There is, besides, something very absurd and contradictory in the idea entertained in many countries on this subject. At the time of the re formation, the Pope and the heads of the Romish church asserted or believed that all protestants were witches, that they associated with demons, and caused infinite mischief to man and beast by means of their hellish sorcerics. The German pro testants, and the Waldenses in a different part of Europe, were proceeded against, and many of them burnt as witches, in consequence of bulls from the pope founded on this belief. Nor is this the only absurdity in regard to this superstition. It was universally held that a witch could glide through a key-hole, and fly a thousand miles between mid night and sunrise, yet, in opposition to this opinion, witches were forced to languish in a dungeon, and to submit to be laid on a pile of faggots, or to other such indignities and punishments.
We have already alluded to the frivolous nature of the actions or proceedings by which witches were supposed to be characterized. On this sub ject nothing farther requires to be said. And we now proceed to show, in conclusion, that the mode of detecting and of trying these unhappy persons, (for witchcraft was both by the law of Moses, and by the laws of this and almost every other country treated as a capital crime,) was not less frivolous and absurd than any other circumstances connect ed with them. One woman was condemned for a witch on the following evidence: A witness swore, that coming from the ale-house at night, he looked in at her window, and saw her take two imps out of her basket, one black and the other white; the white imp was in fact nothing. but a lock of wool which the poor woman was going to spin, and the black imp its shadow! If a person suspected of witchcraft could shed more than three tears, which three were confined to her left eye, she, (for witches were generally of that gender,) was at once declared guilty. If a person so suspected squinted, her doom was sealed, as squinting was believed to arise from the horrid visions and ap paritions of evil spirits. If she did not confess, the same result followed, for this taciturnity on the part of the victim was ascribed to the devil. Witches, it was believed, could not sink in water: therefore, when thrown into this element, if they swam, they were taken out and burned as guilty; if they sunk, they were certainly regarded as inno cent, but drowning was, notwithstanding, often the alternative. Another was brought to the stake,
because she had been convicted of riding upon her own daughter transformed into a pony, and shod by the devil. To have any mark on the face or body was a sure token of witchcraft. But there is no end of such examples. Those quoted show to 'what a lamentable extent superstition abounded till lately; and how little the nature of evidence was regarded, or rather how false witness, which fa voured the superstitious credulity of the age, was not only received, but courted.
But it may be said, that persons accused of witch craft have confessed the truth of the accusation, and admitted having entered into a compact with the devil. The truth is,—and this fact ought pro bably to have been previously mentioned,—many persons of an idle and abandoned life were accus tomed to feign witchcraft, and to make a boast of their pretended art, in order to intimidate the su perstitious, and to extort from them whatever they desired. Deceit, when carried on for a certain time, becomes, as it were, a second nature; and on this principle abandoned persons, who at first merely counterfeited witchcraft, at length, either from habit or obstinacy, or both, were willing, in the face of any danger, to make that appear as real which was only counterfeit. Besides, when they had supported the imposture for many years, there was sufficient evidence to convict them, what ever their ultimate confessions may have been. Such persons were so far gone in villainy, that they not unfrequently hawked about with them poison, in order to gratify their customers in their dark est purposes of avarice or revenge.
The last execution of a witch took place in Sutherlandshire so recently as the year 1722. The statutes against witchcraft, both Scottish and English, were repealed in 1735; which gave such offence to a respectable sect of Christians in Scot land, that, in their annual confession of personal and national sins, they complained against "the penal statutes against witches having heen repeal ed by parliament, contrary to the express law of God." See Dmmonologie, by King James VI.;* Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered; Baxter's World of Spirits; Praefatory Notice to Law's Mentorialls, by Sharp; Reginald's Scott's Discovery of Witch craft; Brand's Popular ilntiquilies, edited by Ellis, 1813; and The Quarterly Review, vol. xi. art. 1.
(T. at.)