Sacred spittle bring ye hither;
Meale and it now mix together;
And a little oyle to either :

Give the tapers here their light,
Ring the saints-bell to affright
Far from hence the evill sprite."

The subsequent will not be thought an unpleasant comment on the popular creed concerning spirits and haunted houses. It is taken from a scene in Mr. Addison's wellknown comedy of "The Drummer, or the Haunted House:" the gardener, butler, and coachman of the family, are the dramatis per

sonæ.

"Gardn. Prithee, John, what sort of a creature is a conjurer?

Butl. Why he's made much as other men are, if it was not for his long grey beard.His beard is at least half a yard long he's dressed in a strange dark cloke, as black as a cole. He has a long white wand in his hand.

:

Coachm. I fancy 'tis made out of witch elm. Gardn. I warrant you if the ghost appears he'll whisk you that wand before his eyes, and strike you the drum-stick out of his hand.

Butl. No; the wand, look ye, is to make a circle; and if he once gets the ghost in a circle, then he has him. A circle, you must know, is a conjurer's trap.

Coachm. But what will he do with him when he has him there?

Butl. Why then he'll overpower him with his learning.

Gardn. If he can once compass him, and get him in Lob's pound, he'll make nothing of him, but speak a few hard words to him, and perhaps bind him over to his good behaviour for a thousand years.

Coachm. Ay, ay, he'll send him packing to his grave again with a flea in his ear, I warrant him.

Butl. But if the conjurer be but well paid, he'll take pains upon the ghost and lay him, look ye, in the Red Sea-and then he's laid for ever.

Gardn. Why, John, there must be a power of spirits in that 'same Red Sea. I warrant ye they are as plenty as fish. I wish the spirit may not carry off a corner of the house with him.

Butl. As for that, Peter, you may be sure

VOL. III.

that the steward has made his bargain with the cunning man beforehand, that he shall stand to all costs and damages."

(3) In Thomas Lodge's "Devils Incarnat of this Age," 4to. Lond. 1596, in the Epistle to the Reader, are the following quaint allusions to Sorcerers and Magicians: "Buy therefore this Christall, and you shall see them in their common appearance: and read these exorcismes advisedly, and you may be sure to conjure them without crossings: but if any man long for a familiar for false dice, a spirit to tell fortunes, a charme to heale disease, this only book can best fit him."

Vallancey, in his "Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," No. xiii. p. 17, says: "In the Highlands of Scotland a large chrystal, of a figure somewhat oval, was kept by the priests to work charms by; water poured upon it at this day is given to cattle against diseases : these stones are now preserved by the oldest and most superstitious in the country (Shawe). They were once common in Ireland. I am informed the Earl of Tyrone is in possession of a very fine one."

In Andrews's "Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain," p. 388, we read: "The conjurations of Dr. Dee having induced his familiar spirit to visit a kind of talisman, Kelly (a brother adventurer) was appointed to watch and describe his gestures. The stone used by these impostors is now in the Strawberry Hill Collection. It appears to be a polished piece of canal coal. To this Butler refers when he writes,

Kelly did all his feats upon

The devil's looking-glass, a stone."

In "The Museum Tradescantianum," 8vo. Lond. 1660, p. 42, we find an "Indian Conjurer's Rattle, wherewith he calls up spirits."

(*) Butler's description, in his "Hudibras," of a cunning man or fortune-teller, is fraught with a great deal of his usual pleasantry: "Quoth Ralph, not far from hence doth dwell

A cunning man, hight Sidrophel,
That deals in destiny's dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells;
To whom all people far and near
On deep importances repair;

D

When brass and pewter hap to stray,
And linen slinks out of the way;
When geese and pullen are seduc'd,
And sows of sucking pigs are chows'd;
When cattle feel indisposition,
And need th' opinion of physician;
When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep,
And chickens languish of the pip;
When yeast and outward means do fail
And have no pow'r to work on ale;
When butter does refuse to come,
And love proves cross and humoursome;
To him with questions and with urine
They for discovery flock, or curing."

Allusions to this character are not uncommon in our old plays.

In "Albumazar," a comedy, 4to. 1634, signat. C b,

"He tells of lost plate, horses, and straye cattell

Directly, as he had stolne them all himselfe."

Again, in "Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks," 4to. Lond. 1636, signat. B 3,

"Fortune-teller, a pretty rogue That never saw five shillings in a heape, Will take upon him to divine men's fate, Yet never knows himselfe shall dy a beggar, Or be hang'd up for pilfering table-cloaths, Shirts, and smocks, hanged out to dry on hedges."

In "The Character of a Quack-Astrologer," 4to. Lond. 1673, signat. A 3 b, our wise man, 66 a gipsey of the upper form," is called "a three-penny prophet that undertakes the telling of other folks fortunes, meerly to supply the pinching necessities of his own."

Ibid. signat. B 3, our cunning man is said to "begin with theft; and to help people to what they have lost, picks their pocket afresh: not a ring or a spoon is nim'd away, but payes him twelve-pence toll, and the aledrapers often-straying tankard yields him a constant revenue: for that purpose he maintains as strict a correspondence with gilts and lifters as a mountebank with applauding Midwives and recommending Nurses: and if at any time, to keep up his credit with the

rabble, he discovers anything, 'tis done by the same occult hermetic learning, heretofore profest by the renowned Moll Cut-Purse."

They are still called "Wise Men" in the villages of Durham and Northumberland.

The following was communicated to the editor of the present work by a Yorkshire gentleman, in the year 1819:

"Impostors who feed and live on the superstitions of the lower orders are still to be found in Yorkshire. These are called 'Wise Men,' and are believed to possess the most extraordinary power in remedying all diseases incidental to the brute creation, as well as the human race, to discover lost or stolen property, and to foretell future events. One of these wretches was a few years ago living at Stokesley, in the North Riding of Yorkshire; his name was John Wrightson, and he called himself the seventh son of a seventh son,' and professed ostensibly the trade of a cowdoctor. To this fellow, people, whose education it might have been expected would have raised them above such weakness, flocked; many to ascertain the thief, when they had lost any property; others for him to cure themselves or their cattle of some indescribable complaint. Another class visited him to know their future fortunes; and some to get him to save them from being balloted into the militia; all of which he professed himself able to accomplish. All the diseases which he was sought to remedy he invariably imputed to witchcraft, and although he gave drugs which have been known to do good, yet he always enjoined some incantation to be observed, without which he declared they could never be cured; this was sometimes an act of the most wanton barbarity, as that of roasting a game cock alive, &c. The charges of this man were always extravagant; and such was the confidence in his skill and knowledge, that he had only to name any person as a witch, and the public indignation was sure to be directed against the poor unoffending creature for the remainder of her life.

"An instance of the fatal consequences of this superstition occurred within my knowledge, about the year 1800. A farmer of the name of Hodgson had been robbed of some money. He went to a 'wise man'

A

to learn the thief, and was directed to some process by which he should discover it. servant of his of the name of Simpson, who had committed the robbery, fearing the discovery by such means, determined to add murder to the crime, by killing his master. The better to do this without detection, he forged a letter as from the 'wise man' to Mr. Hodgson, enclosing a quantity of arsenic, which he was directed to take on going to bed, and assuring him that in the morning he would find his money in the pantry under a wooden bowl. Hodgson took the powder, which killed him. Simpson was taken up, tried at York assizes, and convicted on strong circumstantial evidence, He received sentence of death, and when on the scaffold confessed his crime."

Vallancey, in his "Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," No. xiii. p. 10, tells us that in Ireland they are called Tamans. "I know," says he, "a farmer's wife in the county of Waterford, that lost a parcel of linen. She travelled three days' journey to a Taman, in the county of Tipperary: he consulted his black book, and assured her she would recover the goods. The robbery was proclaimed at the chapel, offering a reward, and the linen was recovered. It was not the money but the Taman that recovered it."

In Strype's edition of "Stow's Survey of London," B. i. p. 257, we read, "A. D. 1560, a skinner of Southwark was set on the pillory with a paper over his head, shewing the cause, viz. for sundry practices of great falsehood, and much untruth; and all set forth under the colour of Southsaying."

Andrews, in his "Continuation of Dr. Henry's History of Great Britain," 4to. p. 194, speaking of the death of the Earl of Angus in 1588, tells us, as a proof of the blind superstition of the age, "he died (says a venerable author) of sorcery and incantation." "A wizard, after the physicians had pronounced him to be under the power of witchcraft, made offer to cure him, saying (as the manner of these wizards is) that he had received wrong. But the stout and pious Earl declared that his life was not so dear unto him as that, for the continuance of some years, he would be beholden to any of the devil's instruments, and died."

The following curious passage is from Thomas Lodge's "Incarnate Devils," 4to. Lond. 1596, p. 13: "There are many in London now adaies that are besotted with this sinne, one of whom I saw on a white horse in Fleet-street, a tanner knave I never lookt on, who with one figure (cast out of a scholler's studie for a necessary servant at Bocordo) promised to find any man's oxen were they lost, restore any man's goods if they were stolne, and win any man love, where or howsoever he settled it, but his jugling knacks were quickly discovered."

In "Articles of Inquirie given in Charge by the Bishop of Sarum, A. D. 1614," 4to. Lond. 1614, is the following: "67. Item, whether you have any conjurers, charmers, calcours, witches, or fortune-tellers, who they are, and who do resort unto them for counsell?" (5) Butler, in his " Hudibras," has the following: "with a sleight Convey men's interest, and right, From Stiles's pocket into Nokes's As easily as hocus pocus."

P. iii. c. iii. 1. 713.

Archbishop Tillotson tells us that "in all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est Corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of transubstantiation, &c." Ser. xxvi. Discourse on Transubstant.

Vallancey, in his "Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," No. xiii. p. 93, speaking of Hocus Pocus, derives it from the Irish Coic, an omen, a mystery; and bais, the palm of the hand; whence is formed coiche-bais, legerdemain; Persicè, choco-baz: whence the vulgar English hocus pocus." He is noticing the communication in former days between Ireland and the East.

"Hiccius doctius is a common term among our modern slight-of-hand men. The origin of this is probably to be found among the old Roman Catholics. When the good people of this island were under their thraldom, their priests were looked up to with the greatest veneration, and their presence announced in the assemblies with the terms Hic est doctus! hic est doctus! and this probably is the origin

of the modern corruption Hiccius doctius. M. F."

In the "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. xii. p. 465, in the account of the parish of Kirkmichael, county of Banff, we read: "Among the branches into which the mossgrown trunk of superstition divides itself, may be reckoned witchcraft and magic. These, though decayed and withered by time, still retain some faint traces of their ancient ver dure. Even at present witches are supposed, as of old, to ride on broomsticks through the air. In this country, the 12th of May is one of their festivals. On the morning of that day they are frequently seen dancing on the surface of the water of Avon, brushing the dews of the lawn, and milking cows in their fold. Any uncommon sickness is generally attributed to their demoniacal practices. They make fields barren or fertile, raise or still whirlwinds, give or take away milk at pleasure. The force of their incantations is not to be resisted, and extends even to the moon in the midst of her aerial career. It is the good fortune, however, of this country to be provided with an anti-conjurer that defeats both them and their sable patron in their combined efforts. His fame is widely diffused, and wherever he goes crescit eundo. If the spouse is jealous of her husband, the anti-conjurer is consulted to restore the affections of his bewitched heart. If a near connexion lies confined to the bed of sickness, it is in vain to expect relief without the balsamic medicine of the anti-conjurer. If a person happens to be deprived of his senses, the deranged cells of the brains must be adjusted by the magic charms of the anti-con

jurer. If a farmer loses his cattle, the houses must be purified with water sprinkled by him. In searching for the latent mischief, this gentleman never fails to find little parcels of heterogeneous ingredients lurking in the walls, consisting of the legs of mice and the wings of bats; all the work of the witches. Few things seem too arduous for his abilities; and though, like Paracelsus, he has not as yet boasted of having discovered the philosopher's stone, yet, by the power of his occult science, he still attracts a little of their gold from the pockets where it lodges, and in this way makes a shift to acquire subsistence for himself and family."

There is a folio sheet, printed at London, 1561, preserved in a collection of Miscellanies in the archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London, lettered Miscel. Q. Eliz. No. 7, entitled, "The unfained retractation of Fraunces Cox, which he uttered at the pillery in Chepesyde and elswhere, accordyng to the counsels commaundement anno 1561, 25th of June, beying accused for the use of certayne sinistral and divelysh artes." In this he says that from a child he began to practise the most divelish and supersticious knowledge of necromancie, and invocations of spirites, and curious astrology. He now utterly renounces and forsakes all such divelish sciences, wherein the name of God is most horribly abused, and society or pact with wicked spirits most detestably practised, as necromancie, geomancie, and that curious part of astrology wherein is contained the calculating of nativities or casting of nativities, with all other the magikes.

"A GHOST," according to Grose, "is supposed to be the spirit of a person deceased, who is either commissioned to return for some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to procure restitution of lands or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow, or, having committed some injustice whilst living, cannot rest till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir in what secret place, or private drawer in an old trunk, they had hidden the title deeds of the estate; or where, in troublesome times, they buried their money or plate. (1) Some Ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up, and deposited in consecrated ground, with all the rites of Christian burial. This idea is the remain of a very old piece of heathen superstition : the ancients believed that Charon was not permitted to ferry over the Ghosts of unburied persons, but that they wandered up and down the banks of the River Styx for an hundred years, after which they were admitted to a passage. This is mentioned by Virgil:

'Hæc omnis quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est:

Portitor ille, Charon; hi quos vehit unda,
sepulti.

Nec ripas datur horrendas, nec rauca fluenta,
Trasportare prius quam sedibus ossa quiê-

runt.

Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc littora circum:

Tum, demum admissi, stagna exoptata revisunt.'

"Sometimes Ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made, whilst living, with some particular friend, that he who first died should appear to the survivor.

"Glanvil tells us of the Ghost of a person who had lived but a disorderly kind of life, for which it was condemned to wander up and down the earth, in the company of evil spirits, till the day of judgment.

"In most of the relations of Ghosts they are supposed to be mere aerial beings, without substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid bodies at pleasure. A particular instance of this is given in Relation the 27th in Glanvil's Collection, where one David Hunter, neat-herd to the Bishop of Down and Connor, was for a long time haunted by the Apparition of an old woman, whom he was by a secret impulse obliged to follow whenever she appeared, which he says he did for a considerable time, even if in bed with his wife and because his wife could not hold him in his bed, she would go too, and walk after him till day, though she saw nothing; but his little dog was so well acquainted with the Apparition, that he would follow it as well as his master. If a tree stood in her walk he observed her always to go through it. Notwithstanding this seeming immateriality, this very Ghost was not without some substance; for, having performed her errand, she desired Hunter to lift her from the ground, in the doing of which, he says, she felt just like a bag of feathers. We sometimes also read of Ghosts striking violent blows; and that, if not made way for, they overturn all impediment, like a furious whirlwind. Glanvil mentions