Paulus Jovius, a man of unquestionable erudition, confirms the popular legend concerning the black dog of Cornelius Agrippa; stating that, when on his death-bed at Lyons, he uttered dreadful imprecations against his faithful attendant, who was supposed by the vulgar to be a familiar spirit disguised under the form of a cur; saying, “Away with thee wretched beast, through whom I am lost to all eternity!” On which the dog precipitated itself into the Saône, and appeared no more. Unfortunately for the historian, Agrippa died at Grenoble, and not at Lyons, so that the Saône is rather far fetched. But those who believe in familiar spirits are apt to be loose in their notions of geography.
The work of James I., upon Demonology, is one of the most curious records of the superstition of his time, of which the feats of Nicholas Hopkins, the witch-finder, afford so cruel an evidence. The royal author would, perhaps, have been better employed in seeing a more enlightened education bestowed upon his ill-advised son, than in perpetuating his own credulity.
The Memoirs of the Cardinal de Richelieu admit his belief in witchcraft. In his time, it was an advantage to a Minister of State to have at his disposal accusations of a mysterious crime, where disculpation was next to impossible. Urbain Grandier, the priest, who was condemned to death for allowing the nuns of Loudun to communicate with the devil, was one among many victims to the darkness of the public mind.
By the Parliaments of France, hundreds were burnt for witchcraft in the course of a few months. The shepherds of La Brie alone supplied innumerable victims; as the supposed authors of all the domestic misfortunes of the district, the murrain that carried off the cattle, and the hooping-cough that carried off the children. Like the old women in Scotland, they were “na canny;” and like them, expiated the prejudice among faggots and tar-barrels. But though we no longer burn for witchcraft, the profession is far from extinct; and in the remote districts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, there scarcely exists a country magistrate but has had some charge brought before him implying the exercise of witchcraft. The horse-shoe is still seen nailed above the doors of our villages; and fortune-tellers, and spaewives are consulted, in spite of Sunday schools and the Lancastrian system. Not a day passes, but the ordeal of the Bible and key, the Sortes virgiliane of the vulgar, is resorted to in some village of the British empire; but the exorcisms of the school-master will probably drive both witches and witch-finders from the land.
CHAPTER XLVI.
MALE AND FEMALE.
When the learned Spaniard, Feijoo, was about to decide upon the comparative power and merit of the two sexes, he invoked an angel to descend from Heaven to enlighten his mind; so perplexing did he feel the arguments on both sides.
Rousseau, in comparing the sexes, observes, “as I pursue my investigations, I perceive on all sides affinity—on all sides discrepancy.”