amongst them: and the said Agnes Sympson got for her part a winding-sheet and two joints. The devil commandit them to keep the joints upon them while they were dry, and then to make a powder of them to do evil withal. Then he commandit them to keep his commandments, which were to do all the evil they could. Before they departed they kissed his breech [the record speaks more broad.] He [meaning the devil] had on him ane gown and ane hat, which were both black and they that were assembled, part stood and part sate: John Fien was ever nearest the devil, at his left elbock ; Graymarcal keeped the door."

The Scotch accent has been here retained for the better authenticity of the matter; the confession here given being, in all probability, a principal reason why King James changed his opinion relative to the existence of witches; which, it was reported, he was inclined to think were mere conceits; as he was then but young (not above five or six and twenty years of age) when this examina-. tion took place before him; and part of the third chapter of his Demonologie appears to be a transcript of this very confession.

Agnes Simpson was remarkable for her skill in diseases, and frequently, it is said, took the pains and sickness of the afflicted upon herself to relieve them, and afterwards translated them to a third person she made use of long Scriptural rhymes and prayers, containing the principal points of Christianity, so that she seemed not so much a white witch as a holy woman. She also used nonsensical rhymes in the instruction of ignorant

people, and taught them to say the white and black Pater-noster in metre, in set forms, to be used morning and evening; and at other times, as occasion might require.

The White Pater-noster runs thus:

God was my foster,

He fostered me

Under the book of Palm tree.

St. Michael was my dame,
He was born at Bethlehem.

He was made of flesh and blood,
God send me my right food;
My right food, and dyne too,
That I may too yon kirk go,

:

To read upon yon sweet book,
Which the mighty God of heaven shook.

Open, open, heaven's yaits,

Steik, steik, hell's yaits,

All saints be the better,

That hear the white prayer, Pater-noster.

The Black Pater-noster.

Four neuks in this house for holý angels,
A post in the midst, that Christ Jesus,

Lucas, Marcus, Mathew, Joannes,

God be unto this house, and all that belong us.

Whenever she required an answer from the devil, on any occasion, he always appeared to her in the shape of a dog. And when she wished him to depart, she conjured him in the following manner, namely: "I charge thee to depart on the law thou livest on:" this it is said was the language with which she dismissed him, after consulting with him on old Lady Edmiston's sickness. The manner in which she raised the devil was with these words: “Elia come and speak to me," when he

never failed to appear to her in the shape of a dog, as usual. Her sailing with her Kemmers and fellow witches in a boat is related as a very remarkable story, where the devil caused them all to drink good wine and beer without money; and of her neither seeing the sailors nor they her; and of the storm which the devil raised, whereby the ship perished; also her baptizing, and using other ceremonies upon a cat, in the company of other witches, to prevent Queen Anne from coming to Scotland.

His

That which is most remarkable in John Fein, is the devil appearing to him, not in black, but white raiment, although he proposed as hellish a covenant to him as any in the black costume. skimming along the surface of the sea, with his companions his foretelling the leak in the Queen's ship—his raising a storm by throwing a cat into the sea, during the King's voyage to Denmark-his raising a mist on the King's return, by getting Satan to cast a thing like a foot-ball into the sea, which caused such a smoke, as to endanger his Majesty being driven on the coast of England→ his opening locks by means of sorcery, by merely blowing into a woman's hand while she sat by the fire his embarking in a boat with other witches, sailing over the sea, getting on board of a ship, drinking wine and ale there, and afterwards sinking the vessel with all on board-his kissing Satan's e again, at another conventicle-his being carried into the air, in chasing a cat, for the purpose of raising a storm, according to Satan's prescription. He pretended also to tell any man

how long he would live, provided he told him the day of his birth.

SORCERY.

THE crime of witchcraft, or divination, by the assistance of evil spirits.

Sorcery is held by some to be properly what the ancients called Sortilegium, or divination by means of Sortes or lots.

Lord Coke (3 Instit. fol. 44,) describes a Sorcerer, qui utitur sortibus, et incantationibus dæmonium. Sorcery, by Stat. 1o. Jac. is felony. In another book it is said to be a branch of heresy; and by Stat. 12, Carolus II. it is excepted out of the general pardons.

Sorcery is pretended to have been a very common thing formerly; the credulity, at least, of those ages made it pass for such; people frequently suffered for it. In a more enlightened and less believing age, sorcery has fled before the penetrating rays of science, like every other species of human superstition and complicated diablerie. For, indeed, it is a very probable opinion, that the several glaring instances of sorcery we meet, in our old law books and historians, if well inquired into, would be found at bottom, to have more human art and desperate malignity and vindictive cunning about them, than of demoniacal and preternatural agency. Were it not for a well

regulated police acting under wise regulations for the safety and harmony of society, sorcerers and evil spirits would be equally as prevalent and destructive at the present day, as they were some two or three hundred years ago.

SORTES. SORTILEGIUM.

THE ancients had a method of deciding dubious cases, where there appeared no ground for a preference, by Sortes or lots, as in casting of dice, drawing tickets, and various other ways, many of which are still adopted.

The ancient sortes or lots, were instituted by God himself; and in the Old Testament we meet with many standing and perpetual laws, and a number of particular commands, prescribing and regulating the use of them. Thus Scripture informs us that the lot fell on St. Matthias, when a successor to Judas in the apostolate was to be chosen. Our Saviour's garment itself was cast lots for. Sortiti sunt Christo vestem.

The SORTES Prænestina were famous among the Greeks. The method of these was to put a great number of letters, or even whole words, into an urn; to shake them together, and throw them out; and whatever should chance to be made out in the arrangement of the letters, &c. composed the answer of this oracle.

In what repute soever this mode of divination