Up, dame, on your horse of Wood."
Delrio. Disq. Mag. lib. 11, Quæst. VI. has a story out of Triezius, about this horse of Wood; "but that which our witches call so is usually the staff, or handle of a Broom!" Vide Remiq. Dæmonol. lib. 1, cap. 14. Boden, 1. 2, cap. 4.
[40] I am informed that Lord Holland has a very interesting Tract touching this subject, called "Thee Siege of Windsorre," which I confess I should have much liked to have consulted; but Mrs. Blinkinsop is one of those old-fashioned women who choose to be particular, and I have been by her prevented from making the only interest through which I could have hoped to have obtained the loan of it.
[41] How easy it is to trace the source of good-breeding at this epoch, when one would have supposed that a man in Matthew's sphere (through ignorance), would have seated himself snugly by the side of his protegée, with as much familiarity as if she had been Mrs. Whittington; but the Black Prince had just at the time set such an example to the people, in his behaviour to the French king; to whom he declared, "that being a subject, he was too well acquainted with the distance between his own rank, and that of Majesty, to assume such a freedom as to sit in its presence."—(Hume, vol. iii. p. 88.) That the tone of good-breeding pervaded all classes, and reached even Matthew, who by the excessive delicacy and respect with which he had attended his lady, not only raised himself in the eyes of everybody, but practically upheld the claim she had on their interest and affections.
[42] The name of the last of these modern ladies, (the histories of all of whom may be found in Messrs. Vandenhok and Ruprecht's Gallerie Merkwürdiger Fraunzimmer, Ed. Gottingen, 1794 and 1798) reminds me of a jest, which, though modern, is not without its whimsicality. Mr. Perry, proprietor and editor of the newspaper called the Morning Chronicle, having one day descanted somewhat freely on politics, was asked by one of his hearers to what party he professed to belong. "To the Whigs, to be sure," said Perry. "So do I," rejoined his friend, "but not to the Perry-Whigs."
[43] Josephus Miller, edit. Lond. (no date) page 42.
[44] The crime she was charged with, it may be necessary to say, was sorcery, not murder:—putting people out of the world she had never been accused of.
[45] Palæphatus de incredibilibus.—Ed. 1649.
[46] The strongest contradiction to the assertion that she never assumed the human form may be found in a work intituled Institutione di uno fanciullo nato nobilimente.—Ed. 1558.
[47] John Bull, Oct. 14, 1821.