W. H. Davenport Adams

“ In the early age of witchcraft, the witch, like the magician, summoned spirits from the vasty deep, discovered the hiding-places of concealed treasures, struck down men or beasts by her spells, or covered the heavens with clouds and let loose the winds of destruction and desolation. ”

“ At length the aggrieved Throgmorton, summoning all his courage, repaired to Mother Samuel’s humble residence, seized upon the unhappy old crone, and dragged her into his own grounds, where Lady Cromwell and Mrs. Throgmorton and her children thrust long pins into her body to see if they could draw blood. With unmeasured violence, Lady Cromwell tore the old woman’s cap from her head, and plucked out a handful of her gray hair, which she gave to Mrs. Throgmorton to burn, as a charm that would protect her from all further evil practices. ”

“ Thus the philosophical sulphur is at hand, as the philosophers say: ‘The sulphur being dissolved, the stone is at hand.’ Take then, in the name of God, our philosophical vessel, in which the king and queen embrace each other as in a bedchamber, and leave it till the water is converted into earth; then peace is concluded between the water and the fire—then the elements no longer possess anything contrary to each other—because, when the elements are converted into earth, they cease to be antagonistic; for in earth all elements are at rest. ”

“ Replying to observations made by the schoolmaster, Daniel continues:
‘You bring two reasons to prove that in convicting witches likelihoods and presumptions ought to be of force more than about thieves or murderers. The first, because their dealing is secret; the other, because the devil will not let them confess. Indeed, men, imagining that witches do work strange mischiefs, burn in desire to have them hanged, as hoping then to be free; and then, upon such persuasions as you mention, they suppose it is a very good work to put to death all which are suspected. ”

“ I shall not weary the reader with an analysis of any of Fludd’s elaborately mystical productions. They are as dead as anything can be, and no power that I know of could breathe into them the breath of life. But I may quote a few specimen or sample sentences, so to speak, which will afford an idea of their style and tone:
‘Particulars are frequently fallible, but universal never. Occult philosophy lays bare Nature in her complete nakedness, and alone contemplates the wisdom of universals by the eyes of intelligence. ”

“ This Ali, wandering alone in the desert, and [Pg 418] musing much upon the appearance of a fiery meteor, which, to the great terror of the country, had flamed in the heavens every night for nearly a month, sought to apprehend its significance, and what it should portend to the world; but, failing to do so, he sat down, weary and disheartened, in the shade of a spreading palm. Breathing to himself a strong desire that some spirit from the other world would generously assist him to arrive at the true meaning of a phenomenon so remarkable, he fell asleep. ”

“ While witchcraft was a power in the land, the witch, or warlock, was popularly supposed to be the direct instrument, and, indeed, the bond-slave, of the Evil One, fulfilling his behests in virtue of a compact, written in letters of blood, by which the witch made over her soul to the Infernal Power in return for the enjoyment of supernatural prerogatives for a fixed period. This treaty having been concluded, the witch received a mark on some part of the body, which was thenceforward insensible of pain—the stigma or devil’s mark, by which he might know his own again. ”

“ Dee by his learned biographer, Dr. Thomas Smith, by no means confirms the traditional notion of him as a crafty and credulous practiser in the Black Art. It is, on the contrary, the portrait of a just and upright man, grave in his demeanour, modest in his manners, abstemious in his habits; a man of studious disposition and benevolent temper; a man held in such high esteem by his neighbours that he was called upon to arbitrate when any differences arose between them; a fervent Christian, attentive to all the offices of the Church, and zealous in the defence of her faith. ”

“ As if the title of philosopher, that creature of glory, were to be fetched out of a furnace!’
But while the world is full of fools, it is too much to expect there shall be any lack of knaves to prey upon them! ”

“ Ascend with the highest wisdom from earth to heaven, and thence descend again to earth, and bind together the powers of things superior and things inferior. So shall you compass the glory of the whole world, and divest yourself of the abjectness of humanity. ”

“ When all this wisdom became more common, and the magi had communicated much of their knowledge to the people at large, their successors, still aspiring to a position above, and apart from, the rest of the world, were compelled to push their studies further, to inquire into nature, to view the aspect of the heavens, to calculate the motions of the stars, and more particularly to dwell upon their influences in human affairs—thus creating the science of astrology. But these men neither had, nor pretended to have, any compact or correspondence with the devil or with any of his works. ”

“ The brown horrors of the forest were favourable to visions, and they sometimes almost believed that they met the foe of mankind in the night.’ To the delusions of the imagination, especially when suggested by pride and vanity, there are no means of putting a limit; and it is quite possible that in time these women gave credence to their own absurd inventions, and saw a demon or familiar spirit in every hare or black or brown dog that accidentally crossed their path.
For awhile the witches created a reign of terror in the forest. ”

“ Miles. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your seven years’ study well, that can make your Head speak but two words at once, ‘Time was.’ Yea, marry, time was when my master was a wise man; but that was before he began to make the Brazen Head. You shall lie while you ache, an your head speak no better. Well, I will watch, and walk up and down, and be a peripatetian [13] and a philosopher of Aristotle’s stamp. (A great noise.) What, a fresh noise? Take thy pistols in hand, Miles. (A lightning flashes forth, and a Hand appears that breaks down the Head with a hammer.) ”

“ It is the manner of men, O heavenly King, to dedicate their books to some great men, thereby to have their works protected and countenanced among them; but Thou only art able by Thy Holy Spirit of Truth, to defend Thy Truth, and to make it take impression in the heart and understanding of men. ”

“ Dee’s own invention? And has he compiled it for the deception of posterity? I do not believe it. It is my firm conviction that he recorded in perfect good faith—though I own my opinion is not very complimentary to his intelligence—the extravagant rigmarole dictated to him by the arch-knave Kelly, who, very possibly, added to his many ingenuities some skill in the practices of the ventriloquist. No great amount of artifice can have been necessary for successfully deceiving so admirable a subject for deception as the credulous Dee. ”

“ Even the philosopher of Malmesbury, the sagacious author of ‘The Leviathan,’ Thomas Hobbes, was infected by the prevalent delusion. Dr. Cudworth, to whom we owe the acute reasoning of the treatises on ‘Moral Good and Evil,’ and ‘The True Intellectual System of the Universe,’ firmly holds that the guilt of a reputed witch might be determined by her inability or unwillingness to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Strangest of it all is it to find the pure and lofty spirit of Henry More, the founder of the school of English Platonists, yielding to the general superstition. ”

“ I pass on to the great Spanish alchemist and magician, Raymond Lully, or Lulli, who was scarcely inferior [Pg 20] in fame, or the qualities which merited fame, even to Albertus Magnus. He was a man, not only of wide, but of accurate scholarship; and the two or three hundred treatises which proceeded from his pen traversed the entire circle of the learning of his age, dealing with almost every conceivable subject from medicine to morals, from astronomy to theology, and from alchemy to civil and canon law. ”

“ His experiments having proved successful, Hopkins took up witch-finding as a vocation, one which provided him with the means of a comfortable livelihood, while it gratified his ambition by making him the terror of many and the admiration of more, investing him with just that kind of power which is delightful to a narrow and commonplace mind. Assuming the title of ‘Witch-finder-General,’ and taking with him John Sterne, and a woman, whose business it was to examine accused females for the devil’s marks, he travelled through the counties of Essex, Norfolk, Huntingdon, and Sussex. ”

“ Taking up the study of the subject with enthusiasm, he inquired into the demonology of France and Germany, where it had been matured into a science; and this so thoroughly that he became, as already stated, an expert, and was really entitled to pronounce authoritative decisions. His example, however, had a disastrous effect, confirming and deepening the popular credulity to such an extent that the common people, for a time, might have been divided into two great classes—witches and witch-finders. That in such circumstances many acts of cruelty should be perpetrated was inevitable. ”

“ Marie, wife of Henry Smith, grocer, confessed, under examination, that, being indignant with some of her neighbours because they prospered in their trade more than she did, she oftentimes cursed them; and that once, while she was thus engaged, the devil appeared in the form of a black man, and willed that she should continue in her malice, envy, and hatred, banning and cursing, and then he would see that she was revenged upon all to whom she wished evil. There was, of course, a compact insisted upon: that she should renounce God, and embrace the devil and all his works. ”

“ The accession of James I., a professed demonologist, and an expert in all matters relating to witchcraft, gave a great impulse to the persecution of witches in England. ‘Poor old women and girls of tender age were walked, swum, shaved, and tortured; the gallows creaked and the fires blazed.’ In accordance with the well-known economic law, that the demand creates the supply, it was found that, in proportion as trials and tortures increased, so did the number of witches, until half the old hags in England supposed themselves, or were supposed by others, to have made compacts with the devil. ”

“ I think there can be little doubt that many evil-disposed persons availed themselves of the prevalent belief in witchcraft as a cover for their depredations on the property of their neighbours, diverting suspicion from themselves to the poor wretches who, through accidental circumstances, had acquired notoriety as the devil’s accomplices. It would also seem probable that not a few of the reputed witches similarly turned to account their bad reputation. ”

“ Mother Dundike must have been a woman of lively imagination, if we may form conclusions from her graphic account of the circumstances attending her initiation into the great army of ‘the devil’s own.’ One day, when returning from a begging expedition, she was accosted by a boy, dressed in a parti-coloured garment of black and white, who proved to be a demon, or evil spirit, and promised her that, in return for the gift of her soul, she should have anything and everything she desired. ”

“ On another occasion, according to Agnes Sampson, she, Dr. Fian, and a wizard of some energy, named Robert Grierson, with several others, left Grierson’s house at Preston Pans in a boat, and went out to sea to ‘a tryst.’ Embarking on board a ship, they drank copiously of good wine and ale, after which they sank the ship and her crew, and returned home. And again, sailing from North Berwick in a boat like a chimney, they saw the devil—in shape and size resembling a huge hayrick—rolling over the great waves in front of them. ”

“ In the crime of witchcraft the central feature was the compact with the demon, and it was natural that men should resent an act which entailed the eternal loss of the soul. Again, witchcraft, much more frequently than magic, was the instrument of personal ill-feeling, and was more generally directed against the lower classes. The magician seldom used his power except when liberally paid by an employer; the witch, it was thought, exercised her skill for the gratification of her own malice. ”

“ Surely the blood of men ought not to be so cheap, nor so easily to be shed by those who, under the name of God, do gratify exorbitant passions and selfish ends; for without question, under this side heaven, there is nothing so sacred as the life of man, for the preservation whereof all policies and forms of government, all laws and magistrates are most especially ordained. ”

“ With some of these the chief object was money; others may have craved distinction and influence; others may have sought the gratification of passions more degrading even than avarice or ambition. At all events, alchemy became a synonym for fraud: a magician was accepted as, by right of his vocation, an impostor; and the poet and the dramatist pursued him with the whips of satire, invective, and ridicule, while the law prepared for him the penalties usually inflicted upon criminals. ”

“ Into the sufferings of the mass of the people, except when they have been lashed by long-continued injustice into frenzy, it is hard to gain a glimpse. For once the veil is lifted, and we see, as by a lightning flash, the forlorn and unfriended girl, to whom the inhuman laws of her country denied the services of an advocate, baffled by the noisy babble around her in her efforts to speak a word on behalf of her innocence. ”

“ No less illustrious a person than Abraham the patriarch, Hebrew, prince, philosopher, priest, Levite, and magian, who, as it was written in Latin, must have miraculously acquired his foreknowledge of a tongue which, in his time, had no existence. A perusal of its mystic pages convinced Flamel that he had had the good fortune to discover a complete manual on the art of transmutation of metals, in which all the necessary vessels were indicated, and the processes described. ”