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.)