CHAP. III. SUPERSTITION. A LONG and disgusting tale of mental infirmity lies before me. It would require volumes, only to sketch the fears, the terrors, the horrors, the cruelties, of man, when under the influence of Superstition. We have nothing to do with the follies and fancies of the inhabitants of other countries in this particular, though we certainly derived many of our prejudices from them. At present, the reader shall receive some information, from a very learned and high authority indeed, as to the signification and etymology of the words Magic and Necromancy. Thus saith the weak king who filled the seat of the learned and artful Elizabeth as her immediate successor: and who shall we select to speak more feelingly on the subject than this Royal slave to superstition? "The word Magi, in the Persian tongue, imports as much as to be a contemplator or interpreter of divine and heavenly sciences; which being first used among the Chaldees, through their ignorance of the true Divinity, was esteemed and reputed amongst them as a principal virtue: and and therefore was named unjustly with an honourable style; which name the Greeks imitated, generally importing all these kinds of unlawful arts. And this word Necromancy is a Greek word compounded of Νέκρων and μάλεια ; which is to say, the prophecy by the dead. This last name is given to this black and unlawful science by the figure Synechdoche, because it is a principal part of that art, to serve themselves with dead carcases in their divinations." According to our Royal authority, the Necromancer is the master and commander of the arch-enemy of mankind; but the Witch, an inferior order of being, is the servant or slave of the latter. The Necromancer being indulged with temporary power, in order that his soul might become completely entangled in the snares of the great deceiver, the learned and the ignorant were equally admitted to a participation in this shortenduring dignity. "The learned have their curiosity wakened up, and fed by that which I call his school this is the Astrology Judiciar; for, divers men having attained to a great perfection in learning, and yet remaining overbare, alas! of the Spirit of regeneration, and fruits thereof, finding all natural things common, as well to the stupid pedants as unto them, they assay to vindicate unto them a greater name, by not only knowing the course of things heavenly, but likewise to climb to the knowledge of things to come there - by; by; which at the first face appearing lawful unto them, in respect the ground there seemeth to proceed of natural causes only, they are so allured thereby, that, finding their practice to prove true in sundry things, they study to know the cause thereof; and so mounting from degree to degree, upon the slippery and uncertain scale of curiosity, they are at last enticed, that where lawful arts or sciences fail to satisfy their restless minds, even to seek to that black and unlawful science of Magic; where finding, at the first, that such divers forms of circles and conjurations, rightly joined thereunto, will raise such divers forms of spirits, to resolve them of their doubts; and attributing the doing thereof to the power inseparably tied, or inherent in the circles, and many words of God confusedly wrapped in, they blindly glory of themselves, as if they had by their quickness of engine made a conquest of Pluto's dominion, and were become emperors over the Stygian habitacles; where, in the mean time, (miserable wretches!) they are to become, in very deed, bond-slaves to their mortal enemy." The devil's rudiments he defines generally the virtue of word, herb, and stone, used by charms and without natural causes; of the same descrip tion were all kinds of "practiques freites," &c., which would not bear the test of reason: "I mean,” continues the Monarch, "either by such kind of charms as commonly daft wives use for healing healing of forespoken goods, for preserving them from evil eyes, by knitting rountrees, or sundriest kind of herbs, to the hair or tail of the goods; by curing the worm, by stemming of blood, by healing of horsecrooks, by turning of the riddle, or doing of such like innumerable things, by words, without applying any thing meet to the part offended, as medicines do." The observers of the operations of Nature have, according to James, from the beginning called the science of the movements of the planets, &c. Astronomia: a word compounded from two in the Greek language, expressing the law of the stars : an art, commendable in itself, and connected with the mathematics. Astrologia, however, seems to be in a very different predicament, which is defined as the preaching of the stars.―This system consists of two parts; the first enables the professor to ascertain the power of simples, and illnesses, the course of the seasons, and the weather, which are supposed to be governed by their influence. The second part consists in the reliance on that influence; and thence foretelling the revolutions of states, the fate of battles, the age any particular person may attain, the time of their decease, &c. &c. From the latter, many branches have diverged, under the terms of Chyromancy, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Arithmancy, &c. &c. This part the King gives to the devil's school. To conclude our abstract of a portion a portion of the dæmonology: "These conjurations must have few or more in number of the persons conjurors (always passing the singular unmber), according to the quality of the circle, and form of apparition. Two principal · things cannot well in that errand be wanted - holy water, (whereby the devil mocks the papists ;) and some present of a living thing unto him. There are likewise certain seasons, days, and hours, that they observe in this purpose. These things being all ready and prepared, circles are made triangular, quadrangular, round, double, or single, according to the form of apparition that they crave. But to speak of the divers forms of the circles of the innumerable characters and crosses that are within and without, and outthrough the same; of the divers forms of apparitions, that that crafty spirit illudes them with; and of all such particulars in that action, I remit it to over-many, that have busied their heads in describing of the same; as being but curious and altogether unprofitable. And this far only I touch, that when the conjured spirit appears, which will not be while after many circumstances, long prayers, and much muttering and murmuring of the conjurors; like a papist priest dispatching a hunting mass;-how soon, I say, he appears, if they have missed one iota of all their rites; or if any of their feet once slide over the circle, through terror of his fearful apparition, he pays himself, at that |