only by saying that I thought the impression a little too large for the hand of a fairy.

There is a very grave gentleman of my acquaintance who has seen some hundreds of spirits; the man seems to be in his right senses, and, like the madman mentioned by Horace, performs every office of life with decency; but when you touch upon this subject, he runs riot, and cannot bear the least contradiction. He is naturally phlegmatic; and when I once asked him with a grave face, after much attention to his stories, at what time they generally appeared to him, his reply was, "I see them most commonly after the drinking of brandy." This was enough for me, and I beg my reader not to think it a pun, for it is really a fact.

The worthy Acasto, who has the true spirit of religion and good sense, has often related to me his successes in attacking this superstitious humour among his neighbours in the country. There was, it seems, a devil, or at least a spirit or two, who had taken possession of some of his tenants' houses for many years; where they took the privilege of disturbing the family with all manner of noises, rattling of chains, clattering of pewter; and, in short, flinging the house out of window, as we say, whenever they

pleased. They sometimes made excursions into the adjacent common, and kept their revels by a ditch side, or under an old oak; and were demons of such considerable figure and standing, that they were thought too hard for either minister or conjuror. However, my friend, pitying the miserable credulity of his neighbours, first dispossessed them of the houses, then pursued them to the common, and at last beat them quite out of the parish: though the people will not be persuaded but that they are lodged in a great wood, about a mile and half distance from Acasto's seat; and that they will begin their incursions as soon as he leaves the country. However, my friend intends to begin his attack upon the old wood the first favourable moonshine night, and does not question but he shall complete his triumph before the summer is over. His method was, to take the pains to convince them by watching himself at the pretended seasons of disturbance; and his presence so effectually awed their imaginations, that they started no Mormos while he was with them; and, by often repeating the trial, and reasoning kindly with them upon the subject, he worked to the bottom of the delusion, and delivered them from all the monsters of their own formation.

I was led into these reflections, by reading a very ridiculous book lately published: the title of it is, Mr. Lilly's History of his Life and Times; where that notorious impostor has put together all the idle fancies of whimsical or cunning people, under the notion of an art or science.

The fellow relates the cheats of his profession with the formality of truth; and I don't question but that they will pass for such upon the vulgar, since they fall in with their natural prejudices. And therefore when he says, that Sarah Skelborn, the Speculatrix, had the best eyes for second sight that ever he saw, he will certainly be believed; because it is a received maxim with the ignorant, that every one has not the faculty of discerning spirits and future contingencies. I should not have taken notice of this silly book, had not I found that the tricks of judicial astrology are practised with great advantage to their professors; that many ladies have as high an opinion of the Dumb Doctor as of the great Meade; and that Partridge is daily preferred to the immortal Sir Isaac New

ton.

CENSOR, No. 11, May 4, 1715.

The superstitions alluded to in this paper, and which had previously attracted the notice of Addison, are now seldom,

to be found, even among the lowest orders, as articles of popular belief. They still serve, however, to decorate the regions of poetry and romance, and are still capable, through their metaphysical possibility, of exciting, under the direction of genius, very powerful and grateful emotions; while, at the same time, from the progress of every branch of science, their impression cannot now be such as to warp, in any inju rious degree, the powers of ratiocination.

No. IV.

Pauci dignoscere possunt

Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remota
Erroris nebula. Quid enim ratione timemus,

Aut cupimus? Quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatus non pœniteat, votique peracti?

A

Mark by man how little understood

Is the true path of evil or of good :

JUVENAL.

Error's deep shade o’erhangs our hopes and fears,
And prosperous fools repent their plans in tears.

HODGSON

THERE was a country-woman, who, upon her intimacy with a fairy, desired her to come and assist at her labour. The good woman was delivered of a daughter; when the fairy (taking the infant in her arms) said to the mother, make your choice; the child, if you have a mind, shall be exquisitely handsome, excel in wit even more than in beauty, and be queen of a mighty empire; but, with all, unhappy: or, if you had rather, she shall be an ordinary, ugly, country creature, like yourself; but contented with her condition. The mother immediately chose wit and beauty for her daughter, at the hazard of any misfortunes.