Demonologia

by J. S. Forsyth

DEUTEROSCOPIA, OR SECOND-SIGHT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WITCHES, WITCHCRAFT, WIZARDS, &c.

“What are these,

So withered and so wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants o’ the Earth,

And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught

That men may question? * * * *

* * * * * * *

* * * * You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.”—Macbeth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorable fatum,

Subjicit pedibus, Strepitumque Acherontes avari.

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

“Sir,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hay ho! the Devil is dead, &c.

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

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

Ens is nothing till sense finds out;

Sense ends in nothing, so naught goes about.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Witchcraft proved by the following texts of Scripture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. More’s Postscript.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“C. C. C. May, 25, 1678.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Confession of Agnes Sympson to King James.

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

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

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

The White Pater-noster runs thus:—

God was my foster,

He fostered me

Under the book of Palm tree.

St. Michael was my dame,

He was born at Bethlehem.

He was made of flesh and blood,

God send me my right food;

My right food, and dyne too,

That I may too yon kirk go,

To read upon yon sweet book,

Which the mighty God of heaven shook.

Open, open, heaven’s yaits,

Steik, steik, hell’s yaits,

All saints be the better,

That hear the white prayer, Pater-noster.

The Black Pater-noster.

Four neuks in this house for holy angels,

A post in the midst, that Christ Jesus,

Lucas, Marcus, Mathew, Joannes,

God be unto this house, and all that belong us.

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

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