[Footnote 80: This may remind the reader of Cazotte's "Diable
Amoureux."]

This confession having been extorted from the unfortunate juggler, the
female acquaintances of Margaret Barclay were next convened, that he
might point out her associates in forming the charm, when he pitched
upon a woman called Isobel Insh, or Taylor, who resolutely denied having
ever seen him before. She was imprisoned, however, in the belfry of the
church. An addition to the evidence against the poor old woman Insh was
then procured from her own daughter, Margaret Tailzeour, _a child of
eight years old_, who lived as servant with Margaret Barclay, the person
principally accused. This child, who was keeper of a baby belonging to
Margaret Barclay, either from terror or the innate love of falsehood
which we have observed as proper to childhood, declared that she was
present when the fatal models of clay were formed, and that, in plunging
them in the sea, Margaret Barclay her mistress, and her mother Isobel
Insh, were assisted by another woman, and a girl of fourteen years old,
who dwelt at the town-head. Legally considered, the evidence of this
child was contradictory and inconsistent with the confession of the
juggler, for it assigned other particulars and _dramatis personæ_ in
many respects different. But all was accounted sufficiently regular,
especially since the girl failed not to swear to the presence of the
black dog, to whose appearance she also added the additional terrors of
that of a black man. The dog also, according to her account, emitted
flashes from its jaws and nostrils to illuminate the witches during the
performance of the spell. The child maintained this story even to her
mother's face, only alleging that Isobel Insh remained behind in the
waste-house, and was not present when the images were put into the sea.
For her own countenance and presence on the occasion, and to ensure her
secrecy, her mistress promised her a pair of new shoes.

John Stewart, being re-examined and confronted with the child, was
easily compelled to allow that the "little smatchet" was there, and to
give that marvellous account of his correspondence with Elfland which we
have noticed elsewhere.

The conspiracy thus far, as they conceived, disclosed, the magistrates
and ministers wrought hard with Isobel Insh to prevail upon her to tell
the truth; and she at length acknowledged her presence at the time when
the models of the ship and mariners were destroyed, but endeavoured so
to modify her declaration as to deny all personal accession to the
guilt. This poor creature almost admitted the supernatural powers
imputed to her, promising Bailie Dunlop (also a mariner), by whom she
was imprisoned, that, if he would dismiss her, he should never make a
bad voyage, but have success in all his dealings by sea and land. She
was finally brought to promise that she would fully confess the whole
that she knew of the affair on the morrow.

But finding herself in so hard a strait, the unfortunate woman made use
of the darkness to attempt an escape. With this view she got out by a
back window of the belfry, although, says the report, there were "iron
bolts, locks, and fetters on her," and attained the roof of the church,
where, losing her footing, she sustained a severe fall and was greatly
bruised. Being apprehended, Bailie Dunlop again urged her to confess;
but the poor woman was determined to appeal to a more merciful tribunal,
and maintained her innocence to the last minute of her life, denying all
that she had formerly admitted, and dying five days after her fall from
the roof of the church. The inhabitants of Irvine attributed her death
to poison.

The scene began to thicken, for a commission was granted for the trial
of the two remaining persons accused, namely, Stewart, the juggler, and
Margaret Barclay. The day of trial being arrived, the following singular
events took place, which we give as stated in the record:--

"My Lord and Earl of Eglintoune (who dwells within the space of one mile
to the said burgh) having come to the said burgh at the earnest request
of the said justices, for giving to them of his lordship's countenance,
concurrence and assistance, in trying of the foresaid devilish
practices, conform to the tenor of the foresaid commission, the said
John Stewart, for his better preserving to the day of the assize, was
put in a sure lockfast booth, where no manner of person might have
access to him till the downsitting of the Justice Court, and for
avoiding of putting violent hands on himself, he was very strictly
guarded and fettered by the arms, as use is. And upon that same day of
the assize, about half an hour before the downsitting of the Justice
Court, Mr. David Dickson, minister at Irvine, and Mr. George Dunbar,
minister of Air, having gone to him to exhort him to call on his God for
mercy for his bygone wicked and evil life, and that God would of his
infinite mercy loose him out of the bonds of the devil, whom he had
served these many years bygone, he acquiesced in their prayer and godly
exhortation, and uttered these words:--"I am so straitly guarded that it
lies not in my power to get my hand to take off my bonnet, nor to get
bread to my mouth." And immediately after the departing of the two
ministers from him, the juggler being sent for at the desire of my Lord
of Eglintoune, to be confronted with a woman of the burgh of Air, called
Janet Bous, who was apprehended by the magistrates of the burgh of Air
for witchcraft, and sent to the burgh of Irvine purposely for that
affair, he was found by the burgh officers who went about him, strangled
and hanged by the cruik of the door, with a _tait_ of hemp, or a string
made of hemp, supposed to have been his garter, or string of his bonnet,
not above the length of two span long, his knees not being from the
ground half a span, and was brought out of the house, his life not being
totally expelled. But notwithstanding of whatsoever means used in the
contrary for remeid of his life, he revived not, but so ended his life
miserably, by the help of the devil his master.

"And because there was then only in life the said Margaret Barclay, and
that the persons summoned to pass upon her assize and upon the assize of
the juggler who, by the help of the devil his master, had put violent
hands on himself, were all present within the said burgh; therefore, and
for eschewing of the like in the person of the said Margaret, our
sovereign lord's justices in that part particularly above-named,
constituted by commission after solemn deliberation and advice of the
said noble lord, whose concurrence and advice was chiefly required and
taken in this matter, concluded with all possible diligence before the
downsitting of the Justice Court to put the said Margaret in torture; in
respect the devil, by God's permission, had made her associates who were
the lights of the cause, to be their own _burrioes_ (slayers). They used
the torture underwritten as being most safe and gentle (as the said
noble lord assured the said justices), by putting of her two bare legs
in a pair of stocks, and thereafter by onlaying of certain iron gauds
(bars) severally one by one, and then eiking and augmenting the weight
by laying on more gauds, and in easing of her by offtaking of the iron
gauds one or more as occasion offered, which iron gauds were but little
short gauds, and broke not the skin of her legs, &c.

"After using of the which kind of _gentle torture_, the said Margaret
began, according to the increase of the pain, to cry and crave for God's
cause to take off her shins the foresaid irons, and she should declare
truly the whole matter. Which being removed, she began at her former
denial; and being of new essayed in torture as of befoir, she then
uttered these words: 'Take off, take off, and before God I shall show
you the whole form!'

"And the said irons being of new, upon her faithfull promise, removed,
she then desired my Lord of Eglintoune, the said four justices, and the
said Mr. David Dickson, minister of the burgh, Mr. George Dunbar,
minister of Ayr, and Mr. Mitchell Wallace, minister of Kilmarnock, and
Mr. John Cunninghame, minister of Dalry, and Hugh Kennedy, provost of
Ayr, to come by themselves and to remove all others, and she should
declare truly, as she should answer to God the whole matter. Whose
desire in that being fulfilled she made her confession in this manner,
but (_i.e.,_ without) any kind of demand, freely, without interrogation;
God's name by earnest prayer being called upon for opening of her lips,
and easing of her heart, that she, by rendering of the truth, might
glorify and magnify his holy name, and disappoint the enemy of her
salvation."--_Trial of Margaret Barclay, &c_., 1618.

Margaret Barclay, who was a young and lively person, had hitherto
conducted herself like a passionate and high-tempered woman innocently
accused, and the only appearance of conviction obtained against her was,
that she carried about her rowan-tree and coloured thread, to make, as
she said, her cow give milk, when it began to fail. But the _gentle
torture_--a strange junction of words--recommended as an anodyne by the
good Lord Eglinton--the placing, namely, her legs in the stocks, and
loading her bare shins with bars of iron, overcame her resolution; when,
at her screams and declarations that she was willing to tell all, the
weights were removed. She then told a story of destroying the ship of
John Dein, affirming that it was with the purpose of killing only her
brother-in-law and Provost Tran, and saving the rest of the crew. She at
the same time involved in the guilt Isobel Crawford. This poor woman was
also apprehended, and in great terror confessed the imputed crime,
retorting the principal blame on Margaret Barclay herself. The trial was
then appointed to proceed, when Alexander Dein, the husband of Margaret
Barclay, appeared in court with a lawyer to act in his wife's behalf.
Apparently, the sight of her husband awakened some hope and desire of
life, for when the prisoner was asked by the lawyer whether she wished
to be defended? she answered, "As you please But all I have confest was
in agony of torture; and, before God, all I have spoken is false and
untrue." To which she pathetically added, "Ye have been too long in
coming."

The jury, unmoved by these affecting circumstances, proceeded upon the
principle that the confession of the accused could not be considered as
made under the influence of torture, since the bars were not actually
upon her limbs at the time it was delivered, although they were placed
at her elbow ready to be again laid on her bare shins, if she was less
explicit in her declaration than her auditors wished. On this nice
distinction they in one voice found Margaret Barclay guilty. It is
singular that she should have again returned to her confession after
sentence, and died affirming it; the explanation of which, however,
might be either that she had really in her ignorance and folly tampered
with some idle spells, or that an apparent penitence for her offence,
however imaginary, was the only mode in which she could obtain any share
of public sympathy at her death, or a portion of the prayers of the
clergy and congregation, which, in her circumstances, she might be
willing to purchase, even by confession of what all believed respecting
her. It is remarkable that she earnestly entreated the magistrates that
no harm should be done to Isobel Crawford, the woman whom she had
herself accused. This unfortunate young creature was strangled at the
stake, and her body burnt to ashes, having died with many expressions of
religion and penitence.

It was one fatal consequence of these cruel persecutions, that one pile
was usually lighted at the embers of another. Accordingly in the present
case, three victims having already perished by this accusation, the
magistrates, incensed at the nature of the crime, so perilous as it
seemed to men of a maritime life, and at the loss of several friends of
their own, one of "whom had been their principal magistrate, did not
forbear to insist against Isobel Crawford, inculpated by Margaret
Barclay's confession. A new commission was granted for her trial, and
after the assistant minister of Irvine, Mr. David Dickson, had made
earnest prayers to God for opening her obdurate and closed heart, she
was subjected to the torture of iron bars laid upon her bare shins, her
feet being in the stocks, as in the case of Margaret Barclay.

She endured this torture with incredible firmness, since she did
"admirably, without any kind of din or exclamation, suffer above thirty
stone of iron to be laid on her legs, never shrinking thereat in any
sort, but remaining, as it were, steady." But in shifting the situation
of the iron bars, and removing them to another part of her shins, her
constancy gave way; she broke out into horrible cries (though not more
than three bars were then actually on her person) of--"Tak aff--tak
aff!" On being relieved from the torture, she made the usual confession
of all that she was charged with, and of a connexion with the devil
which had subsisted for several years. Sentence was given against her
accordingly. After this had been denounced, she openly denied all her
former confessions, and died without any sign of repentance, offering
repeated interruption to the minister in his prayer, and absolutely
refusing to pardon the executioner.

This tragedy happened in the year 1613, and recorded, as it is, very
particularly and at considerable length, forms the most detailed
specimen I have met with of a Scottish trial for
witchcraft--illustrating, in particular, how poor wretches, abandoned,
as they conceived, by God and the world, deprived of all human sympathy,
and exposed to personal tortures of an acute description, became
disposed to throw away the lives that were rendered bitter to them by a
voluntary confession of guilt, rather than struggle hopelessly against
so many evils. Four persons here lost their lives, merely because the
throwing some clay models into the sea, a fact told differently by the
witnesses who spoke of it, corresponded with the season, for no day was
fixed in which a particular vessel was lost. It is scarce possible that,
after reading such a story, a man of sense can listen for an instant to
the evidence founded on confessions thus obtained, which has been almost
the sole reason by which a few individuals, even in modern times, have
endeavoured to justify a belief in the existence of witchcraft.

The result of the judicial examination of a criminal, when extorted by
such means, is the most suspicious of all evidence, and even when
voluntarily given, is scarce admissible without the corroboration of
other testimony.

We might here take leave of our Scottish history of witchcraft by barely
mentioning that many hundreds, nay perhaps thousands, lost their lives
during two centuries on such charges and such evidence as proved the
death of those persons in the trial of the Irvine witches. One case,
however, is so much distinguished by fame among the numerous instances
which occurred in Scottish history, that we are under the necessity of
bestowing a few words upon those celebrated persons, Major Weir and his
sister.

The case of this notorious wizard was remarkable chiefly from his being
a man of some condition (the son of a gentleman, and his mother a lady
of family in Clydesdale), which was seldom the case with those that fell
under similar accusations. It was also remarkable in his case that he
had been a Covenanter, and peculiarly attached to that cause. In the
years of the Commonwealth this man was trusted and employed by those who
were then at the head of affairs, and was in 1649 commander of the
City-Guard of Edinburgh, which procured him his title of Major. In this
capacity he was understood, as was indeed implied in the duties of that
officer at the period, to be very strict in executing severity upon such
Royalists as fell under his military charge. It appears that the Major,
with a maiden sister who had kept his house, was subject to fits of
melancholic lunacy, an infirmity easily reconcilable with the formal
pretences which he made to a high show of religious zeal. He was
peculiar in his gift of prayer, and, as was the custom of the period,
was often called to exercise his talent by the bedside of sick persons,
until it came to be observed that, by some association, which it is more
easy to conceive than to explain, he could not pray with the same warmth
and fluency of expression unless when he had in his hand a stick of
peculiar shape and appearance, which he generally walked with. It was
noticed, in short, that when this stick was taken from him, his wit and
talent appeared to forsake him. This Major Weir was seized by the
magistrates on a strange whisper that became current respecting vile
practices, which he seems to have admitted without either shame or
contrition. The disgusting profligacies which he confessed were of such
a character that it may be charitably hoped most of them were the fruits
of a depraved imagination, though he appears to have been in many
respects a wicked and criminal hypocrite. When he had completed his
confession, he avowed solemnly that he had not confessed the hundredth
part of the crimes which he had committed. From this time he would
answer no interrogatory, nor would he have recourse to prayer, arguing
that, as he had no hope whatever of escaping Satan, there was no need of
incensing him by vain efforts at repentance. His witchcraft seems to
have been taken for granted on his own confession, as his indictment was
chiefly founded on the same document, in which he alleged he had never
seen the devil, but any feeling he had of him was in the dark. He
received sentence of death, which he suffered 12th April, 1670, at the
Gallow-hill, between Leith and Edinburgh. He died so stupidly sullen and
impenitent as to justify the opinion that he was oppressed with a kind
of melancholy frenzy, the consequence perhaps of remorse, but such as
urged him not to repent, but to despair. It seems probable that he was
burnt alive. His sister, with whom he was supposed to have had an
incestuous connexion, was condemned also to death, leaving a stronger
and more explicit testimony of their mutual sins than could be extracted
from the Major. She gave, as usual, some account of her connexion with
the queen of the fairies, and acknowledged the assistance she received
from that sovereign in spinning an unusual quantity of yam. Of her
brother she said that one day a friend called upon them at noonday with
a fiery chariot, and invited them to visit a friend at Dalkeith, and
that while there her brother received information of the event of the
battle of Worcester. No one saw the style of their equipage except
themselves. On the scaffold this woman, determining, as she said, to die
"with the greatest shame possible," was with difficulty prevented from
throwing off her clothes before the people, and with scarce less trouble
was she flung from the ladder by the executioner. Her last words were in
the tone of the sect to which her brother had so long affected to
belong: "Many," she said, "weep and lament for a poor old wretch like
me; but alas! few are weeping for a broken Covenant."

The Scottish prelatists, upon whom the Covenanters used to throw many
aspersions respecting their receiving proof against shot from the devil,
and other infernal practices, rejoiced to have an opportunity, in their
turn, to retort on their adversaries the charge of sorcery. Dr. Hickes,
the author of "Thesaurus Septentrionalis," published on the subject of
Major Weir, and the case of Mitchell, who fired at the Archbishop of St.
Andrews his book called "Ravaillac Redivivus," written with the unjust
purpose of attaching to the religious sect to which the wizard and
assassin belonged the charge of having fostered and encouraged the
crimes they committed or attempted.

It is certain that no story of witchcraft or necromancy, so many of
which occurred near and in Edinburgh, made such a lasting impression on
the public mind as that of Major Weir. The remains of the house in which
he and his sister lived are still shown at the head of the West Bow,
which has a gloomy aspect, well suited for a necromancer. It was at
different times a brazier's shop and a magazine for lint, and in my
younger days was employed for the latter use; but no family would
inhabit the haunted walls as a residence; and bold was the urchin from
the High School who dared approach the gloomy ruin at the risk of seeing
the Major's enchanted staff parading through the old apartments, or
hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel, which procured for his sister
such a character as a spinner. At the time I am writing this last
fortress of superstitious renown is in the course of being destroyed, in
order to the modern improvements now carrying on in a quarter long
thought unimprovable.

As knowledge and learning began to increase, the gentlemen and clergy of
Scotland became ashamed of the credulity of their ancestors, and witch
trials, although not discontinued, more seldom disgrace our records of
criminal jurisprudence.

Sir John Clerk, a scholar and an antiquary, the grandfather of the late
celebrated John Clerk of Eldin, had the honour to be amongst the first
to decline acting as a commissioner on the trial of a witch, to which he
was appointed so early as 1678,[81] alleging, drily, that he did not
feel himself warlock (that is, conjurer) sufficient to be a judge upon
such an inquisition. Allan Ramsay, his friend, and who must be supposed
to speak the sense of his many respectable patrons, had delivered his
opinion on the subject in the "Gentle Shepherd," where Mause's imaginary
witchcraft constitutes the machinery of the poem.

[Footnote 81: See Fountainhall's "Decisions," vol. i. p. 15.]

Yet these dawnings of sense and humanity were obscured by the clouds of
the ancient superstition on more than one distinguished occasion. In
1676, Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, apparently a man of melancholic
and valetudinary habits, believed himself bewitched to death by six
witches, one man and five women, who were leagued for the purpose of
tormenting a clay image in his likeness. The chief evidence on the
subject was a vagabond girl, pretending to be deaf and dumb. But as her
imposture was afterwards discovered and herself punished, it is
reasonably to be concluded that she had herself formed the picture or
image of Sir George, and had hid it where it was afterwards found in
consequence of her own information. In the meantime, five of the accused
were executed, and the sixth only escaped on account of extreme youth.

A still more remarkable case occurred at Paisley in 1697, where a young
girl, about eleven years of age, daughter of John Shaw, of Bargarran,
was the principal evidence. This unlucky damsel, beginning her practices
out of a quarrel with a maid-servant, continued to imitate a case of
possession so accurately that no less than twenty persons were condemned
upon her evidence, of whom five were executed, besides one John Reed,
who hanged himself in prison, or, as was charitably said, was strangled
by the devil in person, lest he should make disclosures to the detriment
of the service. But even those who believed in witchcraft were now
beginning to open their eyes to the dangers in the present mode of
prosecution. "I own," says the Rev. Mr. Bell in his MS. "Treatise on
Witchcraft," "there has been much harm done to worthy and innocent
persons in the common way of finding out witches, and in the means made
use of for promoting the discovery of such wretches and bringing them to
justice; so that oftentimes old age, poverty, features, and ill-fame,
with such like grounds not worthy to be represented to a magistrate,
have yet moved many to suspect and defame their neighbours, to the
unspeakable prejudice of Christian charity; a late instance whereof we
had in the west, in the business of the sorceries exercised upon the
Laird of Bargarran's daughter, anno 1697--a time when persons of more
goodness and esteem than most of their calumniators were defamed for
witches, and which was occasioned mostly by the forwardness and absurd
credulity of diverse otherwise worthy ministers of the gospel, and some
topping professors in and about the city of Glasgow."[82]

[Footnote 82: Law's "Memorialls," edited by C.K. Sliarpe, Esq.:
Prefatory Notice, p. 93.]

Those who doubted of the sense of the law or reasonableness of the
practice in such cases, began to take courage and state their objections
boldly. In the year 1704 a frightful instance of popular bigotry
occurred at Pittenweem. A strolling vagabond, who affected fits, laid an
accusation of witchcraft against two women, who were accordingly seized
on, and imprisoned with the usual severities. One of the unhappy
creatures, Janet Cornfoot by name, escaped from prison, but was
unhappily caught, and brought back to Pittenweem, where she fell into
the hands of a ferocious mob, consisting of rude seamen and fishers. The
magistrates made no attempts for her rescue, and the crowd exercised
their brutal pleasure on the poor old woman, pelted her with stones,
swung her suspended on a rope betwixt a ship and the shore, and finally
ended her miserable existence by throwing a door over her as she lay
exhausted on the beach, and heaping stones upon it till she was pressed
to death. As even the existing laws against witchcraft were transgressed
by this brutal riot, a warm attack was made upon the magistrates and
ministers of the town by those who were shocked at a tragedy of such a
horrible cast, There were answers published, in which the parties
assailed were zealously defended. The superior authorities were expected
to take up the affair, but it so happened; during the general
distraction of the country concerning the Union, that the murder went
without the investigation which a crime so horrid demanded. Still,
however, it was something gained that the cruelty was exposed to the
public. The voice of general opinion was now appealed to, and in the
long run the sentiments which it advocates are commonly those of good
sense and humanity.

The officers in the higher branches of the law dared now assert their
official authority and reserve for their own decision cases of supposed
witchcraft which the fear of public clamour had induced them formerly to
leave in the hands of inferior judges, operated upon by all the
prejudices of the country and the populace.

In 1718, the celebrated lawyer, Robert Dundas of Arniston, then King's
Advocate, wrote a severe letter of censure to the Sheriff-depute of
Caithness, in the first place, as having neglected to communicate
officially certain precognitions which he had led respecting some recent
practices of witchcraft in his county. The Advocate reminded this local
judge that the duty of inferior magistrates, in such cases, was to
advise with the King's Counsel, first, whether they should be made
subject of a trial or not; and if so, before what court, and in what
manner, it should take place. He also called the magistrate's attention
to a report, that he, the Sheriff-depute, intended to judge in the case
himself; "a thing of too great difficulty to be tried without very
deliberate advice, and beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior court."
The Sheriff-depute sends, with his apology, the _precognition_[83] of
the affair, which is one of the most nonsensical in this nonsensical
department of the law. A certain carpenter, named William Montgomery,
was so infested with cats, which, as his servant-maid reported, "spoke
among themselves," that he fell in a rage upon a party of these animals
which had assembled in his house at irregular hours, and betwixt his
Highland arms of knife, dirk, and broadsword, and his professional
weapon of an axe, he made such a dispersion that they were quiet for the
night. In consequence of his blows, two witches were said to have died.
The case of a third, named Nin-Gilbert, was still more remarkable. Her
leg being broken, the injured limb withered, pined, and finally fell
off; on which the hag was enclosed in prison, where she also died; and
the question which remained was, whether any process should be directed
against persons whom, in her compelled confession, she had, as usual,
informed against. The Lord Advocate, as may be supposed, quashed all
further procedure.

[Footnote 83: The _precognition_ is the record of the preliminary
evidence on which the public officers charged in Scotland with duties
entrusted to a grand jury in England, incur the responsibility of
sending an accused person to trial.]

In 1720, an unlucky boy, the third son of James, Lord Torphichen, took
it into his head, under instructions, it is said, from a knavish
governor, to play the possessed and bewitched person, laying the cause
of his distress on certain old witches in Calder, near to which village
his father had his mansion. The women were imprisoned, and one or two of
them died; but the Crown counsel would not proceed to trial. The noble
family also began to see through the cheat. The boy was sent to sea, and
though he is said at one time to have been disposed to try his fits
while on board, when the discipline of the navy proved too severe for
his cunning, in process of time he became a good sailor, assisted
gallantly in defence of the vessel against the pirates of Angria, and
finally was drowned in a storm.

In the year 1722, a Sheriff-depute of Sutherland, Captain David Ross of
Littledean, took it upon him, in flagrant violation of the then
established rules of jurisdiction, to pronounce the last sentence of
death for witchcraft which was ever passed in Scotland. The victim was
an insane old woman belonging to the parish of Loth, who had so little
idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was
destined to consume her. She had a daughter lame both of hands and feet,
a circumstance attributed to the witch's having been used to transform
her into a pony, and get her shod by the devil. It does not appear that
any punishment was inflicted for this cruel abuse of the law on the
person of a creature so helpless; but the son of the lame daughter, he
himself distinguished by the same misfortune, was living so lately as to
receive the charity of the present Marchioness of Stafford, Countess of
Sutherland in her own right, to whom the poor of her extensive country
are as well known as those of the higher order.

Since this deplorable action there has been no judicial interference in
Scotland on account of witchcraft, unless to prevent explosions of
popular enmity against people suspected of such a crime, of which some
instances could be produced. The remains of the superstition sometimes
occur; there can be no doubt that the vulgar are still addicted to the
custom of scoring above the breath[84] (as it is termed), and other
counter-spells, evincing that the belief in witchcraft is only asleep,
and might in remote corners be again awakened to deeds of blood. An
instance or two may be quoted chiefly as facts known to the author
himself.

[Footnote 84: Drawing blood, that is, by two cuts in the form of a cross
on the witch's forehead, confided in all throughout Scotland as the most
powerful counter charm.]

In a remote part of the Highlands, an ignorant and malignant woman seems
really to have meditated the destruction of her neighbour's property, by
placing in a cow-house, or byre as we call it, a pot of baked clay
containing locks of hair, parings of nails, and other trumpery. This
precious spell was discovered, the design conjectured, and the witch
would have been torn to pieces had not a high-spirited and excellent
lady in the neighbourhood gathered some of her people (though these were
not very fond of the service), and by main force taken the unfortunate
creature out of the hands of the populace. The formidable spell is now
in my possession.

About two years since, as they were taking down the walls of a building
formerly used as a feeding-house for cattle, in the town of Dalkeith,
there was found below the threshold-stone the withered heart of some
animal stuck full of many scores of pins--a counter-charm, according to
tradition, against the operations of witchcraft on the cattle which are
kept within. Among the almost innumerable droves of bullocks which come
down every year from the Highlands for the south, there is scarce one
but has a curious knot upon his tail, which is also a precaution lest an
evil eye or an evil spell may do the animal harm.

The last Scottish story with which I will trouble you happened in or
shortly after the year 1800, and the whole circumstances are well known
to me. The dearth of the years in the end of the eighteenth and
beginning of this century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to
the poor. A solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, subsisted
chiefly by rearing chickens, an operation requiring so much care and
attention that the gentry, and even the farmers' wives, often find it
better to buy poultry at a certain age than to undertake the trouble of
bringing them up. As the old woman in the present instance fought her
way through life better than her neighbours, envy stigmatized her as
having some unlawful mode of increasing the gains of her little trade,
and apparently she did not take much alarm at the accusation. But she
felt, like others, the dearth of the years alluded to, and chiefly
because the farmers were unwilling to sell grain in the very moderate
quantities which she was able to purchase, and without which her little
stock of poultry must have been inevitably starved. In distress on this
account, the dame went to a neighbouring farmer, a very good-natured,
sensible, honest man, and requested him as a favour to sell her a peck
of oats at any price. "Good neighbour," he said, "I am sorry to be
obliged to refuse you, but my corn is measured out for Dalkeith market;
my carts are loaded to set out, and to open these sacks again, and for
so small a quantity, would cast my accounts loose, and create much
trouble and disadvantage; I dare say you will get all you want at such a
place, or such a place." On receiving this answer, the old woman's
temper gave way. She scolded the wealthy farmer, and wished evil to his
property, which was just setting off for the market. They parted, after
some angry language on both sides; and sure enough, as the carts crossed
the ford of the river beneath the farm-house, off came the wheel from
one of them, and five or six sacks of corn were damaged by the water.
The good farmer hardly knew what to think of this; there were the two
circumstances deemed of old essential and sufficient to the crime of
witchcraft--_Damnum minatum, et malum secutum_. Scarce knowing what to
believe, he hastened to consult the sheriff of the county, as a friend
rather than a magistrate, upon a case so extraordinary. The official
person showed him that the laws against witchcraft were abrogated, and
had little difficulty to bring him to regard the matter in its true
light of an accident.

It is strange, but true, that the accused herself was not to be
reconciled to the sheriffs doctrine so easily. He reminded her that, if
she used her tongue with so much license, she must expose herself to
suspicions, and that should coincidences happen to irritate her
neighbours, she, might suffer harm at a time when there was no one to
protect her. He therefore requested her to be more cautious in her
language for her own sake, professing, at the same time, his belief that
her words and intentions were perfectly harmless, and that he had no
apprehension of being hurt by her, let her wish her worst to him. She
was rather more angry than pleased at the well-meaning sheriffs
scepticism. "I would be laith to wish ony ill either to you or yours,
sir," she said; "for I kenna how it is, but something aye comes after my
words when I am ill-guided and speak ower fast." In short, she was
obstinate in claiming an influence over the destiny of others by words
and wishes, which might have in other times conveyed her to the stake,
for which her expressions, their consequences, and her disposition to
insist upon their efficacy, would certainly of old have made her a fit
victim. At present the story is scarcely worth mentioning, but as it
contains material resembling those out of which many tragic incidents
have arisen.

So low, in short, is now the belief in witchcraft, that perhaps it is
only received by those half-crazy individuals who feel a species of
consequence derived from accidental coincidences, which, were they
received by the community in general, would go near, as on former
occasions, to cost the lives of those who make their boast of them. At
least one hypochondriac patient is known to the author, who believes
himself the victim of a gang of witches, and ascribes his illness to
their charms, so that he wants nothing but an indulgent judge to awake
again the old ideas of sorcery.




LETTER X.

    Other Mystic Arts independent of Witchcraft--Astrology--Its
    Influence during the 16th and 17th Centuries--Base Ignorance of
    those who practised it--Lilly's History of his Life and
    Times--Astrologer's Society--Dr. Lamb--Dr. Forman--Establishment of
    the Royal Society--Partridge--Connexion of Astrologers with
    Elementary Spirits--Dr. Dun--Irish Superstition of the
    Banshie--Similar Superstition in the
    Highlands--Brownie--Ghosts--Belief of Ancient Philosophers on that
    Subject--Inquiry into the respect due to such Tales in Modern
    Times--Evidence of a Ghost against a Murderer--Ghost of Sir George
    Villiers--Story of Earl St. Vincent--Of a British General
    Officer--Of an Apparition in France--Of the Second Lord
    Lyttelton--Of Bill Jones--Of Jarvis Matcham--Trial of two
    Highlanders for the Murder of Sergeant Davis, discovered by a
    Ghost--Disturbances at Woodstock, anno 1649--Imposture called the
    Stockwell Ghost--Similar Case in Scotland--Ghost appearing to an
    Exciseman--Story of a Disturbed House discovered by the firmness of
    the Proprietor--Apparition at Plymouth--A Club of
    Philosophers--Ghost Adventure of a Farmer--Trick upon a Veteran
    Soldier--Ghost Stories recommended by the Skill of the Authors who
    compose them--Mrs. Veal's Ghost--Dunton's Apparition
    Evidence--Effect of Appropriate Scenery to Encourage a Tendency to
    Superstition--Differs at distant Periods of Life--Night at Glammis
    Castle about 1791--Visit to Dunvegan in 1814.


While the vulgar endeavoured to obtain a glance into the darkness of
futurity by consulting the witch or fortune-teller, the great were
supposed to have a royal path of their own, commanding a view from a
loftier quarter of the same _terra incognita_. This was represented as
accessible by several routes. Physiognomy, chiromancy, and other
fantastic arts of prediction afforded each its mystical assistance and
guidance. But the road most flattering to human vanity, while it was at
the same time most seductive to human credulity, was that of astrology,
the queen of mystic sciences, who flattered those who confided in her
that the planets and stars in their spheres figure forth and influence
the fate of the creatures of mortality, and that a sage acquainted with
her lore could predict, with some approach to certainty, the events of
any man's career, his chance of success in life or in marriage, his
advance in favour of the great, or answer any other horary questions, as
they were termed, which he might be anxious to propound, provided always
he could supply the exact moment of his birth. This, in the sixteenth
and greater part of the seventeenth centuries, was all that was
necessary to enable the astrologer to erect a scheme of the position of
the heavenly bodies, which should disclose the life of the interrogator,
or Native, as he was called, with all its changes, past, present, and to
come.

Imagination was dazzled by a prospect so splendid; and we find that in
the sixteenth century the cultivation of this fantastic science was the
serious object of men whose understandings and acquirements admit of no
question. Bacon himself allowed the truth which might be found in a
well-regulated astrology, making thus a distinction betwixt the art as
commonly practised and the manner in which it might, as he conceived, be
made a proper use of. But a grave or sober use of this science, if even
Bacon could have taught such moderation, would not have suited the
temper of those who, inflamed by hopes of temporal aggrandizement,
pretended to understand and explain to others the language of the stars.
Almost all the other paths of mystic knowledge led to poverty; even the
alchemist, though talking loud and high of the endless treasures his art
was to produce, lived from day to day and from year to year upon hopes
as unsubstantial as the smoke of his furnace. But the pursuits of the
astrologer were such as called for instant remuneration. He became rich
by the eager hopes and fond credulity of those who consulted him, and
that artist lived by duping others, instead of starving, like others, by
duping himself. The wisest men have been cheated by the idea that some
supernatural influence upheld and guided them; and from the time of
Wallenstein to that of Buonaparte, ambition and success have placed
confidence in the species of fatalism inspired by a belief of the
influence of their own star. Such being the case, the science was little
pursued by those who, faithful in their remarks and reports, must soon
have discovered its delusive vanity through the splendour of its
professions; and the place of such calm and disinterested pursuers of
truth was occupied by a set of men sometimes ingenious, always forward
and assuming, whose knowledge was imposition, whose responses were, like
the oracles of yore, grounded on the desire of deceit, and who, if
sometimes they were elevated into rank and fortune, were more frequently
found classed with rogues and vagabonds. This was the more apt to be the
case that a sufficient stock of impudence, and some knowledge by rote of
the terms of art, were all the store of information necessary for
establishing a conjurer. The natural consequence of the degraded
character of the professors was the degradation of the art itself.
Lilly, who wrote the history of his own life and times, notices in that
curious volume the most distinguished persons of his day, who made
pretensions to astrology, and almost without exception describes them as
profligate, worthless, sharking cheats, abandoned to vice, and imposing,
by the grossest frauds, upon the silly fools who consulted them. From
what we learn of his own history, Lilly himself, a low-born ignorant
man, with some gloomy shades of fanaticism in his temperament, was
sufficiently fitted to dupe others, and perhaps cheated himself merely
by perusing, at an advanced period of life, some of the astrological
tracts devised by men of less cunning, though perhaps more pretence to
science, than he himself might boast. Yet the public still continue to
swallow these gross impositions, though coming from such unworthy
authority. The astrologers embraced different sides of the Civil War,
and the king on one side, with the Parliamentary leaders on the other,
were both equally curious to know, and eager to believe, what Lilly,
Wharton, or Gadbury had discovered from the heavens touching the fortune
of the strife. Lilly was a prudent person, contriving with some address
to shift the sails of his prophetic bark so as to suit the current of
the time, and the gale of fortune. No person could better discover from
various omens the course of Charles's misfortunes, so soon as they had
come to pass. In the time of the Commonwealth he foresaw the perpetual
destruction of the monarchy, and in 1660 this did not prevent his
foreseeing the restoration of Charles II. He maintained some credit even
among the better classes, for Aubrey and Ashmole both called themselves
his friends, being persons extremely credulous, doubtless, respecting
the mystic arts. Once a year, too, the astrologers had a public dinner
or feast, where the knaves were patronised by the company of such fools
as claimed the title of Philomaths--that is, lovers of the mathematics,
by which name were still distinguished those who encouraged the pursuit
of mystical prescience, the most opposite possible to exact science.
Elias Ashmole, the "most honourable Esquire," to whom Lilly's life is
dedicated, seldom failed to attend; nay, several men of sense and
knowledge honoured this rendezvous. Congreve's picture of a man like
Foresight, the dupe of astrology and its sister arts, was then common in
society. But the astrologers of the 17th century did not confine
themselves to the stars. There was no province of fraud which they did
not practise; they were scandalous as panders, and as quacks sold
potions for the most unworthy purposes. For such reasons the common
people detested the astrologers of the great as cordially as they did
the more vulgar witches of their own sphere.

Dr. Lamb, patronised by the Duke of Buckingham, who, like other
overgrown favourites, was inclined to cherish astrology, was in 1640
pulled to pieces in the city of London by the enraged populace, and his
maid-servant, thirteen years afterwards, hanged as a witch at Salisbury.
In the villanous transaction of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in
King James's time, much mention was made of the art and skill of Dr.
Forman, another professor of the same sort with Lamb, who was consulted
by the Countess of Essex on the best mode of conducting her guilty
intrigue with the Earl of Somerset. He was dead before the affair broke
out, which might otherwise have cost him the gibbet, as it did all
others concerned, with the exception only of the principal parties, the
atrocious authors of the crime. When the cause was tried, some little
puppets were produced in court, which were viewed by one party with
horror, as representing the most horrid spells. It was even said that
the devil was about to pull down the court-house on their being
discovered. Others of the audience only saw in them the baby figures on
which the dressmakers then, as now, were accustomed to expose new
fashions.

The erection of the Royal Society, dedicated to far different purposes
than the pursuits of astrology, had a natural operation in bringing the
latter into discredit; and although the credulity of the ignorant and
uninformed continued to support some pretenders to that science, the
name of Philomath, assumed by these persons and their clients, began to
sink under ridicule and contempt. When Sir Richard Steele set up the
paper called the _Guardian_, he chose, under the title of Nestor
Ironside, to assume the character of an astrologer, and issued
predictions accordingly, one of which, announcing the death of a person
called Partridge, once a shoemaker, but at the time the conductor of an
Astrological Almanack, led to a controversy, which was supported with
great humour by Swift and other wags. I believe you will find that this,
with Swift's Elegy on the same person, is one of the last occasions in
which astrology has afforded even a jest to the good people of England.

This dishonoured science has some right to be mentioned in a "Treatise
on Demonology," because the earlier astrologers, though denying the use
of all necromancy--that is, unlawful or black magic--pretended always to
a correspondence with the various spirits of the elements, on the
principles of the Rosicrucian philosophy. They affirmed they could bind
to their service, and imprison in a ring, a mirror, or a stone, some
fairy, sylph, or salamander, and compel it to appear when called, and
render answers to such questions as the viewer should propose. It is
remarkable that the sage himself did not pretend to see the spirit; but
the task of viewer, or reader, was entrusted to a third party, a boy or
girl usually under the years of puberty. Dr. Dee, an excellent
mathematician, had a stone of this kind, and is said to have been
imposed upon concerning the spirits attached to it, their actions and
answers, by the report of one Kelly who acted as his viewer. The
unfortunate Dee was ruined by his associates both in fortune and
reputation. His show-stone or mirror is still preserved among other
curiosities in the British Museum. Some superstition of the same kind
was introduced by the celebrated Count Cagliostro, during the course of
the intrigue respecting the diamond necklace in which the late Marie
Antoinette was so unfortunately implicated.

Dismissing this general class of impostors, who are now seldom heard of,
we come now briefly to mention some leading superstitions once, perhaps,
common to all the countries of Europe, but now restricted to those which
continue to be inhabited by an undisturbed and native race. Of these,
one of the most beautiful is the Irish fiction which assigns to certain
families of ancient descent and distinguished rank the privilege of a
Banshie, as she is called, or household fairy, whose office it is to
appear, seemingly mourning, while she announces the approaching death of
some one of the destined race. The subject has been so lately and
beautifully investigated and illustrated by Mr. Crofton Croker and
others, that I may dispense with being very particular regarding it. If
I am rightly informed, the distinction of a banshie is only allowed to
families of the pure Milesian stock, and is never ascribed to any
descendant of the proudest Norman or boldest Saxon who followed the
banner of Earl Strongbow, much less to adventurers of later date who
have obtained settlements in the Green Isle.

Several families of the Highlands of Scotland anciently laid claim to
the distinction of an attendant spirit who performed the office of the
Irish banshie. Amongst them, however, the functions of this attendant
genius, whose form and appearance differed in different cases, were not
limited to announcing the dissolution of those whose days were numbered.
The Highlanders contrived to exact from them other points of service,
sometimes as warding off dangers of battle; at others, as guarding and
protecting the infant heir through the dangers of childhood; and
sometimes as condescending to interfere even in the sports of the
chieftain, and point out the fittest move to be made at chess, or the
best card to be played at any other game. Among those spirits who have
deigned to vouch their existence by appearance of late years, is that of
an ancestor of the family of MacLean of Lochbuy. Before the death of any
of his race the phantom-chief gallops along the sea-beach near to the
castle, announcing the event by cries and lamentations. The spectre is
said to have rode his rounds and uttered his death-cries within these
few years, in consequence of which the family and clan, though much
shocked, were in no way surprised to hear by next accounts that their
gallant chief was dead at Lisbon, where he served under Lord Wellington.