thieves and pickpockets, a magazine of stolen vanity and after all, if it was not for the vanity goods, a house of call where nightly depredators of it, there would be no need to say it at all. met together to compare accounts, and make I knew a gentleman who possessed more real merry over their plunder: amongst these and accomplishments than fall to one man's lot in a by these I was educated; I obeyed them as my thousand; he was an excellent painter, a fine masters, and I looked up to them as my exam-musician, a good scholar, and more than all, a ples: I believed them to be great men; I heard very worthy man-but he could not ride: it so them recount their actions with glory; I saw happened that upon a morning's airing I detectthem die like heroes, and I attended their exe-ed him in the attempt of mounting on "the back cutions with triumph. It is now my turn to of a little pony, no taller than his whip, and as suffer, and I hope I shall not prove myself un- quiet as a lamb: two stout fellows held the aniworthy of the calling in which I have been mal by the head, whilst my friend was performbrought up if there be any fault in my con- ing a variety of very ingenious manœuvres for duct, the fault is yours; for being the child of lodging himself upon the saddle by the aid of á poverty, I was the son of the public: if there be stirrup which nearly touched the ground: I am any honour it is my own; for I have acted up afraid I smiled, when I ought not so to have to my instructions in all things, and faithfully done, for it is certain it gave offence to my fulfilled the purposes of my education." worthy friend, who soon after joined me on his pony, which he assured me was remarkably vicious, particularly at mounting; but that he had been giving him some proper discipline, which he doubted not would cure him of his evil tricks; "for you may think what you please," adds he, "of my painting, or my music, or any other little talent you are pleased to credit me for; the only art which I really pique myself

འས་་་

NUMBER XXXI.

I cannot excuse myself from touching upon one more prejudice, which may be called natural or self-prejudice: under correction of the Dampers I hope I may be allowed to say, that a certain portion of this a good quickener in all constitutions; being seasonably applied, it acts like the spur in the wing of the ostrich, and keeps industry awake: being of the nature of all volatiles and provocatives, the merit of it con-upon-is the art of riding." sists in the moderation and discretion which administer it: if a man rightly knows himself, he may be called wise; if he justly confides in himself he may be accounted happy; but if he keeps both this knowledge and this confidence to himself, he will neither be less wise nor less happy for so doing: if there are any secrets which a man ought to keep from his nearest friends, this is one of them. If there were no better reason why a man should not vaunt himself, but because it is robbing the poor mountebanks of their livelihood, methinks it would be reason enough: if he must think aloud upon such occasions, let him lock himself into his closet, and take it out in soliloquy if he likes the sound of his own praises there, and can reconcile himself to the belief of them, it will then be time enough to try their effect upon other people.

Ventidius is the modestest of all men; he blushes when he sees himself applauded in the public papers; he has a better reason for blushing than the world is aware of; he knows himself to be the author of what he reads.

It seems a matter pretty generally agreed between all tellers and hearers of stories, that one party shall work by the rule of addition, and the other by that of subtraction. In most narratives, where the relater is a party in the scene, I have remarked that the says-I has a decided advantage in a dialogue over the says-he; few people take an underpart in their own fable. There is a salvo, however, which some gentlemen make use of (but I cannot recommend it), of hooking in a word to their own advantage, with the preface of I think I may say without

ALTHOUGH the subject of Witchcraft has been treated seriously as well as ludicrously in so full a manner as to anticipate in some measure what can be now offered to the reader's curiosity, yet I am tempted to add something on this topic, which I shall endeavour to put together in such shape and method as may perhaps throw fresh light upon a subject that ignorance and superstition have in all past ages of the world conspired to keep in darkness and obscurity.

The reader will recollect so much said of sorcerers and demons both in the old and new parts of the Sacred Writings, that I need not now recapitulate the instances, but take them as they occur in the course of my discussion.

Theologians, who have treated the subjects seriously and logically, have defined magic to be "An art or faculty which, by evil compact with demons, performs certain things wonderful in appearance, and above the ordinary comprehension of mankind.”—According to this definition we are to look for the origin of this art, to the author of all evil, the devil. Heathen writers have ascribed the invention of magic to Mercury. Some of the early Christians who have wrote on the subject, speak of Zabulus as the first magician, but this is only another name for the devil, and is so used by St. Cyprian.

K

The sacred

Some give the invention to Barnabas, a magi- | this inscription, Simoni Deo Sancto. cian of Cyprus, but who this Barnabas was, historians record no particulars of Simon's sorand in what time he lived, they have not ceries: but if the reader has curiosity to consult shown: though they have taken pains to prove lib. 2. Recognition: et lib. 6. constit. Apost. in he was not St. Barnabas, the coadjutor of the Clem. Rom. he will find many strange stories apostle Paul. Some of the Spanish writers of this sorcerer, viz. that he created a man out maintain that magic was struck out in Arabia, of the air; that he had the power of being inand that a certain ancient volume of great an- visible; that he could render marble as penetratiquity was brought from thence by the Moors ble as clay; animate statues; resist the force of into Spain, full of spells and incantations, and fire; present himself with two faces like Janus ; by them and the Jews bequeathed to their pos- metamorphose himself into a sheep or a goat; terity, who performed many wonderful things fly through the air at pleasure; create vast sums by its aid, till it was finally discovered and of gold in a moment and upon a wish; take a burned by the Inquisition. scythe in his hand and mow a field of standing corn almost at a stroke, and bring the dead, unjustly murdered, into life. He adds, that as a famous courtezan named Selene was looking out of a certain castle, and a great crowd had collected to gaze at her, he caused her first to appear, and afterwards to fall down from every window at one and the same time.

Anastasius Nicenus's account agrees in many particulars with the above, and adds, that Simon was frequently preceded by spectres, which he said were the spirits of certain persons deceased. I shall make no farther remark upon these accounts, except in the way of caution to readers of a certain description, to keep in

These are some amongst many of the accounts which pious men in times of superstition have offered to the world; the defenders of the art, on the contrary, derive its doctrines from the angel who accompanied Tobit, and revealed them to him on the way, and they contend that these doctrines are preserved in certain books written by Honorius, Albertus Magnus, Cyprian, Paul, Enoch, and others. Tostatus thinks that Jezebel, who enchanted Ahab with charms and filtres, was the first who practised sorcery; that from her time the Samaritans were so addicted to sorcery that a Samaritan and a sorcerer became one and the same term; which opinion he is confirmed in by that pas-mind that the scriptural history says onlysage in Scripture where the Pharisees accuse Christ of being a Samaritan, and having a devil; a charge, says he, implied in the very first position of his being a Samaritan. He admits jointly with St. Austin, that Pythonissa, or the Witch of Endor, actually raised the spirit of Samuel, not by magic incantations, but by express permission of God, for the punishment of Saul's impiety, and to provoke him to immediate repentance by the denunciation of his impending fate; whilst other authorities in the church of early date maintain, that it was not the spirit of Samuel, but a demon that appeared in his likeness. He admits also, that the rods of the Egyptian sorcerers were like that of Moses turned into serpents by the art and contrivance of the devil: in like manner the said magicians turned the rivers into blood, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt; but though they kept pace with Moses in producing these plagues, their power, he observes, did not reach, as his did, to the subsequent extirpation of them.

"That Simon used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one."-The evidences of Holy Writ are simple and in general terms, but the accounts of the fathers of the church go much beyond them, and the superstition of the dark ages was so extravagant and unbounded that there is no end to the tales invented, or inserted in the Romish legends.

Though it appears from the scriptural account that Simon was converted by Philip, the arts he had imparted to his scholars did not cease in the world, but were continued by Menander, one of his said scholars, and a Samaritan also, who practised sorceries, and went to Antioch, where he deluded many people; Irenæus relates that Marcus, another of Simon's scholars, was a very powerful magician, and drew many followers; that Anaxilaus pretended to cure madness by the same art, turned white wine into red, and prophesied by the help of a familiar; and that Carpocrates and his pupils practised magical incantations and love charms, and had As to Simon the Magician, whom Philip absolute power over men's minds by the force converted in Samaria, wonderful things are said of superstition. The charge of sorcery became of him by the fathers of the Christian church; in aftertimes so strong a weapon in the hands of this man, Justin Martyr informs us, was born the church of Rome that they employed it in the city of Gitta in Samaria, travelled to against all, in their turns, who separated themRome in the time of Claudius, and by the aid selves from the established communion. When of the devil performed such astonishing feats as Priscilian carried the heresy of the Gnostics caused him to be believed and worshipped as a into Spain, he was twice brought to trial and god, the Romans erecting a statue to him on the convicted of sorcery, which Severus Sulpitius banks of the Tiber between the bridges, within his epistle to Ctesiphon says he confessed to

have learned of Marcus the Egyptian above- | ferroque prædabundus vastabat. He adds, that mentioned; this Priscilian was a great adept wherever the heresy of Calvin went, whether in Zoroastrian magic, and though a magician, to England, France, or Holland, the black and was promoted to the episcopacy. The same Se- diabolic arts of necromancy kept pace with it. verus, in his life of Saint Martin, relates that That the demons take their abode in heretics as there was a young man in Spain, who by false naturally as they did in heathen idols, or in the miracles imposed upon the people to believe he herd of swine, when commanded; nay, Hiewas the prophet Elias, afterwards he feigned ronymus declares that they got into worse quarhimself to be Christ, and drew Rufus, though ters by the exchange: Cassian (Collat. 7. cap. a bishop, to give credit to his blasphemous im- 31), an ancient writer of great gravity, affirms position, and to pay him worship accordingly. that he had himself interrogated a demon, who Paul the deacon also relates that there were confessed to him that he had inspired Arius and three other Pseudo-Christs in France, one of Eunomius with the first ideas of their sacrilewhich was a Briton, whom Gregory of Tours gious tenets. That it is demonstrable by reason, calls Eun (probably Evan), of whom Robert that all heretics must in the end be either the chronologer and William of Newberry re- Atheists or sorcerers; because heresy can only cord many miracles! All these Paul tells us proceed from the passion of pride and self-suffiwere heretics. ciency, which lead to Atheism; or from curiosity and love of novelty, which incline the mind to the study of magical arts. That sorcery follows heresy, as the plague follows famine; for heresy is nothing else but a famine, as described by the prophet Amos, chap. viii. verse 11: "Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord." Moreover, heresy is a harlot, as Isaiah expresseth himself" How, is the faithful city become a harlot?"And as harlots, when past their beauty, take up the trade of procuresses, so demons (as these good Catholics inform us) turn old and obdurate heretics into sorcerers-Father Maldonatus sees the heretics again, in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, come out of the smoke in form of locusts upon the earth, and as Joel the prophet writes in the fourth verse of his first chapter-" That which the palmerworm hath left, hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten."-So in these gradations of vermin may be seen, the stages of heresy, for what the heretics have left, the sorcerers by the devil's aid have destroyed; and what the sorcerers have left, the Atheists have destroyed.

In the pontificate of Innocent VI. there was one Gonsalvo a Spaniard in the diocese of Concha, who wrote a book, which he entitled Virginalem, with a demon visibly standing at his elbow, and dictating to him as he copied it from his mouth; in which book he announced himself to be Christ, the immortal Saviour of the world; this man was put to death as a heretic and blasphemer. Sergius, the author of the Armenian heresy, was charged with keeping a demon in the shape of a dog constantly attending upon him; and Berengarius, chief of the Sacramentarian heresy, was in like manner accused of being a magician. Many more in-❘ stances might be adduced, but Tertullian takes a shorter course, and fairly pronounces that all heretics were magicians, or had commerce with magicians.

The infidels escaped no better from this charge than the heretics: for the Moors who brought many arts and inventions into Spain, of which the natives were in utter ignorance, universally fell under the same accusation, and Martin Delrius the Jesuit, who taught theology in Salamanca at the close of the sixteenth century, says he was shown the place where a great cave had been stopped up in that city by order of Queen Isabella, which the Moors had used for the purposes of necromancy; that the Hussites in Bohemia, and the followers of the archheretic Luther in Germany, confounded men's senses by the power of magic and the assistance of the devil, to whom they had devoted themselves; that some of them voluntarily recanted and confessed their evil practices, and others being seized and examined at the tribunal of Treves made like public confession, at which time, he adds," That terrible and Tartarean prop of Lutheranism, Albert of Brandeburgh, himself a notorious magician, was in the act of laying waste that very country with fire and sword."-Tetrum illud et tartareum Lutheranismi fulcrum, ipse quoque magicæ nomine famosus, Albertus Brandeburgicus, provinciam illam flamma

Having stated the charge, which my heretical readers will perceive is pretty general against them, I shall proceed to some facts in proof. One of the most stubborn amongst these is the case of an heretical woman in the town of Paderborn, who brought forth a male infant in a parson's gown and beaver-palliatum ei pileatum modo ecclesiasticorum-who from his natural antipathy to Papists always reviled them wherever he met them; this Father Delrius assures us was a fact of general notoriety, and a just judgment from God on the heresy of the mother. Niderius, in the chapter upon witches in Formicario, says that an heretical young witch at Cologne, by the help of a demon, took a handkerchief, and, in presence of a great company of noble spectators tore it into pieces,

conjuror, who by spells and enchantments turned men into brute animals, and metamorphosed almost every thing he laid his hands upon; this fellow, when the inhabitants of Catana would have persuaded him to let them hang

heretic ought, took counsel of the devil, and cowardly flew away to Byzantium by the shortest passage through the air, to the great disap pointment of the spectators; being pursued by the officers of justice, not indeed through the air, but as justice is accustomed to travel pede claudo, he took a second flight, and alighting in the city of Catana, was providentially caught by Leo the good bishop of that city, who throwing him into a fiery furnace, roasted this strange bird to the great edification of all beholders (sed tandem a Leone Catanensi episcopo, divinâ virtute ex improviso captus, frequenti in mediâ urbe populo, in fornacem igneam injectus, ignis incendio consumptus est )-This anecdote is to be found in Thomas Fazellus (lib. 5, c. 2, and again, lib. 3, deca. 1 rerum Sicularum), who closes his account with the following pious remark, naturally arising from his subject, and which I shall set down in his own words-Sic divina justitia prævaluit, et qui se judicibus forte minus justo zelo motis eripuerat, e sancti viri manibus elabi non potuit. “Thus," says he, "divine justice prevailed, and he, who had snatched himself out of the hands of judges, who perhaps were actuated by a zeal not so just as it should be, could not escape from this holy person."

and immediately afterwards produced it whole | Diodorus, vulgarly called Liodorus, a Sicilian and entire; this wicked jade then took up a glass, threw it against the wall, broke it into a thousand fragments, and instantly showed it to the company as whole as at first. Niderius concludes, with just indignation against such diabolical practices, that this girl was well han-him quietly and contentedly as a conjuror and dled by the Fathers of the Inquisition, where her tricks could stand her in no stead; which indeed is not to be wondered at, as the devil himself would not choose to venture before that tribunal. Bodinus, in his treatise upon demons, relates that a conjurer named Triscalinus performed some tricks before Charles the Ninth of France, and by the black art contrived to draw into his hand several rings from the fingers of a courtier, who stood at a distance from him, and that every body saw these rings fly through the air to the conjurer, whereupon the whole company rising up against him for the performance of such diabolical feats (quæ nec arte, nec actu humano, nec naturâ fieri poterant) fell upon him, and by force brought him to confess that he conspired with the devil, which at first this hardened sinner was very unwilling to do; Bodinus with great candour observes, that this was indeed a blot in the fame of Charles the Ninth, who in all other respects was a praise worthy monarch; (alias laudato rege). When my readers recollect the meritorious part that Charles the Ninth acted in the massacre of Paris, he will own with me that the candour of Bodinus is extraordinary in producing a story so much to the discredit of a praise-worthy prince. There was one Zedekiah, a Jew physician, who in presence of the Emperor Lodowick the pious, in the year 876, swallowed a prize-fighter on horseback, horse and all (hoplomachum equitem devoravit)-Nay, he did more, he swallowed a cart loaded with hay, horses, and driver (currum quoque onustum fœno cum equis et auriga), -he cut off people's heads, hands, and feet, which he fastened on again in the eyes of all the court, whilst the blood was running from them, and in a moment the man so maimed appeared whole and unhurt; he caused the Emperor to hear the sound of hounds in full chase, with shouts of huntsmen and many other noises in the air; and in the midst of winter showed him a garden in full bloom with flowers and fruits, and birds singing in the trees; a most detestable piece of magic and very unworthy of an emperor to pass over with impunity, for he suffered the Jew doctor to escape. As it is always right when a man deals in the marvellous to quote his authority, I beg leave to inform the incredulous reader (if any there be) that I take these facts upon the credit of the learned Joannes Trithemius, a very serious and respectable author.One more case in point occurs to me, which I shall state, and then release my readers from

NUMBER XXXII.

Quis labor hic superis cantus herbasque sequendi,
Spernendique timor? Cujus commercia pacti
Obstrictos habuere Deos? Parere necesse est,
An juvat? Ignota tantum pietate merentur,
An tacitis valuere minis? Hoc juris in omnes
Est illis superos? An habent hæc carmina certum
Imperiosa Deum, qui mundum cogere, quicquid
Cogitur, ipse potest?

LUCAN. lib. vi. 491, §c.

To what annoyance do the gods submit,
Who with the charms of sorcerers comply,
Dreading to slight them? Does a solemn pledge
Their will restrain? Are they compell'd to yield,
Or does their sovereign pleasure thus allow it ?
Has unknown piety this meed acquired,
Or have their silent menaces obtained it?
O'er all the gods have sorcerers control?
Or have their incantations power supreme
O'er some one god, who but compels the world
To do whatever he himself is forced to?

the conjuror's circle, and this is the case of one HAVING in my preceding paper stated some of