one figure (cast out of a schollcr's studie for a necessary servant at Borcordo) promised to find any man's oxen were they lost, restore any man's goods if they were stolne, and win any man love, where or howsoever he settled it, but his jugling knacks were quickly discovered. In Articlas of Inquirie given in Charge by the Bishop of Sarum, a. d. 1614, is the following: "67. Item, whether you have any conjurers, charmers, calcours, witches, or fortune- tellers, who they are, and who do resort unto them for coun- sell ?" In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xii, 465, in the ac- count of the parish of Kirkmichael, county of Banfif, we read: "Among the branches into which the moss-grown trunk of superstition divides itself, may be reckoned witchcraft and magic. These, though decayed and withered by time, still retain some faint traces of their ancient verdure. Even at present witches are supposed, as of old, to ride on broomsticks through the air. In this country, the 12ih of May is one of their festivals. On the morning of that day ihey are frequently seen dancing on the surface cf the water oi Avon, brushing the dews cf the lawn, and milking cows in their fold. Any un- common sickness i-i generally attributed to their demoniacal practices. They make fields barren or fertile, raise or still whirlwinds, give or take away milk at pleasure. The force of their incantations is not to be resisted, and extends even to the moon i:i the midst of her aerial career. It is the good fortune, however, of this country to be provided with an anti-conjuror that defeats both them and their sable patron in their combined efforts. His fame is widely diffused, and wherever ho goes crescil eundo. If the spouse is jealous of her husband, the anti- conjuror is consulted to restore the affections of his bewitched heart. If a near connexion lies confined to the bed of sickness, ^t is vain to expect relief without the balsamic medicine of the anti-conjuror. If a person happens to be deprived of his senses, 46 GHOSTS, OR AFFARITIONS. the deranged cells of the brains must be adjusted by the magio charms of the anti-conjuror. If a farmer loses his cattle, the houses must be purified with water sprinkled by him. In searching for the latent mischief, this gentleman never fails to find little parcels of heterogeneous ingrediments lurking in the walls, consisting of the legs of mice and the wings of bats; all the work of the witches. Few things seem too arduous for his abilities; and though, like Paracelsus, he has not as yet boasted of having discovered the philosopher's stone, yet, by the power of his occult science, he still attracts a little of their gold from the pockets where it lodges, and in this way makes a shift to acquire subsistence for himself and family.'' There is a folio sheet, printed at London, 1561, preserved in a collection of Miscellanies in the archives of the Society of Anti- quaries of London, lettered Miscel. Q. Eliz. No. 7, entitled, " The unfained retractation of Fraunces Cox, which he uttered at the pillery in Chepesyde and elsewhere, accordyng to the counsels commaundement anno 1561, 25tb of June, beying ac- cused for the use of certayne sinistral and divelysh artes." In this he says that from a child he began " to practise the most divelish and supersticious knowledge of necromancie, and invo- cations of spirites, 'and curiouo astrology. He now utterl}' re- nounces and forsakes all such divelish sciences, wherein the name of God is most horribly abused, and society or pact with wicked spirits most detestably practised, as necromancie, geom. ancie, and that curious part of astrology wherein is contained the calculating of nativities or casting of nativities, with all the other magikes." GHOSTS, OR APPAEITIONS. A Ghost," according to Grose, " is supposed to be the spirit of a person deceased, who is either commissioned to return for some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to pro- cure restitution of lands or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow, or, having committed some injustice whilst GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS. 47 living, cannot rest till that is redressed. Sometimes Iho occa- sion of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir in what secret place, or i^rivate drawer in an old trunk, they had hidden the title deeds of the estate; or where, in troublesome times, they buried their mone}^ or plate. Some ghosts of mur dered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up, and deposited in consecrated ground, with all the rites of Christian burial. This idea is the remains of a very old piece of heathen superstition: the ancients believed that Charon was not permitted to ferry over the ghosts of unburied persons, but that they wandered up - and down the banks of the river Styx for an hundred years, after which they were admitted to a passage. " Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made, whilst living, with some particular friend, that he who first died should appear to the survivor. Glanvil tells us of the ghost of a person who had lived but a disorderly kind of life, for which it was condemned to wander up and down the t irth, in the company of evil spirits till the day of judgment. In most of the relations of ghosts they are supposed to be mere "?riul beings, without substance, and that they can pass through alls and other solid bodies at pleasure. A particular instance f this is given in Eelatiun the 27th in Glanvil's Collection, ivhere one David Hunter, neatherd to the Bishop cf Down and Connor, was for a long time haunted by the apparition of an old woman, whom he was by a secret impulse obliged to follow whenever she appeared, which he says he did for a considerable time, even if in bed with his wife: and because his wife could not hold him in his bed, she would go too, and walk after him till day, though she saw nothing; but his little dog was so well acquainted with the apparition, that he would follow it as well as his master. If a tree stood in her walk, he observed her al- ways to go through it. Notwithstanding this seeming imma- terialitj', this very ghost was not without some substance; for having performed her errand, she desired Hunter to lift her from the ground, in the doing of which, he says, she felt just like a bag of feathers. We sometimes also read of ghosts striking violent blows; and that, if not made way for, they overturn all 48 GHOSTS, OR APPARITIOm impediment, like a furious wbirhvintl. Glanvil mentions an instance of this, in Eelation 17tli, of a Dutch lieutenant who had the faculty of seeing ghosts; and who, being prevented making way for one which he mentioned to some friends as coming towards them, v/as, with his companions, yiolentlj'^ thrown down, and sorely bruised. We further learn, by Relation 16th, that the hand of a ghost is ' as cold as a clod.' " The usual time at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some auda- cious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight: but of this there are few instances, and those mostly ghosts who have been laid, perhaps in the Eed Sea (of which more hereafter), and whose times of confinement wei'e expired: these, like felons confined to the lighters, are said to return more troublesome and daring than before. No ghosts can appear on Christmas Eve; this Shakspeare has put into the mouth of one of his char- acters in * Hamlet.' *• Ghosts," adds Grose, " commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore whilst living; though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the churchyard 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 ghosts; 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 isa lighted candle in the room, it will burn extremely blue: this is so universally acknowledged, that many eminent i^hilosophers have busied themselves in accounting for it, without once doubting the truth of the fact. Dogs, too, have the faculty of seeing spirits, as is instanced in David Hunter's relation, above quoted ; but in that case they usually show signs of terror, by whining and creeping to their master for protection: and it is generally supposed that they often see things of this nature when their owner cannot GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS. « there being son:e"persons, particularly those born on a Christmas eve, who cannot see spirits. *• The coming of a spirit is r.nnounced some time before its appearance b)' a variety of loud and dreadful noises; sometimes rattling in the old hall like a coach and six, and rumbling up and down the staircase like the trundling of bowls or cannon- balls. At length the door flies open, and the spectre stalks sloAvly up to the bed's foot, and opening the curtains, looks steadfastly at the person in bed by whom it is "seen; a ghost being very rarely, visible to more than one person, although there are several in company. It is here necessary to observe, that it has been universally found by experience, as well as affirmed by divers aj^paritions themselves, that a ghost has not the power to speak till it has been first spoken to: so that, notwithstanding the urgency of the business on which it may come, everytLing must stand still till the person visited can find sufficient courage to speak to it: an event that sometimes does not take place for many years. It has not been found that female ghosts are more loquacious than those df the male sex, both being equally re- strained by this law. " The mode of addressing a ghost is by commanding it, in the name of the three persons of the Trinitj', to tell you who it is, and what is its business: this it mny be necessary to repeat three times; after which it will, in a low and hollow voice, de- clare its satisfaction at being spoken to, and desire the party ad- dressing it not to be afraid, for it will do him no harm. This being premised, it commonly enters its narrative, which being completed, and its requests or commands given, with injunct- ions that they be immediately executed, it vanishes away, fre- quently in a flash of light; in which case, some ghosts have been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they appeared to shut their eyes. Sometimes its departure is attended with de- lightful music. During the narration of its business, a ghost must by no means be intewrupted by questions of any kind; so doing is extremely dangerous: if any doubts arise, they must be stated after the spirit has done its tale. Questions respecting its state, or the state of any of their former acquaintance, ar<3 of- fensive, and not often answered ; spirits, perhaps, being restrainf 60 GHOSTS, OB APPABITIOm cd from divulging the secrets of their prison-honse. Occasion, ally spirits will even condescend to talk on common occur- ences. " It is somewhat remarkable 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 the peace and lay- ing its information, or to the nearest relation of the person mur- dered, appears to some poor laborer who knows none of the parties, draws the curtains of some decripit nurse or alms-wo- man, or hovers about the place where his body is deposited. The same circuitous mode is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows: when it seems as if the shortest and most certain way would be to go to the person guilty of the in- justice, and haunt him continually till he be terrified into a res- titution. Nor are the pointing out lost writings generally man- aged 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 too far into these matters: ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs pe- culiar to themselves. " If, after the first appearance, the persons employed neglect, or are prevented from, performing the message or business committed to their management, the ghost appears continually to them, at first with a discontented, next an angry, and at length with a furious countenance, threatening to tear them in pieces if the matter is not forllivrith executed: sometimes ter- rifying them, as in Glanvil's llelation 26th, by appearing in many formidable shapes, and sometimes even striking them a violent blow. Of blows given by ghosts there are many in- stances, and some wherein they have been followed with an incurable lameness. "It should have been observed that ghosts, in delivering their commissions, in order to ensure belief, communicate to the per- sons employed some secret, known only to the parties concern- ed and themselves, the relation of which always produces the effect intended. The business being completed, ghosts appeal with a cheerful countenance, saying they shall now be at rest, and will never more disturb any one; and, thanking their GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS. 51 agents, by way of reward communicate to them something rela- tive to themselves, which they will never reveal. ** Sometimes ghosts appear, and disturb a house, without deigning to give any reason for so doing: with these, the short- est and only way is to exorcise and eject them; or, as the vulgar term is, lay them. For this purpose there must be two or three clergymen, and the ceremony must be performed in Latin; a language that strikes the most audacious ghost M'ith terror. A ghost may be laid for any term less than an hundred years, and in any place or body, full or empty ; as, a solid oak — the pom- mel of a sword— a barrel of beer, if a yeoman or simple gentle- man — or a pipe of wine, if an esquire or a justice. But of all places the most common, and what a ghost least likes, is the Red Sea; it being related in many instances, that ghosts have most earnestly besought the exorcists not to confine them in that place. It is nevertheless considered as an indisputable fact, that there are an infinite number laid there, perhaps from its being a safer prison than any other nearer at hand; though neither history nor tradition gives us any instance of ghosts es- caping or returning from this kind of transportation before their time." In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xxi. 148, parish of Mon- quihitter, in the additioDal communications from the Rev. A. Johnstone, we read: " In opinion, an amazing alteration has been produced by education and social intercourse. Few of the old being able to read, and fewer still to write, their minds were clouded by ignorance. The mind being uncultivated, the imag- ination readily admitted the terrors of superstition. The ap- pearance of ghosts and demons too frequently engrossed the conversation of the young and the old. The old man's fold, where the Druid sacrificed to the demon for his corn and cattle, could not be violated by the ploughshare. Lucky and unlucky days, dreams, and omens, were most religiously attended to, and reputed witches, by their spells and their prayers, were art- ful enough to lay every parish under contribution. In short, a system of mythology fully as absurd and amusing as the myth- ology of Homer obtained general belief. But now ghosts and demons are no longer visible. The old man's fold is reduced 52 GHOSTS, on APPAEITIONS. to tillage. The sagacious old woman, who has survived her friends and means, is treated with humanit)-, in spite of the grisly bristles which adorn her mouth; and, in the minds of the 3'oung, cultivated by education, a steady pursuit of the arts ox life has banished the chimeras of fancy. Books, trade, manu- facture, foreign and domestic news, now engross the conversa- tion; and the topic of the day is alv\^ays warmly, if not ingenu- ously, discussed. From believing too much, manj'-, particular- ly in the higher walks of life, have rushed to the opposite ex- treme of believing too little; so that, even in this remote corner, scepticism may but too justly boast of her votaries." Gay has left us a jjretty tale of an apparition. The golden mark being found in bed is indeed after the indelicate manner of Swift, but yet is one of those happy strokes that rival the fel- icity of that dash of the sponge which (as Pliny tells us) hit off so well the expression of the froth in Protogenes's dog. It is impossible not to envy the author the conception of a thought which we know not whether to call more comical or more point- edly satirical, [The following singular account of an apparition is taken from a magazine of the last century: " As I was turning over a parcel of old papers some time ago, I discovered an original letter from Mr. Caswell, the mathematician, to the learned Dr. Bentley, when he was living in Bishop Stillingfleet's family, inclosing an account of an apj^arition taken from the mouth of a clergyman who saw it. In this account there are some curious particulars, ' and I shall therefore copy the whole narrative without any omis- sion, except of the name of the deceased person who is supposed to have appeared, for reasons that will be obvious. " ' To the Rev. Mr. Eichard Bentley, at my Lord Bishop of "Worcester's House in Park Street, in Westminister, London. " ' Sir, — When I was in London, April last, I fully intended to have waited upon you again, as I said, but a cold and lame- ness seized me next day; the cold took away my voice, and the other my power of walking, so I presently took coach for Oxford. I am much your debtor, and in particular for your good inten- tions in relation to Mr. D., though that, as it has proved, would GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS. 53 not have turned to my advantage. However, I am obliged to you upon that and other accounts, and if I had opportunity to shew it, you should find how much I am your faithful servant. " ' I havo sent you inclosed a relation of an apparition; the story I had from two persons, who each had it from the author, and yet their accounts somewhat varied, and passing through more mouths has varied much more; therefore I got a friend to bring me the author at a chamber, where I wrote it down from the author's mouth; after which I read it to him, and gave him another copy; he said he could swear to the truth of it, as far as he is concerned. He is the curate of Warblington, Batchelour of Arts of Trinity College, in Oxford, about six years standing in the University; I hear no ill report of his behaviour here. He is now gone to his curacy; he has promised to send up thehanda of the tenants and his man, who is a smith by trade, and the farmer's men, as far as they are concerned. Mr. Brereton, the rector, would have him say nothing of the story, for that he can get no tenant, though he has offered the house for ten pounds a year less. Mr. P. the former incumbent, whom the apparition represented, was a man of a very ill report, supposed to have got children of his maid, and to have murthered them; but I advised the curate to SfcV nothing himself of this last part of P., but leave that to the parishioners, who knew him. Those who knew this P., say he had exactly such a gown, and that he used to whistle. * " ' Yours, J. Caswell.' " I desire you not to suffer any copy of this to be taken, lest some Mercui'y news-teller should print it, till the curate had sent up the testimony of others and self. H. H. Dec. 15, 1695. " Narrative. —At Warblington, near Havant, in Hampshire, within six miles of Portsmouth, in the parsonage-house dwelt Thomas Perce the tenant, with his wife and a child, a man-ser- vant, Thomas , and a maid-strvant. About the beginning of August, anno 1G95, on a Monday, about nine or ten at night, all being gone to bed, except the maid with the child, the maid b«ing in the kitchen, and having raked up the fire, took a candl^ 54 GHOSTS, OR APPARITIOXS. in one hand, and the child in the other arm, and turning about saw one in a black gown walking through the room, and thence out of the door into the orchard. Upon this the maid, hasting up stairs, having recovered but two steps, cried out; on which the master and mistress ran down, found the candle in her hand, she grasping the child about its neck with the other arm. She told them the reason of her crying out; she would not thatnight tarry in the house, but removed to another belonging to one Henry Salter, farmer; where she cried out all the night from the terror she was in, and she could not be persuaded to go any more to the house upon any terms. On the morrow (i. e. Tuesday), the tenant's wife came to me, lodging then at Havant, to desire my advice, and have con- sult with some friends about it; I told lier I thought it was a flam, and that they had a mind to abuse Mr, Brereton the rec- tor, whose house it was; she desired me to come up; I told her I would come up and sit up or lie there, as she pleased; for then as to all stories of ghosts and apparitions I was an infidel. I went thither and sate up the Tuesday night with the tenant and his man-servant. About twelve or one o'clock I searched all the rooms in the house to see if any bod}'- were hid there to impose upon me. At last we came into a lumber room, there I smiling told the tenant that was with me, that I would call for the apparition, if there was any, and oblige him to ccme. The tenant then seemed to bo afraid, but I told him I would defend him from harm ! and then I repeated Barbara celarent Darji, (fee, jestingly; on this the tenant's countenance changed, so that he was ready to drop down with fear. Then I told him I per- ceived he was afraid, and I would prevent its coming, and re- peated Baralipton, &c., then he recovered his spirits pretty well, and we left the room and went down into the kitchen, where we were before, and sate up there the remaining part of the night, and had no manner of disturbance. " Thursday night the tenant and I lay together in one room and the man in another room, and he saw something walk along in a black gown and place itself agr.inst a window, and there stood for some time, and then walked off. Friday morning the man relating this, I asked him why he did not call me, and I GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS. 55 told him I thought that was a trick or flam ; he told me the reason why he did not call me was, that he was not able to speak or move. Friday night we lay as before, and Saturday night, and had no disturbance either of the nights. Sunday night I lay by myself in one room (not that where the man saw the apparition), and the tenant and his man in one bed in another room; and betwixt twelve and two the man heard something walk in their room at the bed's foot, and whistling very well; at last it came to the bed's side, drew the curtain and looked on them; after some time it moved off; then the man called to me, desired me to come, for that there was something in the room went about whistling. I asked him whether he had any light or could strike one, he told me no; then I leapt out of bed, and, not staying to put on my clothes, went out of my room and along a gallery to the door, which I found locked or bolted; I desired him to unlock the door, for that I could not get in; then he got out of bed and opened the door, which was near, and went immediately to bed again. I went in three or four steps, and, it being a moonshine night, I saw the appar- ition move from the bed's side, and claj) up against the wall that divided their room and mine. I went and stood directly against it within my arm's length of it, and asked it, in the name of God, what it was, that made it come disturbing of us? I stood some time expecting an answer, and receiving none, and thinking it might be some fellow hid in the room to fright me, 7 put out my arm to feel it, and my hand seemingly went through the body of it, and felt no manner of substance till it came to the wall; then I drew hack my hand, and still it was in the same place. Till now I had not the least fear, and even now had very little; then I adjured it to tell me what it was. When I had said those words, it, keeping its back against the wall, moved gently along towards the door. I followed it, and it, going out at the door, turned its back to- ward me. It went a little along the gallery. I followed it a little into the gallery, and it disappeared, where there was no corner for it to turn, and before it came to the end of the gal- lery, where was the stairs. Then I found myself very cold from my feet as high as my middle, though I was not in great fear. I went into the bed betwixt the tenant and his man, and they 66 GHOSTS, OR APPABITIOm complained of my being exceeding cold. The tenant's man leaned over Lis master in the bed, and saw me stretch out my hand towards the apparition, and heard me speak the words; the tenant also heard the words. The apparition seemed to have a morning gown of a darkish color, no hat nor cap, short black hair, a thin meagre vissage of a pale swartliy color, seemed to be of about forty-five or fifty years old; the eyes half shut, the arms hanging down; the hands visible beneath the sleeve; of a middle stature. I related this description to Mr. John Lardner, rector of Havant, and to Major Battin of Langstone, in Havant parish; they both said the description agreed very well to Mr. P., a former rector of the place, who has been dead above twenty years. Upon this the tenant and his wife left the house, which has remained void since. The Monday after last Michaelmas-day, a man of Chodson, in Warwickshire, having been at Havant fair, passed by the fore- said parsonage-house about nine or ten at night, and saw a light in most of the rooms of the house; his pathway being close by the house, he, wondering at the light, looked into the kitchen window, and saw only a light, but turning himself to go away, he saw the appearance of a man in a long gown; he made haste away; the apparition followed him over a piece of glebe land of several acres, to a lane, which he crossed, and over a little meadov/, then over another lane to some pales, v. hich belong to farmer Henry Salter, my landlord, near a barn, m which were some of the farmer's men and some others. This man went into the barn, told them how he was frighted and followed fiom the parsonage-house by an apparition, which they might see stand- ing against the pales, if they went out; they went out, and saw it scratch against the pales, and make a hideous noise; it stood there some time, and then disapi^eared; their description agreed with what I saw. This last account I had from the man himself, whom it followed, and also from the farmer's men. " Tho. Wilkixs, Curate of W." " Dec. 11, 1695, Oxon."] The learned Selden observes, on this occasion, that there was never a merry world since the fairies left dancing and the par- eon left conjuring. The opinion of the latter kept thieves in GHOSTS OR, APPARiriOJVft. C7 at^e, and did as mnch good in a country as a justice of peace. Bournen chap, ii., lias preserved the form of exorcising a haunted Louse, a truly tedious process, for the expulsion of demons, who, it should seem, have not been easily ferreted out of their quarters, if one may judge of their unwillingness to depart by the prolixity of this removal warrant. One smiles at Bourne's zeal in honor of his Protestant brethren, at the end of his tenth chapter. The vulgar, he says, think them no conjurors, and say none can lay spirits but popish priests: he wishes to undeceive them, however, and to prove at least negatively that our own clergy know full as much of the black art as the othert? do. St. Chrysostom is said to have insulted some African con- jurors of old with this humiliating and singular observation; " Miserable and wofal creatures that we are, we cannot so much as expel fleas, much less devils." " Obsession of the devil is distinguished from possession in this: — In possession the evil one was said to enter into the body of the man. In obsession, without entering into the body of the person, he was thought to besiege and torment him without. To be lifted up ''nto the air, and afterwards to be thrown down on the ground violently, without receiving any hurt; to speak strange languages that the person had never learned; not to be able to come near holy things or the sacraments, but to have an aversion to them; to know and foretel secret things; to perform things that exceed the person's strength; to say or do things that the person would not or durst not say, if he were not externally moved to it; were the ancient marks and criterions of possessions," In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xiii. 557, parish of Lochcarron, county of Eoss, we read: "There is one opinion which many of them entertain, and which indeed is not pecu- liar to this parisli alone, that a popish priest can cast out devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian clergy have no such power. A person might as well advise a mob to pay no at- t-ention to a merry-andrew as to desire many ignorant people to stay from the (popish) priest." Pliny tells us that houses were anciently hallowed against •vil spirits with brimstone ! This charm has been converted by 1 1 I 58 DIVINATION. later times into what our satirist, Churchill, in his Prophecy of Famine, calls " a precious and rare medicine," and is now used (but I suppose with greater success) in exorcising those of our unfortunate fellow-creatures who fetl themselves possessed with a certain teazing fiery spirit, said by the wits of the south to be well known, seen, and felt, and^very troublesome in the north. DIVINATION. Divinations differ from omens in this, that the omen is an indication of something that is to come to pass, which happens to a person, as it were by accident, without his seeking for it; whereas divination is the obtaining of a knowledge of something future, by some endeavor of his own, or means which he him- self designedly makes use of for that end. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed aud Puzzel'd, p. 165, enumerates as follows the several species of divination: " Slwe- omancy, or divining by the elements; Aeromancy, or divining by the ayr; Pyromancy, by fire; Hydromancy, by water; Geomancy, by earth; Iheomuncy, pretending to divine by the revelation of the Spirit, and by the Scriptures, or word of God; Dcemonom- ancy, by the suggestions of evill daemons or devils; Idolomancy, by idolls, images, figures; Psyehomancy, by men's souls, affect- ions, wills, religious or morall dispositions; Aniinopomancy, by the entrails of men, women, and children; Iheriomancy, by beasts; Orniihomancy, by birds; Ichihyomancy, by fishes; Boiano- mancy, by herbs; Lithomancy, by stones; Cieromancy, by lotts; Oniromancy, by dreams; Onomalomancy, by names; Arilhmancy, by numbers: iograri^/iTnancj/, by logarithm es; Sternoinancy, from the breast to the belly; Gasirotnancy, by the soiind of, or signes upon the belly; Omphelomancy, by the navel; Chiromancy, by the hands; Pcedomxincy, by the feet; Onychomancy, by the nayles; Cephaleonomancy, by bray ling of an asses head; Tuphramancy, by ashes; Capnomancy, bv smoak; Livanomancy, by burning of frankincense: Carramancy, by melting of wax; Lecanomancy, by Divimm ROD. 69 a basin of water; Caioxtromancy, by looking-glasses; Chartomancy, by writing in papers (this is retained in «3hoosing Valentines, &c.); Macharomancy, by knives or swords; Chrysiulloinancy, by glasses ; Dadalomancy, by rings ; Coseinomancy, by sieves ; Axino- mancy, by sawes; Caitabomancy, by vessels ' of brasse or other metall; Roadomancy, by starres; Spaialamancy, by skins, bones, excrements; Scyomancy, by shadows; Astragalomancy, by dice; Oinomancy, by wine; Sycomancy, by figgs; Typomancy, by the coagulation of cheese; Alphitomancy, by meal, flower, or branne; Crithornancy, by grain or corn; Aleciromancy, by cocks or pullen; Gyroinancy, by rounds or circles; Lampadomancy, by candles and lamps; and in one word for all, Nagomancy, or Necromancy, by inspecting, consulting, and divining by, with, or from the dead.*' In Holiday's Marriage of the Arts, 4to., is introduced a species of divination not in the above ample list of them, entitled An- ihropomancie. DIVINING ROD. Divination by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Hosea, too, reproaches the Jews as bting infected with the like superstition: " My people ask counsel at their stocks, and iheir siq^ declareth unto them," Chap. iv. 12. Not only the Chaldeans used rods for divination, but almost every nation which has pretended to that science has practised the same method. Herodotus mentions it as a custom of the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans. [The earliest means made use of by the miners for the dis- covery of the lode was the divining rod, so late as three years ago the process has been tried. The method of procedure was to cut the twig of an hazel or apple tree, of twelve months' growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by both hands in a pecu- liar way, walking across the land until the twig bent, which was taken as an indication of the locality of a lode. The person who generally practices this divination boasts himself to be the seventh son of a seventh son. The twig of hazel bends in his 60 DIVIDING EOD. hands to the conTiction of the miners that ore is present; but then the peculiar manner in which the twig is held, bringing muscular action to baar upon it, accounts for its gradual de- flection, and the circumUaaco of the strata walked over always containing ore gives a farther credit to the process of divina- tion. ] The vulgar notion, still prevalent in the north of England, ol the hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore, seam or stratum of coal, &c., seems to be a vestige of this rod divination. The virgula divina, or baculus divinatorius, is a forked branch in the form of a Y, cut oH an hazel stick, by means whereof people have pretended to discover mines, springs, &c., underground. The method of using it is this: the person who bears it, walking very slowly over the places where he suspects mines or springs may be, the effluvia exhaling from the metals, or vapor from the water impregnating the wood, makes it dip, or incline, which is the sign of a discovery. In the Living Library, or Ilistoricall jJeditations, fol. 1621, p. 283, we read: " No man can tell why forked sticks of hazill (rather than sticks uf other trees growing upon the very same places) are fit to shev/ the places vvhere the vtines of gold and silver are. The sticke bending itselfe in the places, at the bot- tome where the same veines are." See Lilly's Historj^ of his Life and Times, p. 32, for a curious esperiuient (which he confesses, however, to have failed) to discover hidden treasure by the hazel rod. In the Gent. Mag. for February 1752, xxii. 77, we read : *• M. Linnaeus, when he was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining wand, was wil- ling to convince Inm of its insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus, which grew by itself in a meadow, and bid the secretary Imd it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and M. Linnseus's mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present; so that when M. Liunaus went to finish the experi- ment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted him, and pro- nounced that he could not lie the way they were going, but