so may maturer science discover that the alchemist had some better foundation for his belief than we can now understand. Who a few years since could have credited the almost universal presence of gold in Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland, in Russia, California, and Australia?

CHAP. XII.

WITCHCRAFT.

"Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech owls cry, and ban dogs howl,
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves,
That time best fits the work we have in hand."

Henry VI. (Part II.), Act i. Sc. 4.

Manners.

Vulgar Belief in Witches. Causes of the Belief. - Epilepsy. —
Hypochondria. - Crimes they were charged with.
Spirits of the Age.- King James on Witchcraft.-A Witch Trial.
Mother Samuel and the Throckmorton Family. - Spread of
epidemic Fears.-Execution of Mother Samuel, her Husband, and
Daughter. — Puritan Divines. — Confession of the Witch.

Summers of Nottingham. — Reginald Scott's Names of Devils. How to exorcise. How to shut a Spirit in a Ring. — Charms. Spells. Vulgar Errors.

The Elephant and Unicorn, &c. Virtues of Precious Stones. Amulets. - Palmistry. - Astrology.

THERE was real vitality in Elizabethan superstition. The mariner who struck an old woman who railed at him, knew not but that she had power to sink his ship, make his children orphans, and his wife a widow. Old Reginald Scott says himself that the men of his time could endure no misfortune with patience as sent from the

hand of God; attributing all adversity, grief, sickness, loss of children, corn, and cattle to certain old women, living here on earth, and called witches; as though they themselves were innocent and had deserved no punishment. In such calamities they hurry and ride at once to the witch, and seek comfort or remedy in their tribulation."

Hail or snow, thunder or lightning, rain or wind, were all attributed to witches; and at the first shower the cry was, "Ring the bells, fumigate the air, and burn the witches:" the shrewd sceptics on such occasions would shake their heads, and say: "If all the devils in hell were dead, and all the witches in England burnt or hanged, I warrant you we should not fail to have rain, hail, and tempest, as now we have according to the appointment and will of God, and according to the constitution of the elements and the course of the planets, wherein God hath set a perfect and perpetual order."

In one parish alone, Scott mentions, there were eighteen women who claimed to be witches, and who professed by charms to heal the lame and blind: they were generally old, blear eyed, wrinkled dames, ugly and crippled, frequently papists, and sometimes atheists; of cross-grained tempers and cynical dispositions. The love of power or the love of money led them to play on their neighbours' credulity, and sometimes they were terrified

into a belief of their own evil influence; they were often poisoners and generally monomaniacs; they were hated and feared by the villagers, amongst whom they begged ; while those whom they cursed were considered doomed men. Epilepsy, murrain, and all doubtful diseases were by ignorant physicians, in self-defence, set down to the agency of witches; the old woman's curse and a death being contemporaneous, were necessarliy thought to be cause and effect; or the witch herself, alarmed at the apparent fulfilment of her wish, would perhaps confess to a justice that her power had produced the evil. She is burnt, and the village are henceforward implicit believers in witchcraft, as a proved and historical fact.*

Witches sent storms and barrenness, drowned children, made horses throw their riders, brought the ague, and could kill with evil eye, slay with lightning, dry up springs, pass through keyholes, go to sea in cockle shells, raise the dead, and prevent butter coming.

They could fly in the air where they would on a broomstick or a fern stalk: no detection of a witch's impotence could satisfy the peasant that these women were not invested with supernatural power.

They were accused of blaspheming God; sacrificing

*The Manningtree Witches, a true and exact Relation, &c.,

1645.

DEVIL'S SABBATHS.

115

their children to spirits; as they boiled infants, eat human flesh, and poisoned men. They were said to make two covenants with the devil, one public and one private, at their great witch sabbaths, when the devil appeared to them in person, exhorting them to fidelity, and promising them long life and prosperity. Then the novices were presented, and instructed to renounce the Christian Faith, despise the Sacrament, tread on the cross, and break the Fasts, joining hands with Satan, paying him homage, and yielding him body and soul.* He then charged them to bring more novices, and taught them to strangle unbaptised children, or steal them from their graves and boil the flesh; of the fat they made ointment, which when rubbed on their bodies enabled them to fly in the air; the rest they melted and drank with certain horrid ceremonies. Some witches sold themselves for a term of years, and some for ever: they then kissed the devil, and signed their bond with their blood, and a banquet ended the meeting their dances, holding brooms in the air, were, it was said, accompanied with shouts of "Ha-ha! devil, devil! danse here, danse here! play here, play here! sabbath, sabbath!" During their absence at these festivals, spirits took their shapes and appeared at home in their

*King James's Demonologie.