actual transportation, that a sensible clergyman, men tioned in the preface, who had resolved he would watch his son the whole night, and see what hag or fiend would take him from his arms, had the utmost difficulty, notwithstanding, in convincing his mother that the child had not been transported to Blockula, during the very night he held him in his embrace.

The learned translator candidly allows, "out of so great a multitude as were accused, condemned, and executed, there might be some who suffered unjustly, and owed their death more to the malice of their enemies than to their skill in the black art, I will readily admit. Nor will I deny," he continues, "but that when the news of these transactions and accounts, how the children bewitched fell into fits and strange unusual postures, spread abroad in the kingdom, some fearful and credulous people, if they saw their children any way disordered, might think they were bewitched, or ready to be carried away by imps. The learned gentleman here stops short in a train of reasoning, which, followed out, would have deprived the world of the benefit of his translation. For, if it was possible that some of these unfortunate persons fell a sacrifice to the malice of their neighbours, or the prejudices of witnesses, as he seems ready to grant, is it not more reasonable to believe, that the whole of the accused were convicted on similar grounds, than to allow, as truth, the slightest part of the gross and vulgar impossibilities upon which alone their execution can be justified?

The Blockula, which was the object of their journey, was a house having a fine gate painted with divers colours, with a paddock, in which they turned the beasts to graze which had brought them to such scenes of revelry. If human beings had been employed, they were left slumbering against the wall of the house. The plan of the Devil's palace con

* Translator's Preface to Horneck's "Account of what happened in the Kingdom of Sweden." See Appendix to Glanville's work,

sisted of one large banqueting apartment, and several with drawing-rooms. Their food was homely enough, being broth made of coleworts and bacon, with bread and butter, and milk and cheese. The same acts of wickedness and profligacy were committed at Blockula which are usually supposed to take place upon the Devil's Sabbath elsewhere; but there was this particular, that the witches had sons and daughters by the fiends, who were married together, and produced an offspring of toads and serpents.

These confessions being delivered before the accused witches, they at first stoutly denied them; at last some of them burst into tears, and acquiesced in the horrors imputed to them. They said, the practice of carrying off children had been enlarged very lately (which shows the whole rumours to have arisen recently); and the despairing wretches confirmed what the children said, with many other extravagant circumstances, as the mode of elongating a goat's back by means of a spit, on which we care not to be particular. It is worth mentioning, that the Devil, desirous of enjoying his own reputation among his subjects, pretended at one time to be dead, and was much lamented at Blockula-but he soon revived again.

Some attempts these witches had made to harm individuals on middle earth, but with little success. One old sorceress, indeed, attempted to strike a nail, given her by the Devil for that purpose, into the head of the minister of Elfland; but as the scull was of unusual solidity, the reverend gentleman only felt a headache from her efforts. They could not be persuaded to exhibit any of their tricks before the commissioners, excusing themselves by alleging that their witchcraft had left them, and that the Devil had amused them with the vision of a burning pit, having a hand thrust out of it.

The total number who lost their lives on this

singular occasion, was fourscore and four persons, including fifteen children; and at this expense of blood was extinguished a flame that arose as suddenly, burned as fiercely, and decayed as rapidly, as any portent of the kind within the annals of superstition. The commissioners returned to court with the high approbation of all concerned-prayers were ordered through the churches weekly, that Heaven would be pleased to restrain the powers of the Devil and deliver the poor creatures who hitherto had groaned under it, as well as the innocent children, who were carried off by hundreds at once.

If we could ever learn the true explanation of this story, we should probably find that the cry was led by some clever mischievous boy, who wished to apologize to his parents for lying an hour longer in the morning, by alleging he had been at Blockula on the preceding night; and that the desire to be as much distinguished as their comrade, had stimulated the bolder and more acute of his companions to the like falsehoods; while those of weaker minds assented, either from fear of punishment, or the force of dreaming over at night the horrors which were dinned into their ears all day. Those who were ingenuous, as it was termed, in their confessions, received praise and encouragement; and those who denied, or were silent, and, as it was considered, impenitent, were sure to bear the harder share of the punishment which was addressed to all. It is worth while also to observe, that the smarter children began to improve their evidence, and add touches to the general picture of Blockula. "Some of the children talked much of a white angel, which used to forbid them what the Devil bid them do, and told them that these doings should not last long.-And, they added, this better being would place himself sometimes at the door between the witches and the children, and when they came to Blockula he pulled the children back, but the witches went in."

This additional evidence speaks for itself, and shows the whole tale to be the fiction of the children's imagination, which some of them wished to improve upon. The reader may consult, "An Account of what happened in the Kingdom of Sweden in the years 1669 and 1670, and afterward translated out of High Dutch into English, by Dr. Antony Horneck," attached to Glanville's "Sadducismus Triumphatus." The translator refers to the evidence of Baron Sparr, ambassador from the court of Sweden to the court of England, in 1672; and that of Baron Lyonberg, envoy extraordinary of the same power, both of whom attest the confession and execution of the witches. The King of Sweden himself answered the express inquiries of the Duke of Holstein with marked reserve. "His judges and commissioners," he said, "had caused divers men, women, and children to be burned and executed, on such pregnant evidence as was brought before them. But whether the actions confessed, and proved against them, were real, or only the effects of strong imagination, he was not as yet able to determine;" —a sufficient reason, perhaps, why punishment should have been at least deferred by the interposition of the royal authority.

We must now turn our eyes to Britain, in which our knowledge as to such events is necessarily more extensive, and where it is in a high degree more interesting to our present purpose.

LETTER VIII.

The Effects of the Witch Superstition are to be traced in the Laws of a Kingdom-Usually punished in England as a Crime connected with Politics-Attempt at Murder for Witchcraft not in itself capital-Trials of Persons of Rank for Witchcraft, connected with State CrimesStatutes of Henry VIII.-How Witchcraft was regarded by the three leading Sects of Religion in the Sixteenth Century; first, by the Catholics; second, by the Calvinists; third, by the Church of England and Lutherans-Impostures unwarily countenanced by individual Catholic Priests, and also by some Puritanic Clergymen-Statute of 1562, and some Cases upon it-Case of Dugdale-Case of the Witches of Warbois, and Execution of the Family of Samuel-That of Jane Wenham, in which some Church of England Clergymen insisted on the Prosecution-Hutchison's Rebuke to them-James the First's Cpinion of Witchcraft-His celebrated Statute, 1 Jac. I.-Canon passed by the Convocation against Possession-Case of Mr. Fairfax's Children-Lancashire Witches in 1613-Another Discovery in 1634-Webster's Account of the Manner in which the Imposture was managed-Superiority of the Calvinists is followed by a severe Prosecution of Witches-Executions in Suffolk, &c. to a dreadful Extent-Hopkins, the pretended Witchfinder, the Cause of these Cruelties-His brutal Practices-His Letter-Execution of Mr. Lowis-Hopkins punishedRestoration of Charles-Trial of Coxe-of Dunny and Callender before Lord Hales-Royal Society and Progress of Knowledge-Somersetshire Witches-Opinions of the Populace-A Woman swum for Witcheraft at Oakly-Murder at Tring-Act against Witchcraft abolished, and the Belief in the Crime becomes forgotten-Witch Trials in New-England-Dame Glover's Trial-Affliction of the Parvises, and frightful Increase of the Prosecutions-Suddenly put a stop to The Penitence of those concerned in them.

OUR account of Demonology in England must naturally, as in every other country, depend chiefly on the instances which history contains of the laws and prosecutions against witchcraft. Other superstitions arose and decayed, were dreaded or despised, without greater embarrassment, in the provinces in which they have a temporary currency, than that cowards and children go out more seldom at night, while the reports of ghosts and fairies are peculiarly current. But when the alarm of witchcraft arises, Superstition dips her hand in the blood of the persons accused, and records in the annals of jurisprudence