SUPERSTITION.
Grievously are they mistaken who think that the revival of literature was the death of superstition—that ghosts, demons, and exorcists retreated before the march of intellect, and fled the British shore along with monks, saints, and masses. Superstition, deadly superstition, may co-exist with much learning, with high civilization, with any religion, or with utter irreligion. Canidia wrought her spells in the Augustan age, and Chaldean fortune-tellers haunted Rome in the sceptical days of Juvenal. Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, and Lilly, the astrologer, were contemporaries of Selden, Harrington, and Milton. Perhaps there never was a more superstitious period than that which produced Erasmus and Bacon. —Blackwood's Mag.