Here they danced with their men several measures and corantos. All which ended, they were again accited to sea, with a song of two trebles, whose cadences were iterated by a double echo from several parts of the land. Daughters of the subtile flood, Do not let earth longer entertain you; 1 Ech. Let earth longer entertain you. 'Tis to them enough of good, That you give this little hope to gain you. If they love, You shall quickly see; For when to flight you move, They'll follow you, the more you flee. 1 Ech. Follow you, the more you flee. 2 Ech. The more you flee. If not, impute it each to other's matter; They are but earth, and what you vow'd was water. 2 Ech. You vow'd was water. Ethi. Enough, bright nymphs, the night grows old, And we are grieved we cannot hold You longer light; but comfort take. Your father only to the lake Shall make return yourselves, with feasts, Must here remain the Ocean's guests. Nor shall this veil, the sun hath cast With glorious light throughout the year) And wholesome dew, call'd ros-marine : Then with that soft and gentler foam, Of which the ocean yet yields some You shall your gentler limbs o'er-lave, You do again salute this ground: At which, in a dance, they returned to sea, where they took their shell, and with this full song went out. Now Dian, with her burning face, Declines apace : By which our waters know To ebb, that late did flow. Back seas, back nymphs; but with a forward grace, Keep still your reverence to the place; In sight of Albion, Neptune's son. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PERIOD-WITCHCRAFT. SIR W. SCOTT. In the seventeenth century, the belief in this imaginary crime was general, and the prosecutions, especially in Scotland, were very frequent. James VI., who often turned the learning he had acquired to a very idle use, was at the trouble to write a treatise against witchcraft, as he composed another against smoking tobacco; and the Presbyterian clergy, however little apt to coincide with that monarch's sentiments, gave full acceptation to his opinion on the first point of doctrine, and very many persons were put to death as guilty of this imaginary crime. I must, however, observe, that some of those executed for witchcraft well deserved their fate. Impostors of both sexes were found, who deluded credulous persons, by pretending an intercourse with supernatural powers, and furnished those who consulted them with potions, for the purpose of revenging themselves on their enemies, which were in fact poisonous compounds, sure to prove fatal to those who partook of them. Among many other instances, I may mention that of a lady of high rank, the second wife of a northern earl, who, being desirous of destroying her husband's eldest son by the former marriage, in order that her own son might succeed to the father's title and estate, procured drugs to effect her purpose from a Highland woman, who pretended to be a witch or sorceress. The fatal ingredients were mixed with ale, and set aside by the wicked countess, to be given to her victim on the first fitting opportunity. But Heaven disappointed her purpose, and, at the same time, inflicted on her a dreadful punishment. Her own son, for whose advantage she meditated this horrible crime, returning fatigued and thirsty from hunting, lighted by chance on this fatal cup of liquor, drank it without hesitation, and died in consequence. The wretched mixer of the poison was tried and executed; but, although no one could be sorry that the agent in such a deed was brought to punishment, it is clear she deserved death, not as a witch, but as one who was an accomplice in murder by poison. But most of the poor creatures who suffered death for witchcraft were aged persons, usually unprotected females, living alone, in a poor and miserable condition, and disposed, from the peevishness of age and infirmity, to rail against or desire evil, in their froward humour, to neighbours by whom they were abused or lighted. When such unhappy persons had unwittingly given vent to impotent anger in bad wishes or imprecations, if a child fell sick, a horse became lame, a bullock died, or any other misfortune chanced in the family against which the illwill had been expressed, it subjected the utterer instantly to the charge of witchcraft, and was received by judges and jury as a strong proof of guilt. If, in addition to this, the miserable creature had, by the oddity of her manners, the crossness of her temper, the habit of speaking to herself, or any other signs of the dotage which attends comfortless old age and poverty, attracted the suspicions of her credulous neighbours, she was then said to have been held and reputed a witch, and was rarely permitted to escape being burnt to death at the stake. It was equally fatal for an aged person of the lower ranks, if, as was frequently the case, she conceived herself to possess any peculiar receipt or charm for curing diseases, either by the application of medicines, of which she had acquired the secret, or by repeating words, or using speils and charms, which the superstition of the time supposed to have the power of relieving maladies that were beyond the skill of medical practitioners. Such a person was accounted a white witch; one, that is, who employed her skill for the benefit, not the harm, of her fellow-creatures. But still she was a sorceress, and, as such, was liable to be brought to the stake. A doctress of this kind was equally exposed to a like charge, whether her patient died or recovered; and she was, according to circumstances, condemned for using sorcery whether to cure or to kill. Her allegation that she had received the secret from family tradition, or from any other source, was not admitted as a defence; and she was doomed to death with as little hesitation for having attempted to cure by mysterious and unlawful means, as if she had been charged, as in the instance already given, with having assisted to commit murder. The following example of such a case is worthy of notice. It rests on tradition, but is very likely to be true. An eminent English judge was travelling the circuit, when an old woman was brought before him for using a spell to cure dimness of sight, by hanging a clew of yarn round the neck of the patient. Marvellous things were told by the witnesses, of the cures which this spell had performed on patients far beyond the reach of ordinary medicine. The poor woman made no other defence than by protesting, that if there was any witchcraft in the ball of yarn, she knew nothing of it. It had been given her, she said, thirty years before, by a young Oxford student, for the cure of one of her own family, who having used it with advantage for a disorder in her eyes, she had seen no harm in lending it for the relief of others who laboured under similar infirmity, or in accepting a small gratuity for doing so. Her defence was little attended to by the jury; but the judge was much agitated. He asked the woman where she resided when she obtained possession of this valuable relic. She gave the name of a village, in which she had in former times kept a petty alehouse. He then looked at the clew very earnestly, and at length addressed the jury. "Gentlemen," he said, "we are on the point of committing a great injustice to this poor old woman; and to prevent it, I must publicly confess a piece of early folly, which does me no honour. At the time this poor creature speaks of, I was at college, leading an idle and careless life, which, had I not been given grace to correct it, must have made it highly improbable that ever I should have attained my present situation. I chanced to remain for a day and night in this woman's alehouse, without having money to discharge my reckoning. Not knowing what to do, and seeing her much occupied with a child who had weak eyes, I had the meanness to pretend that I could write out a spell that would mend her daughter's sight, if she would accept it instead of her bill. The ignorant woman readily agreed; and I scrawled some figures on a piece of parchment, and added two lines of nonsensical doggrel, in ridicule of her credulity, and caused her to make it up in that clew which has so nearly cost her her life. To prove the truth of this, let the yarn be unwound, and you may judge of the efficacy of the spell." The clew was unwound accordingly; and the following pithy couplet was found on the enclosed bit of parchment It was evident that those who were cared by such a spell must have been indebted to nature, with some assistance, perhaps, from imaginati va But the users of such charms were not always so lucky as to light upon the person who drew them up; and doubtless many innocent and unfortunate creatures were executed, as the poor alewife would have been, had she not lighted upon her former customer in the unexpected character of her julge. Another old woman is said to have cured many cattle of the murrain, by a repetition of a certain verse. The fee which she required, was a loaf of bread and a silver penny; and when she was commanded to reveal the magical verses which wrought such wonders, they were found to be the following jest on the credulity of her customers : "My loaf in my lap, and my penny in my parse, Thou art never the better, and I never the worse." It was not medicine only which witchery was supposed to mingle with; but any remarkable degree of dexterity in an art or craft, whether attained by skill or industry, subjected those who possessed it to similar suspicion. Thus it was a dangerous thing to possess more thriving cows than those of the neighbourhood, though their superiority was attained merely by paying greater attention to feeding and cleaning the animals. It was often an article of suspicion, that a woman had spun considerably more thread than her less laborious neighbours chose to think could be accomplished by ordinary industry; and to crown these absurdities, a yeoman of the town of Malling, in Kent, was accused before a justice of peace as a sorcerer, because he used more frequently than his companions to hit the mark which he aimed at. This dexterity, and some idle story of the archer's amusing himself with letting a fly hum and buzz around him, convinced the judge, that the poor man's skill in his art was owing to the assistance of some imp of Satan. So he punished the marksman severely, to the great encouragement of archery, and as a wise example to all justices of the peace. Other charges, the most ridiculous and improbable, were brought against those suspected of witchcraft. They were supposed to have power, by going through some absurd and impious ceremony, to summon to their presence the Author of Evil, who appeared in some mean or absurd shape, and, in return for the invokers renouncing their redemption, gave them the power of avenging themselves on their enemies ; which privilege, with that of injuring and teazing their fellow-creatures, was almost all they gained from their new master. Sometimes, indeed, they were said to obtain from him the power of flying through the air on broomsticks, when the Foul Fiend gave public parties; and the accounts given of the ceremonies practised on such occasions are equally disgusting and vulgar, totally foreign to any idea we can have of a spiritual nature, and only fit to be invented and believed by the most ignorant and brutal of the human species. * ** It is strange to find, that the persons accused of this imaginary crime in most cases paved the way for their own condemnation, by confessing and admitting the truth of all the monstrous absurdities which were charged against them by their accusers. This may surprise you; but yet it can be accounted for. Many of these poor creatures were crazy, and infirm in mind as well as body; and, hearing themselves charged with such monstrous enormities by those whom they accounted wise and learned, became half persuaded of their own guilt, and assented to all the nonsensical questions which were put to them. But this was not all. Very many made these confessions under the influence of torture, which was applied to them with cruel severity. It is true, the ordinary courts of justice in Scotland had not the power of exam ining criminals under torture, a privilege which was reserved for the Privy Council. But this was a slight protection; for witches were seldom tried before the ordinary criminal courts, because the judges and lawyers, though they could not deny the existence of a crime for which the law had assigned a punishment, yet showed a degree of incredulity respecting witchcraft, which was supposed frequently to lead to the escape of those accused of this unpopular crime, when in the management of professional persons. To avoid the ordinary jurisdiction of the justiciary, and other regular criminal jurisdictions, the trial of witchcraft in the provinces was usually brought before commissioners appointed by the Privy Council. These commissioners were commonly country gentlemen and clergymen, who, from ignorance on the one side, misdirected learning on the other, and bigotry on both, were as eager in the prosecution as the vulgar could desire. By their commission they had the power of torture, and employed it unscrupulously, usually calling in to their assistance a witch-finder; a fellow, that is, who made money by pretending to have peculiar art and excellence in discovering these offenders, and who sometimes undertook to rid a parish or township of witches at so much a-head, as if they had been foxes, wildcats, or other vermin. These detestable impostors directed the process of the torture, which frequently consisted in keeping the aged and weary beings from sleep, and compelling them to walk up and down their prison, whenever they began to close their eyes, and in running needles into their flesh, under pretence of discovering a mark, which the witch-finders affirmed the Devil had impressed on their skin, in token that they were his property and subjects. It is no wonder that wretched creatures, driven mad by pain, and want of sleep, confessed anything whatever to obtain a moment's relief, though they were afterwards to die for it. But besides the imbecility of such victims, and the torture to which they were subjected, shame and weariness of life often caused their pleading guilty to accusations in themselves absurd and impossible. You must consider, that the persons accused of witchcraft were almost always held guilty by the public and by their neighbours, and that if the Court scrupled to condemn them, it was a common thing for the mob to take the execution into their own hands, and duck the unhappy wretches to death, or otherwise destroy them. The fear of such a fate might determine many of the accused, even though they were in their sound mind, and unconstrained by bodily torture, to plead guilty at once, and rather lose their wretched life by the sentence of the law, than expose themselves to the fury of the prejudiced multitude. A singular story is told to this effect. An old woman and her daughter were tried as witches at Haddington. The principal evidence of the crime was, that though miserably poor, the two females had contrived to look "fresh and fair," during the progress of a terrible famine, which reduced even the better classes to straits, and brought all indigent people to the point of starving; while, during the universal distress, these two women lived on in their usual way and never either begged for assistance or seemed to suffer by the general calamity. The jury were perfectly satisfied that this could not take place by any natural means; and, as the accused persons, on undergoing the discipline of one Kincaid, a witch-finder, readily admitted all that was asked about their intercourse with the devil, the jury, on their confession, brought them in guilty of witchcraft without hesitation. The king's advocate for the time (I believe Sir George Mackenzie is named) was sceptical on the subject of witchcraft. He visited the women in private, and urged them to tell the real truth. They continued at first to maintain the story they had given in their confession. But the Advocate, perceiving them to be women of more sense than ordinary, urged upon them the crime of being accessary to their own death, by persisting in accusing themselves of impossibilities, and promised them life |