the scepticism of that Irish prelate who qualified his admiration of Gulliver's Travels by hinting, that there were some things in them of which he had his doubts. He demurs to some of the ceremonies in the current account of the celebration of the Solemn League and Covenant. He has, however, very well condensed the circumstances supposed to accompany it :

"The convention for such a solemne initiation being proclaimed (by some herald imp) to some others of the confederation, on the Lord's day, or some great holy-day, or chief festivall, they meete in some church, neer the font or high altar, and that very early, before the consecrated bel hath toll'd, or the least sprinkling of holy water; or else very late, after all services are past and over. Where the party in some vesture for that purpose, is presented, by some confederate or familiar, to the prince of devills sitting now in a throne of infernall majesty, appearing in the form of a man (only labouring to hide his cloven foot.) To whom, after bowing, and homage done in kissing his backe parts, a petition is presented to be received unto his association and protection; and first, if the witch bee outwardly Christian, baptisme must bee renounced; and the party must be re-baptized in the devill's name, and a new name is also imposed by him and here must be god-fathers too, for the devill takes them not to be so adult as to promise and vow for themselves. But above all he is very busie with his long nayles, in scraping and scratching those places of the forehead where the signe of the crosse was made, or where the chrisme was laid. In stead of both which, he himselfe impresses or inures the marke of the beast, the devill's flesh brand, upon one or other part of the body and teaches them to make an oyle or oyntment of live infants, stoln out of the cradle (before they be signed with the sign of the crosse), or dead ones stolne out of their graves, the which they are to boyle to a jelly; and then drinking one part and besmearing themselves with another, they forthwith feel themselves imprest and endowed with the faculties of this mysticall art. Further, the witch (for his or her part) vowes, (either by word of mouth, or peradventure by writing, and that in their own blood) to give both body and soull to the devill; to deny and defie God the Father, the Sonne, and the Holy Ghost. But especially the blessed Virgin, convitiating her with one infamous nick-name or other: to abhor the word and sacraments, but especially to spit at the saying of masse; to spurne at the crosse, and tread saints' images under feet; and as much as possibly they may, to profane all saints' reliques, holy water, consecrated salt, wax, &c. To bee sure to fast on Sundayes, and eate flesh on Fridays, not to confesse their sinnes however they do; especially to a priest. To separate from the Catholicke church, and despise his vicar's primacy. To attend his nocturnall conventicles, sabbaths, sacrifices. To take him for their God, worship, invoke, obey him, &c. To devote their children to him, and to labour all that they may to bring others into the same confederacy. Then the devill for his part promises to be always present with them, to serve them at their beck. That they shall have their wills upon any body, that they shall have what riches, honours,

pleasures, they can imagine. And if any be so wary as to think of their future being, he tells them they shall be principalities ruling in the aire; or shall but be turned into impes at worst. Then he preaches to them to be mindfull of their covenant, and not to faile to revenge themselves upon their enemies. Then he commends to them (for these purposes) an impe or familiar, in the shape of dogge, cat, mouse, rat, weasle, &c. After this they shake hands, embrace in armes, dance, feast, and banquet, according as the devill hath provided in imitation of the supper. Nay, oft times he marries them ere they part, either to himselfe, cr their familiar, or to one another, and that by the Book of Common Prayer (as a pretender to witch-finding told me, in the audience of many.) After this they part, till the next great conventicle or sabbath of theirs, which is to meet thrice in a year, conveyed as swift as the winds from remotest parts of the earth, where the most notorious of them meet to redintegrate their covenant, and give account of their improvement. Where they that have done the most execrable mischiefe, and can brag of it, make most merry with the devill, and they that have been indiligent, and have done but petty services in comparison, are jeered and derided by the devill and all the rest of the company. And such as are absent, and have no care to be assoygned, are amerced to this penalty, so to be beaten on the palms of their feete, to be whipt with iron rods, to be pincht and suckt by their familiars till their heart blood come, till they repent them of their sloath, and promise more attendance and diligence for the future."

King James refers, in proof of the odd sort of homage here described, to a practice which is not now, we apprehend, quite so common in Hindostan.

Though it seeme ridiculous, yet may it likewise be true, seeing we read that in Calicute, he (the devil) appearing in forme of a goatbucke, hath publikely that un-honest homage done unto him, by every one of the people."

Notwithstanding Gaule's doubts, there was more ample testimony to these solemnities than to any thing else in the whole history of witchcraft. The confessions of the culprits themselves are remarkably ample on this point, both in number and explicitness. Glanvil has preserved a very decisive one, made by Agnes Sympson, when examined before James, then king of Scots, in 1590, which is supposed, with some probability, to have corrected the youthful scepticism of that monarch, and prepared him for becoming the author of the Demonology. It corresponds exactly with the description, with the exception of the abjuration of Roman Catholic peculiarities, and of some few particulars, which are supplied from other depositions.

The vulgar belief was, that the witches were corporeally present on these occasions; but the philosophers of superstition

maintained that, frequently at least, they were only there in spirit. Hallywell alleges, that "it is possible the soul may be rapt from this terrestrial body, and carried to remote and distant places, from whence she may make a postliminar return, by either of these two ways: 1-From a vehement affection, or deep imagination piercing into the very lowest of her powers. 2-By the assistance and activity of a more potent spirit.Those officious demons loosening the continuity or vinculum between soul and body, by which means they pass freely and securely to the general rendezvous." King James, however, holds that in many cases they were not present, either in body or soul, but that the devil practised a similar and contemporaneous delusion upon the senses of all of them.

The vanity of the arch-fiend seems to have induced him to institute so many ceremonies for the initiation of these wretched agents of his polity:

"The devil hath all along endeavoured to ape and imitate the actions of God Almighty, and to deprave the institutions he appointed in his worship to perverse and wicked ends. Thus, because sacrifices were offered to the true God, the arch-fiend commands likewise the same to be done to him: and as God sometimes by fire from heaven declared his acceptation of the sacrifices performed to him; so this likewise hath been counterfeited by the devil, as in the sacrifice offered up to Jupiter by the Rhodians; and at Hierocæsarea and Hypapæ, (saith Pausanias) wood laid upon the altar is commonly set on fire, without putting fire to it, only at the mumbling of some few words by a priest. Moreover Solinus reports the same of the Vulcanian Hill in Sicily, where, when the sacrifice is prepared, ab ipso Numine fit accendium, the green wood fires of itself, and the Deity, by consuming the sacrifice by fire, gives testimony of his acceptance of the oblation. And upon some mountain in Africa (if I mis-remember not) the Cacodamon offers himself to those who for certain days have duly prepared themselves, splendida circumfusum nube, environed with a bright cloud; an imitation, doubtless, of the Divine Presence, manifested by a cloud upon the tabernacle of the Jews, or that which overshadowed the disciples at the transfiguration of our Saviour.

"Now as the sacrifices offered up to the true God of Israel were federal rites, and those that did partake of them did thereby enter into a covenant with God to become his servants, and obey his laws; so the aiery principality hath mimically observed the same thing, and those that offered sacrifices to dæmons, were supposed, by partaking of those sacrifices, to enter into a stricter league and familiarity with those evil spirits."

Melampronvea, p. 56.

From the same authority, we learn that a much more gross and selfish motive operated with the blood-sucking imps them

selves, who attended as familiar spirits on the covenanted witches. The operation was both pleasant and nourishing.

"Marcus, the monk, tells, that these demons enter into brute animals, not out of any spleen or hatred they bear to them, but because they are wonderfully desirous of animal warmth. For the confederate spirit, whether of a nature humane or diabolical, must necessarily have a body proportionable to the grossness and coarseness of its powers and faculties, which being so mightily debauched through the excessive prevalency and exorbitancy of the sensual life, cannot act in any other vehicle but what is drawn from the clammy and caliginous parts of the air; which bodies, in this, agree with ours in that they have their effluvia, and exhale and wear away by a continual deflux of particles, and therefore require some nutriment to supply the place of the fugacious atoms, which is done by sucking the bloud and spirits of these forlorn wretches. And that this was the opinion of the wisest and best philosophers among the Greeks, that evil dæmons were extremely delighted with the bloud and odours of sacrifices, as being a refreshment and nourishment to their vaporous bodies, appears from what Celsus writes. We ought to give credit to wise men who affirm, that most of these lower and circumterraneous dæmons are delighted with geniture, bloud, and odour, and such like things, and much gratified therewith. And Origen ageees with him fully in this point, and tells us, that the devils were not only delighted with the idolatry of the Pagans in their sacrifices, but also that their very bodies were nourished by the vapours and fumes arising from them, and that these evil dæmons therefore did as it were deliciate and epicurize in them. To this purpose the same father makes mention of a certain Pythagorean, who wrote of the mysterious and recondite sense of Homer, that Chryses' words to Apollo, and his immission of a pestilence upon the Grecians, teach us, that Homer did believe there were certain evil dæmons, who took pleasure in fumes and odours of sacrifices, and that they were ready, as a reward, to gratifie the sacrificants with the destruction of any person, if they so desired it. Which by the way may give some satisfaction to those importunate inquirers, why the possessions and vexations of men by evil dæmons should be wrought by the desire of a witch? viz.-to gratifie her revenge as a reward for the pleasure the wicked fiend reaped from such vile and damnable commerce with her body.

"Nor was this a singular fancy of Origen, for Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher, writes the very same. The dæmons assist at the sacrifices, being allured and brought down by the bloud, which they greedily take in. And again-the material dæmons do strangely gluttonize upon the odours and bloud of sacrifices, which they suck in, not with their mouths, but as Marcus, in Psellus, who had formerly been initiated in the diabolical mysteries, affirms, as spunges and testaceous fishes. And no doubt but those impure devils may take as much pleasure in sucking the warm bloud of men or beasts, as a chearful and healthy constitution in drawing in the refreshing gales of pure and sin

cere air."

Ib. p. 100.

When such fearful mischiefs were believed to be dealt about so freely in society, it became, of course, a very interesting inquiry, whether any, and who, were secured against the enemy, and, by privilege of character or station, exempted from his worse than bailiff touch. To this, various replies were made. According to the Romish writers, they were, first, the Inquisitors and such as execute public justice upon witches; secondly, such as observe duly the rites and ceremonies of Holy Church, and worship them with reverence, through the sprinkling of holy water and receiving consecrated salt; by the lawful use of candles hallowed on Candlemas day, and green leaves consecrated on Palm Sunday; and thirdly, some are preserved by their good angels which attend upon them. King James seems doubtful whether any be absolutely secure, except the magistrate in the zealous enforcement of the law against them. Their power over him is

"Less or greater, according as he deals with them: for if he be slothful towards them, God is very able to make them instruments to waken and punish his sloth; but if he be the contrary, he, according to the just law of God, and allowable law of all nations, will be diligent in examining and punishing of them; God will not permit their master to trouble or hinder so good a work. If they be but apprehended and detained by any private person, upon other private respects, their power no doubt, either in escaping or doing hurt, is no less than ever it was before: but if, on the other part, their apprehending and detention be by the lawful magistrate, upon the just respects of their guiltiness in that craft, their power is then no greater than before that ever they meddled with their master: for where God begins justly to strike by his lawful lieutenants, it is not in the Devil's power to defraud or bereave him of the office or effect of his powerful and revenging sceptre."

Gaule maintains that witches can have no power against the whole Church, but may against even the most pious individuals. While the platonic Hally well thus contends, that

"It is possible for the soul to arise to such a height, and become so divine, that no witchcraft or evil demons can have any power upon the body. When the bodily life is too far invigorated and awakened, and draws the intellect, the flower and summity of the soul, into a conspiration with it, then are we subject and obnoxious to magical assaults. For magic, or sorcery, being founded only in this lower or mundane spirit, he that makes it his business to be freed and released from all its blandishments and flattering devocations, and endeavours wholly to withdraw himself from the love of corporeity, and too near a sympathy with the frail flesh, he, by it, enkindles such a divine principle as lifts him above the fate of this inferior world, and adorns his mind