murings of the conjurors, if they have missed one jote of all their rites, or if any of their feet slyde over the circle, through terror of his fearful apparition, he paies himself at that time, of that due debt which they owed him, and otherwise would have delaied longer to have paied him. I mean, he carries them with him, body and soule."

How the conjurors made triangular or quadrangular circles, his majesty has not informed us, nor does he seem to imagine there was any difficulty in the matter. We therefore suppose that he learned his mathematics from the same system as Dr. Scheverell, who, in one of his sermons, made use of the following simile: "They concur like parallel lines, meeting in one common centre."

Another mode of consulting spirits was by the beryl, by means of a speculator or seer; who, to have a complete sight, ought to be a pure virgin, a youth who had not known woman, or at least a person of irreproachable life and purity of manners. The method of consultation is this: The conjuror having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations, with the litany or invocation peculiar to the spirits or angels he wishes to call, (for every one has his particular form,) the seer looks into a crystal or beryl, wherein he will see the answer represented either by types or figures; and sometimes, though very rarely, will hear the angels or spirits speak articulately. Their pronunciation is, as Lilly says, like the Irish, much in the throat. Lilly' describes one of these beryls or crystals. It was, he says, as large as an orange, set in silver, with a cross at the top, and round about engraved the names of the angels Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel. A delineation of another is engraved in the frontispiece to Aubery's Miscellanies.

The sorcerers or magicians do not always employ their art to do mischief; but, on the contrary, frequently exert it to cure diseases inflicted by witches; to discover thieves; recover stolen goods; to foretell future events, and the state of absent friends. On this account they are frequently called white witches. Our ancestors had great faith in these fables, when they enacted, by stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8. all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergy; and again by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 12. that all persons invoking an evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding, any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charms, or enchantment; or killing, or otherwise hurting, any person by such infernal arts; should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and suffer death; and if any person should attempt by sorcery to discover hidden treasure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, though the same were not effected, he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second. These acts continued long in force, to the terror of all ancient females in the kingdom; and many poor wretches were sacrificed thereby to the prejudice of their neighbours and their own illusions, not a few having by some means or other confessed the incredible facts at the gallows; but all executions for this dubious crime are now abolished. It is enacted by stat. 9 Geo. II. c. 5. that

no prosecution shall for the future be carried on against any person for conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment. But the misdemeanor of persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods, by skill in the occult sciences, is still deservedly punished with a year's imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory.

AMULETS.

IN the customs of almost all the nations of antiquity, amulets were favourite and sometimes very important, instruments of superstition and empiricism. They were most frequently suspended from the neck, and contained the name or exploits of some deity, whose protection they were supposed to ensure, and of whose service they were the token or badge. They were formed of all sorts of materials, though precious stones were naturally preferred, and thus they often added to the elegance of dress, what was meant for the safety of the person. In their formation, or their being made into amulets, particular times were imagined to be very propitious, especially after the reveries of the astrologers succeeded the early discoveries of astronomy. Various herbs and plants, gathered at these times, of which the full age of the moon was considered one of the most important, were presented as sovereign remedies for many fatal disorders, the bite of venomous reptiles, &c. The Egyptians had a great variety of them, of which the most popular was the Abraxas, a Cabalistic word engraven on a stone, to which it gave name. The Jews had an early propensity to using them for similar purposes. (Compare Deut. xviii. 10-12, with Jer. viii. 17. In later times the Mishna allowed an amulet to be worn, which had previously been three times successful in the cure of any disease.

The Chaldeans, Persians, and oriental nations, also held them in the highest estimation. Amongst the Greeks, parts of animals, minerals, and herbs, were used as amulets, especially in exciting and conquering the passion of love; and Pliny mentions many that were in use among the Romans. Ovid speaks of Mount Caucasus as celebrated for yielding the necessary plants,

(An quæ

Lecta Promotheis dividit herba jugis,

supposed to spring from the blood of Prometheus; and Colchis is mentioned by other poets as noted for similar productions. Amulets were also sometimes appended to the bodies of beasts, for medical and other purposes. They are still commonly worn in the East, and among the Turks, with whom magical words, numbers, and figures, sentences of the koran, prayers, &c. inscribed on scrolls of paper or silk, are in great request in time of war.

Christianity, in the decline of the Roman empire, supplied numerous amulets to her nominal converts from Paganism, in crosses, agnus dei's, relics of the saints and martyrs, &c. The pope is said still to claim a prerogative of creating them. Their connexion with ancient British customs is also important. Burton, prescribing some,

while he deprecates the use of others, as cures for melancholy. —“ I say with Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected;" he addsPeony doth cure epilepsie; pretious stones most diseases; wolf's dung borne with one, helps the collic; a spider, an ague," &c. The celebrated Mr. Bayle mentions the application of some amulets, as a proof of the power of external effluvia over the corporeal system; and states the fact of having cured himself of a tendency to bleeding at the nose by the application of moss from a dead man's skull. Several physicians have noticed similar phenomena; and it is well known, from the wearing of camphor and other substances, that the effluvia of various bodies is very powerful in preventing contagion. It may be some assistance to the readers of our early poets, to subjoin a curious extract from the scarce work of Regnald Scot, On the Discoverie of Witchcraft, with respect to what was then thought to be the specific virtues of certain stones, worn as amulets in the "olden time."

"An agat," they saie, "hath virtue against the biting scorpions or serpents. It is written, but I will not stand to it, that it maketh eloquent, and procureth favour from princes; yea, that the fume thereof doth turn awaie tempests. Alectorius is a stone about the bigness of a bean, as clear as the christall, taken out of a cock's bellie, which has been gelt or made a capon foure years. If it be held in one's mouth, it assuageth thirst; it maketh the husband to love the wife, and the bearer invincible. Chelidonius is a stone taken out of a swallowe, which cureth melancholie, howbeit, some authors saie it is the herbe whereby the swallowes recover the sight of their young, even if their eies be picked out with an instrument. Garanites is taken out of a crane, and Draconites out of a dragon. But it is to be noted, that such stones must be taken out of the bellies of the serpents, beasts, or birds, wherein they are, while they live; otherwise, they vanish awaie with the life, and so they reteine not the virtues of those starres under which they are. Amethysus maketh a drunken man sober, and refresheth the wit. The coral preserves such as bear it from fascination or bewitching, and in this respect they are hanged about children's necks. But from whence that superstition is derived, and who invented the lie, I know not; but I see how redie people are to give credit thereunto, by the multitude of corals that waie employed. Heliotropius stancheth blood, driveth awaie poisons, preserveth health; yea, and some write that it provoketh raine, and darkeneth the sunne, suffering not him that beareth it to be abused. Hyacinthus doeth all that the other doeth, and also preserveth from lightening. Dinothera, hanged about the necke, collar, or yoke of any creature, tameth it presentlie. A topase healeth the lunatike person of his passion of lunacie. Aitites, if it be shaken, soundeth as if there were a little stone in the bellie thereof; it is good for the falling sicknesse, and to prevent untimelie birth. Chalcedonius maketh the bearer luckie in lawe, quickeneth the power of the bodie, and is of force also against the illusions of the divell, and phantastical cogitations arising of melancholie. Carneolus mitigateth the heat of the mind, and qualifieth malice; it also stancheth bloodie fluxes. Iris helpeth a woman to speedie deliverance, and maketh rainebows to appeare, Α

sapphire helpeth agues and gowts, and suffereth not the bearer to be afraid; it hath virtue against venom, and staieth bleeding at the nose, being often put thereto. A smaragdine is good for the eye-sight, and maketh one rich and eloquent. Mephis, as Aaron and Hermes report out of Albertus Magnus, being broken into powder, and drank with water, maketh insensibilitie of torture. Heereby you may understand, that as God hath bestowed upon these stones, and such other like bodies, most excellent and wonderful vertues; so, according to the abundance of humane superstitions and follies, manie ascribe unto them either more vertues, or others then they have."

SPELL, OR CHARM.

To explain this piece of superstition, an example or two may suffice. On St. Agnes's night, the twenty-first of January, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater-noster on sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry. Another method is to see a future spouse in a dream. The party inquiring must lie in a different county from that in which he commonly resides, and on going to bed must knit the left garter about the right-legged stocking, letting the other garter and stocking alone; and as he rehearses the following verses, at every comma knit a knot :-This knot I knit,-To know the thing I know not yet,―That I may see,-The man [woman] that shall my husband [wife] be,-How he goes and what he wears,-And what he does all days and years." And, if spells fail not, he will appear in a dream, with the insignia of his profession. To these rules we shall only add an anecdote, by way of caution to all who have any curiosity to try experiments of this kind. The chief danger arises from the impression made by this false faith on the imagination. About fifteen or twenty years ago, a young woman, in the Mearns, went out upon St. Valentine's, or some other saint's night, to get a sight of her future husband. This she was to procure, upon going to a certain kiln at some distance, pronouncing some spell, and making a motion of weighing three times, while she had nothing to weigh. This she did accordingly. Her imagination being strongly impressed with the expectation of seeing something, she saw, or thought she saw, a coffin ascending in the smoke of the kiln. She went home in a panic, told what she had seen, took a fever, and died the fourth day after.

ON APPARITIONS.

SEVERAL instances of apparitions occur in the Bible; that of Samuel, raised by the witch of Endor, has occasioned great disputes. We find great controversies among authors, in relation to the reality, the existence or non-existence, the possibility or impossibility, of apparitions. The Chaldeans, the Jews, and other nations, have been the steady adherents of the belief of apparitions. The denial of spirits and apparitions, is by some made one of the marks of infidelity, if not of atheism.

Many of the apparitions that have been recorded, are, doubtless,

mere delusions of the senses; many others are fictitious, contrived merely to amuse, or answer some deceptive purpose. Partial darkness, and obscurity, are the most powerful means by which the sight is deceived; night is therefore the proper season for apparitions. Indeed, the state of the mind, at that time, prepares it for the admission of these delusions of the imagination. The fear and caution which must be observed in the night; the opportunity it affords for ambuscades and assassinations; depriving us of society, and cutting off many p easing trains of ideas, which objects in the light never fail to introduce, are all circumstances of terror; and perhaps, on the whole, so much of our happiness depends upon our senses, that the deprivation of any one may be attended with proportionable horror and uneasiness.

The notions entertained by the ancients respecting the soul, may receive some illustration from these principles. In darkness or twilight, the imagination frequently transforms an animated body into a human figure, but, on approaching, the same appearance is not to be found ; hence they sometimes fancied they saw their ancestors, but, not finding the reality, they distinguished these illusions by the name of shades. Many of these fabulous narrations might originate from dreams. There are times of slumber, when we are not sensible of being asleep. On this principle, Hobbes has ingeniously accounted for the spectre which appeared to Brutus.

"We read," says he, "of M. Brutus, that at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Cæsar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a vision; but, considering the circumstances, one may easily judge it to have been but a short dream for, sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees it made him awake, so it must needs by degrees make the apparition to vanish; and having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or any thing but a vision."

The well-known story told by Clarendon of the apparition of the duke of Buckingham's father, will admit of a similar solution. There was no man in the kingdom so much the subject of conversation as the duke, and, for the corruptness of his character, he was very likely to fall a victim to the enthusiasm of the times. Sir George Villiers is said to have appeared to a man at midnight, therefore there is the greatest probability that the man was asleep; and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was likely to be repeated.

It must, however, be acknowledged, that these reasons against apparitions are far from being conclusive. In favour of them, many powerful arguments may be advanced; but we must wait for stronger evidence than we have yet seen, before we can decide either for or against apparitions.

SUPERSTITIONS RESPECTING THE MOON.

THE following observations on this subject, with some alterations, are extracted from Forster's Researches concerning Atmospheric Phe

nomena.