This end is effected, 1. by debasing things pompous or seemingly grave; 2. by aggrandizing things little and frivo lous; or, 3. by setting ordinary objects in a particular and uncommon point of view, by means not only remote, but ap parently contrary. Renee arise a great many kinds of wit. Wit is often joined with humor. but not necessarily so; it often displays itself in the keenest satire; but when it is not kept under proper con trol, or when it becomes the habitual ex ercise of the mind, it is apt to impair the nobler powers of the understanding, to chill the feelings, to check friendly and social intercourse, and to break down those barriers which have been estab lished by courtesy. At the same time, when kept within its proper sphere, and judiciously used, it may he rendered very effective in attacking pedantry, preten sion, or folly, and may also be employed as a powerful weapon against error. W1TCII'CRAFT, a supernatural power, which persons were formerly supposed to obtain the possession of, by entering into compact with the evil one. Indeed, it was fully believed that they gave them selves up to him body and soul ; and he engaged that they should want for no thing, and be able to assume whatever shape they pleased, to visit and torment their enemies ! The insane fancies of dis eased minds, unusual phenomena of na ture, and the artful machinery of design ing malignity, ambition, or hypocrisy, were all laid at Satan's feet. Witchcraft was universally believed in throughout Europe till the century, and even maintained its gro-nd with tolerable firmness till the 171o. Vast numbers of reputed witches convicted and con demned to be burn In short, it is re corded, that 500 witches were burned at Geneva in three months, about the year 1515; that 1000 were executed in one year in the diocese of Como; and it has been calculated that not less than 100,000 victims must have suffered, in Germany alone, from the date of Innocent's hull, in NEW, which directed the Inquisition to he vigilant. in searching out and punish ing witches, to the final extinction of the prosecutions. The number of those put
to death in England has been estimated It about 30.000! .5luell has been said zoncerning the connection between reli gious fanaticism and the superstition of witchcraft. It has been seen that the cruelties and absurdities of witch perse cution had reached is great height even before the Reformation ; but it can scarcely be denied that the strong reli gious excitement which produced and ac companied that event was in some way connected with the rapid spread and de velopment of that atrocious system. The more intense the belief in the overruling providence of God, and his immediate interference in the coarse of ordinary events (which especially characterized the revival of religion,) the more does the parallel belief in the agency of evil spirits, and their dealings with man, appear to take root in the imagination. Sir W. Scott observes that, among Protestant sects, the Calvinists (whose views of re ligion were at once the most gloomy and the most engrossing) seem to have afford ed the most terrible examples of this pre vailing mania. There seems also to have been a constantly recurring tendency to treat witchcraft and heresy as allied offences. It appears, upon the whole, that the persecutions during the 16th and 17th centuries were most violent in those countries which were the scene of much strife between the two religions, or in which the Calvinist opinions were pushed to an extreme—France, the Netherlands, Northern and Western Germany, Swit zerland, Scotland, England under the Commonwealth, and at a still later period New England. A singular example of the contagion of fanaticism suddenly spreading with extraordinary violence, and subsiding again after one terrible outbreak, is to be found in the history of the witch persecutions in Sweden, in the end of the 17th century. In Italy, with the exception of one or two of the northern districts, the superstition was generally less prevalent, or at least less distressing in its effects ; and the satno may be said of Spain, after the first pe riod of the history of the Inquisition.