When Reginald Scot’s work was translated into Dutch, we learn from an arch-enemy of philosophy, the intolerant Calvinistical polemic, Voetius, that “this book was an inexhaustible source, whence not a few learned and unlearned persons in the Netherlands have begun to doubt, and grow sceptics and libertines with regard to witchcraft. Our country is infected with libertines and half libertines, and they have proceeded to such a pitch of ignorance, that this set of new Sadducees laugh at all the operations and apparitions of the devils as phantoms and fables of old women, and timorous superstition.” The work was more successful abroad than at home; and, indeed, how often have the benefactors of mankind experienced that the voice of foreigners is the voice of posterity! They decide without prepossessions.
The FIRST edition of the “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” 1584, is of extreme rarity, the copies having been burned by the order of James, on his accession to the English throne, in compliance with the act of parliament of 1603, which ratified a belief in witchcraft throughout the three kingdoms; but the author had not survived to see that day. This awful prejudice broke out afresh under the fanatical government, and gave rise to an infamous class of men who were called “witch-finders.” When a reward was publicly offered, there seemed to be no end in finding witches. It was probably this great evil which reminded the people of Scot, whose work was reprinted in 1651, but the public so eagerly required another edition, that it was again republished in 1665. The fact was, that justices, judges, and juries, had so little improved by the second edition, that many had kept with great care their note-books of “Examinations of Witches,” and were discovering “hellish knots of them.” It was only in the preceding year that Sir Matthew Hale had left for execution two female victims, without even summing up the evidence, solely resting on the fact that “there were witches,” for which assumption he appealed “to the Scriptures,” and he added, to “the wisdom of all nations!” What is not less remarkable in this trial, the illustrious corrector of “vulgar errors,” Sir Thomas Browne, in his medical character examining the accused person, who was liable to fainting fits, acknowledged that the fits were natural and common; but the philosopher was so prepossessed that the woman was a witch, that he pronounced against her, alleging this mystical explanation of “the subtleties of the devil,” who had taken this opportunity of her natural fits to be “co-operating with her malice!” What a demonstration that superstition holds its mastery even over the philosophic intellect!
The popular prejudice was confirmed by narratives of witchcraft, by Joseph Glanvil, one of the early founders of the Royal Society; by the visionary learning of the platonic Dr. More; and by the theological dogmatism of Meric Casaubon. Dr. More was desirous that every parish should keep a register of all authentic histories of apparitions and witchcraft: and Glanvil was so staunch a believer, that he considered that the strong unbelief in some persons was an evidence of what they denied; for that so confident an opinion could not be held but by some kind of witchcraft and fascination in the senses. All these, and such as these, treat with extreme contempt and cover with obloquy “the Father of the modern Witch-advocates,” “the Gallant of the Old Hags!” This was our Reginald Scot.
The most elaborate treatise on the subject was now sent forth by John Webster; “The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft,” 1677, fo. He defends Scot and Wierus against Glanvil and Casaubon. He was a clergyman, and dares not agitate the question, an sint, whether there be witches or not; but quomodo sint, in what manner they act, and what the things are they do, or can perform. The state of the question is not simply the being of witches, or de existencia, but only de modo existendi. The dispute of their manner of existing necessarily supposes their existence. He has, however, detected many singular impostures, and the volume is full and curious.[2]
Glanvil and his “Sadducismus Triumphatus, or full evidence concerning Witches,” 1668, a book so popular that I have never met with a very fair copy, introduced with plenary evidence a minute narrative of “the Demon of Tedworth,” whose invisible drum beat every night for above a year, in the house of some reverend magistrate, who had evidently raised a spirit which he could not lay, and whose Puck-like pranks wofully deranged the whole unsuspicious family. This tale, confirmed by affidavits, but shaken by demurrers, was long an article of faith, but finished by furnishing the comedy of Addison’s “Drummer.” The controversy about witches, including that of ghosts, which were equally the incessant but volatile phantoms of their chase, now assumed a more serious aspect than ever. The illustrious Boyle, who had observed the unguarded heat with which it was pursued, vainly cautioned the parties, that even religion might suffer by weak arguments drawn from uncertain statements. Boyle had more reason to say this than one might suppose; for Dr. More, ever too vehement and too fanciful, had exclaimed in his unhappy conviction, “No bishop, no king! no spirit, no God!”[3]
Shadwell in his “Lancashire Witches,” resolved to advance nothing without authority, accompanies that comedy with ample notes, drawn from the writings of witch-believers. His witches, therefore, are far beneath those of Shakspeare, for they do nothing but what we are told witches do; the whole system of witchery is here exhibited. In his remarkable preface, Shadwell tells us, that if he had not represented them as real witches, “it would have been called atheistical by a prevailing party.”
The belief in witchcraft was maintained chiefly by that fatal error which had connected the rejection of any supernatural agency in old women with religious scepticism; and it was fostered by the statutes, which with the lawyer admitted of no doubt. “We cannot doubt of the existence of witchcraft, seeing that our law ordains it to be punished by death,” was the argument of Sir George Mackenzie, the great Scottish advocate; nor is it less sad to see such minds as that of the great Dr. Clarke, celebrated for his logical demonstrations, thus reasoning on witchcraft, astrology, and fortune-telling; “All things of this sort, whenever they have any reality in them, are evidently diabolical; and when they have no reality, they are cheats and lying impostures.”[4] The great demonstrator thus confesses “the reality” of these chimeras! Another not less celebrated divine, Dr. Bentley, infers that “no English priest need affirm the existence of sorcery or witchcraft, since they now have a public law which they neither enacted nor procured, declaring these practices to be felony!”[5] Did the doctor know that churchmen have had no influence in creating that belief, or in enacting this statute?
The gravity of Blackstone seems strangely disturbed when as a lawyer he was compelled to acknowledge its existence. “It is a crime of which one knows not well what account to give.” The commentator on the laws of England found no other resource than to turn to Addison, whose gentle sagacity could only discover that “in general, there has been such a thing as witchcraft, though one cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it.” Not one of these writers had yet ventured to detect the hallucinations of self-credulity in the victims, and the crimes of remorseless men in their persecutors. The name and the volume of their own countryman had never reached them, who two centuries before had elucidated these chimeras.