Among My Books Volume I Part 11

I.N.D.N.J.C. Dissertatio Juridica de Lamiis earumque processu criminali, _Von Hexen und dem Peinl. Proce wider dieselben_, Quam, auxiliante Divina Gratia, Consensu et Authoritate Magnifici JCtorum Ordinis in ill.u.s.tribus Athenis Salanis sub praesidio Magnifici, n.o.bilissimi, Amplissimi, Consultissimi, atque Excellentissimi Dn.

Ernesti Frider. _Schroeter_ hereditarii in _Wickerstadt_, JCti et Antecessoris hujus Salanae Famigeratissimi, Consiliarii Saxonici, Curiae Provincialis, Facultatis Juridicae, et Scabinatus a.s.sessoris longe Gravissimi, Domini Patroni Praeceptoris et Promotoris sui nullo non honoris et observantiae cultu sancte devenerandi, colendi, publicae Eruditorum censurae subjicit Michael Paris _Walburger_, Groebziga Anhaltinus, in Acroaterio JCtorum ad diem 1. Maj. A. 1670.

Editio Tertia. Jenae, Typis Pauli Ehrichii, 1707.

Histoire de Diables de Loudun, ou de la Possession des Religieuses Ursulines, et de la condemnation et du suplice d'Urbain Grandier, Cure de la meme ville. Cruels effets de la Vengeance du Cardinal de Richelieu. A Amsterdam Aux depens de la Compagnie. M.DCC.LII.

A view of the Invisible World, or General History of Apparitions.

Collected from the best Authorities, both Antient and Modern, and attested by Authors of the highest Reputation and Credit. Ill.u.s.trated with a Variety of Notes and parallel Cases; in which some Account of the Nature and Cause of Departed Spirits visiting their former Stations by returning again into the present World, is treated in a Manner different to the prevailing Opinions of Mankind. And an Attempt is made from Rational Principles to account for the Species of such supernatural Appearances, when they may be suppos'd consistent with the Divine Appointment in the Government of the World. With the sentiments of Monsieur Le Clerc, Mr. Locke, Mr.

Addison, and Others on this important Subject. In which some humorous and diverting instances are remark'd, in order to divert that Gloom of Melancholy that naturally arises in the Human Mind, from reading or meditating on such Subjects Ill.u.s.trated with suitable Cuts.

London: Printed in the year M,DCC,LII. [Mainly from DeFoe's "History of Apparitions."]

Satan's Invisible World discovered; or, a choice Collection of Modern Relations, proving evidently, against the Atheists of this present Age, that there are Devils, Spirits, Witches and Apparitions, from Authentic Records, Attestations of Witnesses, and undoubted Verity.

To which is added that marvellous History of Major Weir and his Sister, the Witches of Balgarran, Pittenweem and Calder, &c. By George Sinclair, late Professor of Philosophy in Glasgow. No man should be vain that he can injure the merit of a Book; for the meanest rogue may burn a City or kill a Hero; whereas he could never build the one, or equal the other. Sir George M'Kenzie, Edinburgh: Sold by P. Anderson, Parliament Square. M.DCC.Lx.x.x.

La Magie et l'Astrologie dans I'Antiquite et au Moyen Age, ou etude sur les superst.i.tions paennes qui se sont perpetuees jusqu'a nos jours. Par L.F. Alfred Maury. Troisieme Edition revue et corrigee.

Paris: Didier. 1864.

[99] Lucian, in his "Liars," puts this opinion into the mouth of Arignotus. The theory by which Lucretius seeks to explain apparitions, though materialistic, seems to allow some influence also to the working of imagination. It is hard otherwise to explain how his _simulacra_, (which are not unlike the _astral spirits_ of later times) should appear in dreams.

Quae simulacra....

.... n.o.bis vigilantibus obvia mentes terrificant atque in somnis, c.u.m saepe figuras contuimur miras simulacraque luce carentum quae nos horrifice languentis saepe sopore excierunt.

_De Rer. Nat._ IV. 33-37, ed. Munro.

[100] Pliny's Letters, VII. 27. Melmoth's translation.

[101] Something like this is the speech of Don Juan, after the statue of Don Gonzales has gone out:

"Pero todas son ideas Que da a la imaginacion El temor; y temer muertos Es muy villano temor.

Que si un cuerpo n.o.ble, vivo, Con potencias y razon Y con alma no se tema, Quien cuerpos muertos temio?"

_El Burlador de Sevilla_, A. iii. s. 15.

[102] Theatre Francais au Moyen Age (Monmerque et Michel), pp. 139, 140.

[103]

"There sat Auld Nick in shape o' beast, A towzy tyke, black, grim, an' large, To gie them music was his charge."

[104] Hence, perhaps, the name Valant applied to the Devil, about the origin of which Grimm is in doubt.

[105] One foot of the Greek Empusa was an a.s.s's hoof.

[106] Salt was forbidden at these witch-feasts.

[107] De Lamiis, p. 59 _et seq_.

[108] If the _Blokula_ of the Swedish witches be a reminiscence of this, it would seem to point back to remote times and heathen ceremonies. But it is so impossible to distinguish what was put into the mind of those who confessed by their examining torturers from what may have been there before, the result of a common superst.i.tion, that perhaps, after all, the meeting on mountains may have been suggested by what Pliny says of the dances of Satyrs on Mount Atlas.

[109] Wierus, whose book was published not long after Faust's death, apparently doubted the whole story, for he alludes to it with an _ut fertur,_ and plainly looked on him as a mountebank.

[110] See Grimm's D.M., under _Hexenfart, Wutendes Heer_, &c.

[111] Some Catholics, indeed, affirmed that he himself was the son of a demon who lodged in his father's house under the semblance of a merchant. Wierus says that a bishop preached to that effect in 1565, and gravely refutes the story.

[112] Footnote: Melancthon, however, used to tell of a possessed girl in Italy who knew no Latin, but the Devil in her, being asked by Bonaroico, a Bolognese professor, what was the best verse in Virgil, answered at once:--

"Discite just.i.tiam moniti, et non temnere divos,"--

a somewhat remarkable concession on the part of a fallen angel.

[113] This story seems mediaeval and Gothic enough, but is hardly more so than bringing the case of the Furies _v._ Orestes before the Areopagus, and putting Apollo in the witness-box, as Aeschylus has done. The cla.s.sics, to be sure, are always so cla.s.sic! In the _Eumenides_, Apollo takes the place of the good angel. And why not?

For though a demon, and a lying one, he has crept in to the calendar under his other nnme of Helios as St. h.e.l.las. Could any of his oracles have foretold this?

[114] Mr. Leckie, in his admirable chapter on Witchcraft, gives a little more credit to the enlightenment of the Church of England in this matter than it would seem fairly to deserve. More and Glanvil were faithful sons of the Church; and if the persecution of witches was especially rife during the ascendency of the Puritans, it was because they happened to be in power while there was a reaction against Sadducism. All the convictions were under the statute of James I., who was no Puritan. After the restoration, the reaction was the other way, and Hobbism became the fas.h.i.+on. It is more philosophical to say that the age believes this and that, than that the particular men who live in it do so.

[115] I have no means of ascertaining whether he did or not. He was more probably charged with it by the inquisitors. Mr. Leckie seems to write of him only upon hearsay, for he calls him Peter "of Apono,"

apparently translating a French translation of the Latin "Aponus."

The only book attributed to him that I have ever seen is itself a kind of manual of magic.

[116] "With the names and surnames," says Bodin, indignantly, "of seventy-two princes, and of seven million four hundred and five thousand nine hundred and twenty-six devils, _errors excepted_."

[117] Cited by Maury, p. 221, note 4.

[118] There is a kind of compensation in the fact that he himself lived to be accused of sorcery and Judaism.

SHAKESPEARE ONCE MORE.