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Among My Books - First Series, essay(s) by James Russell Lowell

WITCHCRAFT. Continues 3 - Footnotes 98-118

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WITCHCRAFT Continues 3 - Footnotes 98-118

[98] Salem Witchcraft, with an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. By Charles W. Upham. Boston: Wiggin and Lunt. 1867. 2 vols.

Ioannis Wieri de praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus ac veneficiis libri sex, postrema editione sexta aucti et recogniti. Accessit liber apologeticus et pseudomonarchia daemonum. Cum rerum et verborum copioso indice. Cum Caes. Maiest. Regisq: Galliarum gratia et privelegio. Basiliae ex officina Oporiniani, 1583.

Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft: proving the common opinions of Witches contracting with Divels, Spirits, or Familiars; and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures by diseases or otherwise; their flying in the Air, &c.; To be but imaginary Erronious conceptions and novelties; Wherein also the lewde, unchristian practises of Witchmongers, upon aged, melancholy, ignorant and superstitious people in extorting confessions by inhumane terrors and Tortures, is notably detected. Also The knavery and confederacy of Conjurors. The impious blasphemy of Inchanters. The imposture of Soothsayers, and infidelity of Atheists. The delusion of Pythonists, Figure-casters, Astrologers, and vanity of Dreamers. The fruitlesse beggarly art of Alchimistry. The horrible art of Poisoning and all the tricks and conveyances of juggling and lieger-demain are fully deciphered. With many other things opened that have long lain hidden: though very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of poor, aged, deformed, ignorant people; frequently taken, arraigned, condemned and executed for Witches, when according to a right understanding, and a good conscience, Physick, Food, and necessaries should be administered to him. Whereunto is added a treatise upon the nature and substance of Spirits and Divels &c., all written and published in Anno 1584. By Reginald Scot, Esquire. Printed by R.C. and are to be sold by Giles Calvert dwelling at the Black Spread-Eagle, at the West-End of Pauls, 1651.

De la Demonomanie des Sorciers. A Monseigneur M. Chrestofe De Thou, Chevalier, Seigneur de Coeli, premier President en la Cour de Parlement et Conseiller du Roy en son prive Conseil. Reveu, Corrige, et augmente d'une grande partie. Par I. Bodin Angevin. A Paris: Chez Iacques Du Puys, Libraire Iure, a la Samaritaine. M.D.LXXXVII. Avec privilege du Roy.

Magica, seu mirabilium historiarum de Spectris et Apparitionibus spirituum: Item, de magicis et diabolicis incantationibus. De Miraculis, Oraculis, Vaticiniis, Divinationibus, Praedictionibus, Revelationibus et aliis eiusmodi multis ac varijs praestigijs, ludibrijs et imposturis malorum Daemonum. Libri II. Ex probatis et fide dignis historiarum scriptoribus diligenter collecti. Islebiae, cura, Typis et sumptibus Henningi Grossij Bibl. Lipo. 1597. Cum privilegio.

The displaying of supposed Witchcraft wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of Deceivers and Impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of Melancholy and Fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the Devil and the Witch, or that he sucks on the Witch's body, has carnal copulation, or that Witches are turned into Cats, Dogs, raise Tempests or the like is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein is also handled, The existence of Angels and Spirits, the truth of Apparitions, the Nature of Astral and Sydereal Spirits, the force of Charms and Philters; with other abstruse matters. By John Webster, Practitioner in Physick. Falsa etenim opiniones Hominum non solum surdos sed et coecos faciunt, ita ut videre nequeant quae aliis perspicua apparent. Galen. lib. 8, de Comp. Med. London: Printed by I.M. and are to be sold by the booksellers in London. 1677.

Sadducismus Triumphatus: or Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions. In two Parts. The First treating of their Possibility; the Second of their Real Existence. By Joseph Glanvil, late Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal Society. The third edition. The advantages whereof above the former, the Reader may understand out of Dr H. More's Account prefixed therunto. With two Authentick, but wonderful Stories of certain Swedish Witches. Done into English by A. Horneck DD. London, Printed for S.L. and are to be sold by Anth. Baskerville at the Bible, the corner of Essex-street, without Temple-Bar. M.DCLXXXIX.

Demonologie ou Traitte des Demons et Sorciers: De leur puissance et impuissance: Par Fr. Perraud. Ensemble L'Antidemon de Mascon, ou Histoire Veritable de ce qu'un Demon a fait et dit, il y a quelques annees en la maison dudit Sr. Perreaud a Mascon. I. Jacques iv. 7, 8. "Resistez au Diable, et il s'enfuira de vous. Approchez vous de Dieu, et il s'approchera de vous." A Geneve, chez Pierre Aubert. M,DC,LIII.

The Wonders of the Invisible World. Being an account of the tryals of several witches lately executed in New-England. By Cotton Mather, D.D. To which is added a farther account of the tryals of the New England Witches. By Increase Mather, D.D., President of Harvard College. London: John Russell Smith, Soho Square. 1862. (First printed in Boston, 1692.)

I.N.D.N.J.C. Dissertatio Juridica de Lamiis earumque processu criminali, _Von Hexen und dem Peinl. Process wider dieselben_, Quam, auxiliante Divina Gratia, Consensu et Authoritate Magnifici JCtorum Ordinis in illustribus Athenis Salanis sub praesidio Magnifici, Nobilissimi, Amplissimi, Consultissimi, atque Excellentissimi Dn. Ernesti Frider. _Schroeter_ hereditarii in _Wickerstaedt_, JCti et Antecessoris hujus Salanae Famigeratissimi, Consiliarii Saxonici, Curiae Provincialis, Facultatis Juridicae, et Scabinatus Assessoris 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. Illustrated 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 Illustrated 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.LXXX.

La Magie et l'Astrologie dans I'Antiquite et au Moyen Age, ou Etude sur les superstitions paiennes 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....
.... nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes
terrificant atque in somnis, cum 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 noble, 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 ass'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 superstition, 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 justitiam 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 classics, to be sure, are always so classic! 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. Hellas. 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 fashion. 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. _

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