But zeal for the truth, as he believed it, combined with his fears for himself, for he believed that he had been the object of witchcraft and of the machinations of the evil powers more than once, though luckily in vain, led the royal author on the other side to cause Scot’s book to be burned by the common hangman; and, as is also said by Cole, not one copy alone, as significant of its character, and of its being a liber prohibitus in the eyes of this Protestant Pope, but as many as could be laid hands upon. While, too, I have as yet found no direct proof of this latter statement, it is perhaps in some degree confirmatory of it, that no copies of the book exist in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, nor in that of Lambeth Palace, nor in that of Sion College. To the same cause is most likely due the exceedingly neat copy of various chapters, and parts of chapters, contained in the Sloane MS., ff. 2189, in the British Museum, its date according to the experts there being circa 1620. At one time I had suspected that these extracts had been made with the intent of writing a book either for or against the truth of witchcraft; but the methodical neatness of all but the first two or three pages, the manner in which the typographical form of the book is followed, the consecutive, though broken manner, in which the extracts follow one another, the absence of any word or any sign of remark or comment throughout, now cause me to hold that it was a copy made by or for one who took such portions as he wished from a book otherwise inaccessible.
Turning back to this burning, I would say also that I have not come across any English contemporary, or even early statement as to it, much less as to its date. Perhaps, however, without much fear of error, we may suppose it to have been done immediately after the Act against witches, passed in the first year of James’s reign. By it the Act 5 Eliz. was repealed, and any conjuration, etc., of an evil spirit was made a crime punishable by death as a felon, the culprit losing all benefit of clergy and sanctuary. The finding of treasure by magical means, provoking to unlawful love, or destroying of cattle, was for the first offence to bring with it imprisonment for one year, standing in the pillory once a quarter for six hours, and confessing his crime, as in the Act repealed; and for the second offence death as a felon, though the dowry and the heirship were not attainted. This Act itself shows how strong were James’s convictions in the matter, as does the publication in London of his Dæmonologie in the same year, it being entered on the Stationers’ Registers on the 3rd April 1603. Scot’s book was therefore against James’s belief, and the esteem in which it was held against his own powers as a reasoner and author. While, however, so far as I can find, we owe the knowledge of this burning to a German source, its extreme likelihood is corroborated by what I have said, that James’s belief in witchcraft was with him an undoubted Article of Faith, and by the fact that various books, known and unknown, were at different times publicly burnt during his reign, though no official records of these burnings have been preserved.
Cole, as quoted in Bliss’s edition of the Athen. Oxon., gives the account as made by Thomasius de crimine magiæ, a book which I believe does not exist. There is a Thesis inaugaralis de crimine magiæ submitted in 1701 by Johan Reiche to the Regia Academia Fredericiana ... præside D. Christiano Thomasio. But Reiche refers to an earlier writer—“Gisberti Voetii | Theologiæ in Acad. Ultrajectina Professoris | Selectarum | Disputationum | Theologicarum, | Pars Tertia. | .... | Ultrajecti, | Ex Officina Johannis à Waesberge, | Anno CIↃ IↃ C LIX, |” which says, p. 564:
“... Reginaldus Scot nobilis Anglus magiæ crimen aperte negavit, & ex professo oppugnavit, omnes ejus mirabiles effectus aut ad melancoliam, aliosve naturales morbos, aut ad artem, industriam, & agilitatem hominum figmentis & præstigiis suis illudentium, aut ad stolidas imaginationes, dictorum magorum, aut ad vanas nugas & fictiones eorundem magorum referens. Ejus liber tit. Discoverie of Withcraft [sic] in Anglia combustus est; quem nominatim etiam perstringit Sereniss. Magnæ Briantniæ [sic] Rex Jacobus in Dæmonologia, eumque tangit diffusissimæ eruditionis Theologus Johannes Raynoldus, in cens. lib. Apocryph. tom. 2 prælect. 169. In eundem, sed innominatum calamum strinxit eximius & subacti judicii Theologus, Guilelm. Perkinsus in tractatu de Bascanologia. Pars libri istius Reginaldi Scot elenctica (nam reliqua in editione Anglicana conjurationes continebat,) in Belgicum idioma translata est, ante annos aliquot Lugd. Batav. per Thomam Basson: ex illius libri lectione, seu fonte perenni, non pauci ab illo tempore docti & indocti in Belgio fluctuare, & de Magia σκεωτικιζειν ac λιβερτινιζειν (ut Libertinis & Semilibertinis infesta est patria nostra) quin eo ignorantiæ sæpe prolabi, ut non iniquè illis applicari potuerit, quod Sereniss. Rex Jacobus in Dæmonologiâ subdito suo Reginaldo Scot: esse quasi novos Sadduccæos: cum omnes diabolorum operationes & apparitiones suaviter exibilant: tanquam anicularum, aut superstitionis meticulosæ phantasmata ac sabellas. Sunt & alii, sed pessimi magiæ patroni, qui ad Deum & divina charismata seu gratias gratis datas, aut ad angelos bonos, operationes magicas referunt.”
Dr. W. N. du Rieu, Librarian of the University of Leyden, kindly informs me, that a translation into Dutch, “omitting some formulæ of malediction and other matters which would more interest English readers,” was made and edited by Th. Basson, an English stationer living at Leyden in 12mo in 1609. It was undertaken at the instigation of the professors of law and history, and its dedication, dated 10th January 1609, was to the Curators of the University, and to the burgomasters of Leyden. A second and corrected edition, published by his son, G. Basson, was also printed at Leyden in 1637, though the dedication is dated 8th May 1637, Amsterdam.
Though in various of the notes the passages have been spoken of, yet to call attention to the matter, and in the hope that others may be more successful, I would add that I have not discovered the principle on which he went, nor his authorities, for his Scripture readings. In his Latin quotations he generally quotes the Vulgate, twice or thrice Beza, or Beza varied, while at other times he goes by some other translation, or possibly makes it himself. So his long English quotation, [p. 284], is not taken from Wycliffe’s, Tyndale’s, Cranmer’s, Coverdale’s, Matthews’, or from the Genevan, Bishops’, or Rheims versions, though more like the Genevan, while, curiously enough, it precedes the one of 1611 by one or two verbal coincidences. Hence, I believe that he varied the Genevan version according to his own views and taste, and am the more inclined to this in that the passage is not in Italics, the then type and mark of quotations, but in Romans.
Notwithstanding, however, the decree that had gone forth, and, notwithstanding the strange Sadducean assertion, not argument, set forth by James, and followed by John Rainolds, D.D., in his work on the Apocrypha (tom. ii, 1032), and by Gisbert Voet, the book’s inherent excellency, as reported by Ady, and as evidenced by the notices of it in the various books on either side that afterwards came forth, and in part, perhaps, through that decree itself, called for its reproduction; and in 1651 it was issued with a new title-page, though naturally it was again not entered on the Stationers’ Registers. This time it was really—as evidenced by the signatures—a quarto. The text was one and the same with that printed off by Richard Cotes; but there were three issues, and three slightly different title-pages. The first bears—LONDON | Printed by Richard Cotes. 1651. The second has—Printed by R. C. and are to be sold by Giles Calvert, dwelling at the | Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls. 1651. And except for these final words, separated on both title-pages by a line from the rest, both are word for word, and even to the misprint “superstions” identical. The explanation, in all probability, if not certainty, being that my “first” one was the first issue, when the publisher thought it more prudent to withhold his name; the other, a second issue of copies still called for, when, finding no ill results, he had become bolder. The third has below the line spoken of: London | Printed by E. [not R.] Cotes and are to be sold by Thomas Williams at the | Bible in Little Britain 1654. In this “Scots” is printed without the apostrophe, “men”, “women”, and “children”, as also “treatise”, have capital initials; on both occasions it has “Devils”, not “Divels”; and the last line but one above the dividing line ends “De-” not “Divels”, and “superstions” is rightly printed “superstitions”. These variations in the title-page, and the exact conformity of the text as to the various peculiarities of the letters, words, and sizes of the punctuation, show that Williams had come into possession of Calvert’s remainder, or of his set-up type, and had issued these sheets, prefixing a new title-page of his own, printed by E. Cotes.
There is not the slightest evidence of a copy of the 1584 edition having been prepared for the press, beyond the new title-page, and on two occasions the translation of Latin, that Scot had not—as he had done in similar instances—translated. The Latin-named ingredients on [p. 184] are Englished, and I have thus been enabled to give them in my notings with the more probability that they are correct. The second instance is, as stated in my margin, on [p. 416]. Two or three press errors are corrected, one of them not a certain emendation, and all within the competency of an ordinary compositor or reader; but no others, not even that of “increase” for “incense”, [p. 446], while fresh errors, indicative of a careless “reader”, are made.
What has been thus said as to the character of this second reprint, goes to prove that it was a publisher’s venture based upon the demand for the book, and, therefore, for gain, and one which he carried out spite of its having been burnt, and placed among the “prohibited books”. In like manner, and for the like purpose, and as before, without entry in the Stationers’ Registers, there was brought out the third, and so-called folio edition of 1665, though the sheets are in sixes. All but the title-page, which, curiously enough, was again re-written, though still bearing, like the second, the words, “By Reginald Scot Esquire”; it is a careless reprint of that second, with all its errors, and new ones superadded. But as a novelty and inducement to buy, nine chapters, commencing the fifteenth book, and a second book of the “Discourse on Devils and Spirits”, were added by an anonymous author. Who this anonymity was, I have uselessly spent some little time in inquiring, time that might have been better employed, even had I found him. But it goes to prove that these additions were merely made for novelty’s sake, and its glamour and gain, in that the writer was a believer in, and not improbably, from his minute directions, as well as from his reticence, a practiser of witchcraft, or of what he thought to be witchcraft. He also, and I give this as one possible clue, was a strong believer in the perishable Astral spirit of a man, as well as of Astral spirits in general, and much of his “Discourse” is taken up with remarks on these.
I may here add, as showing the carelessness with which these second and third editions were edited, a note of the errata marked in the first and not corrected in them.