that the flag has its nourishment in marshy ground, whereas the fern loves a deep dryish soil. The attributes of the divining-rod were fully credited ; the discovery of the philosopher's stone was daily hoped for; and electricity, magnetism, and other remarkable and misconceived phenomena, were appealed to as proof of the reasonableness of their expectations. Until such phenomena were traced to their sources, imaginary, and often mystical causes were assigned to them, for the same reason that, in the wilds of a partially discovered country, according to the satirist—

This substitution of mystical fancies for experimental reasoning gave, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a doubtful and twilight appearance to the various branches of physical philosophy. The learned and sensible Dr. Webster, for instance, writing in detection of supposed witchcraft, assumes, as a string of undeniable facts, opinions which our more experienced age would reject as frivolous fancies; "for example, the effects of healing by the weaponsalve, the sympathetic powder, the curing of various diseases by apprehensions, amulets, or by transplantation." All of which undoubted wonders he accuses the age of desiring to throw on the devil's back- an unnecessary load, certainly, since such

* ["So geographers in Afric maps,

With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs,

Place elephants for want of towns."

SWIFT, On Poetry.]

things do not exist, and it is therefore in vain to seek to account for them. It followed, that while the opposers of the ordinary theory might have struck the deepest blows at the witch-hypothesis by an appeal to common sense, they were themselves hampered by articles of philosophical belief, which, they must have been sensible, contained nearly as deep drafts upon human credulity as were made by the Demonologists, against whose doctrine they protested. This error had a doubly bad effect, both as degrading the immediate department in which it occurred, and as affording a protection for falsehood in other branches of science. The champions who, in their own province, were obliged by the imperfect knowledge of the times to admit much that was mystical and inexplicable-those who opined, with Bacon, that warts could be cured by sympathy-who thought, with Napier, that hidden treasures could be discovered by the mathematics-who salved the weapon instead of the wound, and detected murders, as well as springs of water, by the divining-rod, could not consistently use, to confute the believers in witches, an argument turning on the impossible or the incredible.

Such were the obstacles, arising from the vanity of philosophers and the imperfection of their science, which suspended the strength of their appeal to reason and common sense against the condemning of wretches to a cruel death, on account of crimes which the nature of things rendered in modern times totally impossible. We cannot doubt that they suffered considerably in the contest, which was carried on with much anger and malevolence; but the good

seed which they had sown remained uncorrupted in the soil, to bear fruit so soon as the circumstances should be altered which at first impeded its growth. In the next Letter I shall take a view of the causes which helped to remove these impediments-in addition, it must always be remembered, to the general increase of knowledge and improvement of experimental philosophy.

LETTER VII.

Penal Laws unpopular when rigidly exercised-Prosecution of Witches placed in the hand of Special Commissioners, ad inquirendum-Prosecution for Witchcraft not frequent in the elder Period of the Roman Empire-nor in the Middle Ages-Some Cases took place, however-The Maid of Orleans-The Duchess of Gloucester-Richard the Third's Charge against the Relations of the Queen Dowager-But Prosecutions against Sorcerers became more common in the end of the Fourteenth Century-Usually united with the Charge of Heresy-Monstrelet's Account of the Persecution against the Waldenses, under pretext of Witchcraft-Florimond's testimony concerning the Increase of Witches in his own time-Bull of Pope Innocent VIII.—Various Prosecutions in Foreign Countries under this severe Law-Prosecutions in Labourt by the Inquisitor De Lancre and his Colleague-Lycanthropy-Witches in Spain-in Swedenand particularly those apprehended at Mohra.

PENAL laws, like those of the middle ages denounced against witchcraft, may be at first hailed with unanimous acquiescence and approbation, but are uniformly found to disgust and offend at least the more sensible part of the public, when the punishments become frequent, and are relentlessly inflicted. Those against treason are no exception. Each reflecting government will do well to shorten that melancholy reign of terror, which perhaps must necessarily follow on the discovery of a plot, or the defeat of an insurrection. They ought not, either

in humanity or policy, to wait till the voice of the nation calls to them, as Maecenas to Augustus, "Surge tandem, carnifex!"

It is accordingly remarkable, in different countries, how often, at some particular period of their history, there occurred an epidemic terror of witches, which, as fear is always cruel and credulous, glutted the public with seas of innocent blood-and how uniformly men loathed the gore after having swallowed it, and by a reaction natural to the human mind, desired in prudence to take away or restrict those laws, which had been the source of carnage, in order that their posterity might neither have the will nor the means to enter into similar excesses.

A short review of foreign countries before we come to notice the British Islands and their colonies, will prove the truth of this statement. In Catholic countries on the Continent, the various kingdoms adopted readily that part of the civil law already mentioned, which denounces sorcerers and witches as rebels to God, and authors of sedition in the empire. But being considered as obnoxious equally to the canon and civil law, Commissions of Inquisition were specially empowered to weed out of the land the witches and those who had intercourse with familiar spirits, or in any other respect fell under the ban of the Church, as well as the heretics who promulgated or adhered to false doctrine. Special warrants were thus granted from time to time in behalf of such inquisitors, authorising them to visit those provinces of Germany, France, or Italy, where any report concerning witches or sorcery had alarmed the public mind; and those commissioners, proud of the trust reposed