Chapter XIV: Part 14

This was written in 1560, and before the era of revolutions had
commenced even among ourselves. He penetrated into the important
principle merely by the force of his own meditation.

Footnote 34:

Vide Lectures on Phrenology, by Drs. Gall and Spurtzheim.

Footnote 35:

This word is supposed to be formed from the Greek ονομα, name; and
μαντεια, divination. There is in fact something rather singular in the
etymology; for, in strictness, Onomancy should rather signify
divination by asses, being formed from oνos, _asinus_ and μαντεια. To
signify divination by names it should be Onomatomancy.

Footnote 36:

PYTHIAN or PYTHIA, in antiquity, the priestess of Apollo, by whom he
delivered oracles. She was thus called from the god himself, who was
styled _Apollo Pythius_, from his slaying the serpent Python; or as
others will have it, αποτου ποδεσδαι, because Apollo, the sun, is the
cause of rottenness; or, according to others, from πυνδανομαι, _I
hear_, because people went to hear and consult his oracles.—The
priestess was to be a pure virgin. She sat on the covercle, or lid, of
a brazen vessel, mounted on a tripod; and thence, after a violent
enthusiasm, she delivered her oracles; _i. e._ she rehearsed a few
ambiguous and obscure verses, which were taken for oracles.

All the Pythiæ did not seem to have had the same talent at poetry, or
to have memory enough to retain their lesson.—Plutarch and Strabo make
mention of poets, who were kept in by Jupiter, as interpreters.

The solemn games instituted in honor of Apollo, and in memory of his
killing the serpent Python with his arrows, were called Pythia or
Pythian games.

Footnote 37:

The art of knowing the humour, temperament, or disposition of a
person, from observation of the lines of the face, and the character
of its members or features, is called Physiognomy. Baptist Porta and
Robert Fludd, are among the top modern authors, and it has since been
revived by Lavater, on this subject. The ancient authors are the
Sophist Adamantius, and Aristotle, whose treatise on Physiognomy is
translated into Latin by de Lacuna.

Footnote 38:

When the thoughts are much troubled, and when a person sleeps without
the circumstance of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as when
he nods in his chair; it is very difficult, as Hobbes remarks, to
distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes
himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily
suspects it to have been a dream.—LEVIATHAN, par. i. c. 1.

Footnote 39:

For the notion of this threefold soul, read the following verses
attributed to Ovid:—

Bis duo sunt nomini: MANES, CARO, SPIRITUS, UMBRA:
Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt,
Terra legit CARNEM, tumulum circumvolat UMBRA
Orcus habet MANES, SPIRITUS astra petit.

Footnote 40:

Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, book xv. chap. 39; also Discourse on
Devils and Spirits, chap. 28.

Footnote 41:

Philosophy of Apparitions, by Dr. Hibbert.

Footnote 42:

“As I sat in the pantry last night counting my spoons,” says the
butler, in the Comedy of the Drummer, “the candle, methought, burnt
blue, and the spay’d bitch look’d as if she saw something.”

Footnote 43:

The Friend, a series of Essays, by S. T. Coleridge, Esq. vol. I, page
248.

Footnote 44:

“There is a species to whom, in the Highlands, is ascribed the
guardianship or superintendence of a particular clan, or family of
distinction. Thus the family of Gurlinbeg was haunted by a spirit
called Garlen Bodachar; that of the Baron of Kilcharden by Sandear or
Red Hand, a spectre, one of whose hands is as red as blood; that of
Tullochgorum by May Moulach, a female figure, whose left hand and arm
were covered with hair, who is also mentioned as a familiar attendant
upon the clan Grant.” _Sir_ WALTER SCOTT’S BORDER MINSTRELSY.

Footnote 45:

In the year 1646 two hundred persons were tried, condemned, and
executed for witchcraft, at the Suffolk and Essex assizes; and in 1699
five persons were tried by special commission, at Paisley, in
Scotland, condemned and burnt alive, for the same imaginary crime.—
(See HOWELL’S _Letters_.)

Footnote 46:

It is rather an unfortunate circumstance that all the books, (and
there were several,) which treated of the arts of conjuration, as they
were practised among the ancients, not one is now extant, and all that
we know upon that subject has been collected from isolated facts which
have been incidentally mentioned in other writings. From these,
however, it would appear, that many of the deceptions which still
continue to excite astonishment, were then generally known.

Footnote 47:

Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart.

Footnote 48:

Glanvil was chaplain to his Majesty, and a fellow of the Royal
Society, and author of the work in question, entitled “SADUCESMUS
TRIUMPHATUS, or a full and plain evidence concerning witches and
apparitions,” in two parts, “proving partly by holy Scripture, and
partly by a choice collection of modern relations, the real existence
of apparitions, spirits, and witches.” Printed 1700.

Footnote 49:

Webster, another divine, wrote “Criticisms and interpretations of
Scripture,” against the existence of witches, &c.

Footnote 50:

This story must be accounted for some way or other; or belief in the
appearance of the apparitions must be credited. Either the miller
himself was the murderer, or he was privy to it, unperceived by the
actual perpetrators; or he might be an accomplice before the fact, or
at the time it was committed, but without having inflicted any of the
wounds. The compunctious visitings of his troubled conscience, the
dread of the law in the event of the disclosure, coming from any one
but himself, doubtless made him resolve to disburthen his guilty mind;
and pretended supernatural agency was the fittest channel that
presented itself for the occasion. That Walker and Sharp never
confessed any thing, ought not to be matter of wonder. There was no
evidence against them but the miller’s apparition, which, they were
well assured, would not be likely to appear against them; they were
determined therefore not to implicate themselves; well knowing, that
however the case stood, Graime the miller could not be convicted,
because, in the event of his story of the apparition being rejected,
they must be acquitted, although suspicion and the circumstances of
the pregnancy, &c. were against them; and again, if the miller had
declared himself, after this, as evidence for the crown, his
testimony, if taken at all, would be received with the greatest
caution and distrust; the result might, in fact, have been, that the
strongest suspicions would have fallen upon him as the real murderer
of Anne Clarke; for which, under every consideration of the case, he
might not unjustly have been tried, condemned, and executed. The
statement of Lumley proves nothing that was not generally known. That
Anne Clarke was murdered was well known, but by whom nobody ever knew.
She afterwards appeared to the miller; and why to the miller in
preference to any one else, unless he had had the least hand in it?
and with the exception of Sharp and Walker, the only living being who
was thoroughly acquainted with the catastrophe, but who himself was,
in fact, as guilty as either of the other two.

The Mr. Fanhair, who swore he saw “the likeness of a child standing
upon Walker’s shoulders” during the trial, ought to have been freely
blooded, cupped, purged, and dieted, for a month or two, until the
vapours of his infantile imagination had learned to condense
themselves within their proper focus: then, and then only, might his
oath have been listened to. Besides, the _child_ could only be a
fœtus, at what period of gestation we are not told, and to have
appeared in proper form, it ought to have had its principal appendage
with it—the mother. The two, however, might have been two heavy for
Walker’s shoulders: nevertheless, the gallantry of the times,
certainly, would not have refused her a seat in the dock alongside her
guilty paramour; or a chair in the witness’-box, if she came to appear
as evidence against him.

Footnote 51:

By Mumia is here understood, that which was used by some ancient
physicians for some kind of implanted spirit, found chiefly in
carcases, when the infused spirit is fled; or kind of sympathetic
influence, communicated from one body to another, by which magnetic
cures, &c. were said to be performed. Now, however, deservedly
exploded.

Footnote 52:

For a curious specimen of this _odium theologicum_, see the “Censure”
of the Sorbonne on Marmontel’s Belisarius.

Footnote 53:

This king is invoked in the first part of Shakspeare’s play of Henry
the Sixth, after the following manner:—

“You speedy helpers that are substitutes
Under the lordly monarch of the North—
Appear!”

Footnote 54:

This description is taken from an ancient Latin poem, describing the
lamentable vision of a devoted hermit, and supposed to have been
written by St. Bernard, in the year 1238; a translation of which was
printed for private distribution by William Yates, Esq. of Manchester.

Footnote 55:

Sir Thomas Brown, who thinks that this view may be confirmed by
expositions of Holy Scripture, remarks, that, “whereas it is said,
thou shalt not offer unto devils; (the original word is seghuirim),
that is, rough and hairy goats, because in that shape the devil must
have often appeared, as is expounded by the Rabin; as Tremellius hath
also explained; and as the word Ascemah, the god of Emath, is by some
conceived.”

Footnote 56:

See an interesting dissertation on this subject, in Douce’s
Illustrations of Shakspeare, Vol. i. p. 382. It is also noticed in the
Border Minstrelsy, Vol. ii. p. 197.

Footnote 57:

Dio of Syracuse was visited by one of the furies in person, whose
appearance the soothsayers regarded as indicative of the death which
occurred of his son, as well as his own dissolution.

Footnote 58:

Sir Walter Scott has supposed that this mythological account of the
duergar bears a remote allusion to real history, having an ultimate
reference to the oppressed Fins, who, before the arrival of the
invaders, under the conduct of Odin, were the prior possessors of
Scandinavia. The followers of this hero saw a people, who knew how to
work the mines of the country better than they did; and, therefore,
from a superstitious regard, transformed them into spirits of an
unfavourable character, dwelling in the interior of rocks, and
surrounded with immense riches.—_Border Minstrelsy_, v. ii. p. 179.

Footnote 59:

It is said that, in Orkney, they were often seen clad in complete
armour.—_Brand’s description of Orkney._ 8vo. Edinburgh, 1701. p. 63.

Footnote 60:

In Germany, probably for similar reasons, the dwarfs have acquired the
name of _elves_—a word, observes Mr. Douce, derived from the Teutonic
of _helfin_, which etymologists have translated _juvare_.

Footnote 61:

Minstrelsy of the Scottish border, vol. ii. page 215.

Footnote 62:

Before dismissing this subject of fairies, I shall slightly advert to
the strange blending which took place of Grecian and Teutonic fables.
“We find,” says Sir Walter Scott, “the elves accordingly arrayed in
the costume of Greece and Rome, and the fairy queen and her attendants
transformed into Diana and her nymphs, and invested with their
attributes and appropriate insignia.” Mercury was also named by
Harsenet, in the year 1602, the prince of the fairies.

Footnote 63:

“He would chafe exceedingly,” says Scot, “if the maid or good wife of
the house, having compassion of his nakedness, laid ani cloths for him
besides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing
fee. For in that case he saith, what have we here? Hempton hamten,
here will I never more tread nor stampen.”

Footnote 64:

Bellus speaks with contempt of this petty instance of malevolence to
the human race: “stones are thrown down from the air,” he remarks,
“which do no harm, the devils having little strength, and being mere
scarecrows.” So much for the origin of meteoric stones.

Footnote 65:

See Hibbert’s Philosophy of Apparitions.

Footnote 66:

Grellman’s History of the Gipsies.

Footnote 67:

Grellman’s opinion seems extremely plausible, that they are of the
lowest class of Indians, called _suders_, and that they left India
when Timur Bag ravaged that country in 1408 and 1409, putting to death
immense numbers of all ranks of people.

Footnote 68:

Mr. Marsden first made inquiries among the English Gipsies concerning
their language.—_Vide_ Archæologia, vol. ii. p. 382–386. Mr. Coxe
communicated a vocabulary of words used by those of Hungary.—See the
same vol. of the Archæologia, p. 387. Vocabularies of the German
Gipsies may be seen in Grellman’s Book. Any person wishing to be
convinced of this similarity of language, and being possessed of a
vocabulary of words used in Hindostan, may be satisfied of its truth
by conversing with the first Gipsey he meets.

Footnote 69:

Margaret Finch, a celebrated modern adventuress, was buried October
24, 1740, at Beckenham, in Kent. This remarkable person lived to the
age of 109 years. She was one of the people called Gipsies, and had
the title of their queen. After travelling over various parts of the
kingdom, during the greater part of a century, she settled at Norwood,
a place notorious for vagrants of this description, whither her great
age and the fame of her fortune-telling, attracted numerous visitors.
From a habit of sitting on the ground, with her chin resting on her
knees, the sinews at length became so contracted, that she could not
rise from that posture. After her death they were obliged to inclose
her body in a deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two
mourning coaches, a sermon was preached on the occasion; and a great
concourse of people attended the ceremony.

There is an engraved portrait of Margaret Finch, from a drawing made
in 1739. Her picture adorned the sign of a house of public
entertainment in Norwood, called the Gipsey house, which was situated
in a small green, in a valley, surrounded by woods. On this green, a
few families of Gipsies used to pitch their tents, during the summer
season. In winter they either procure lodgings in London, or take up
their abode in barns, in some of the more distant counties. In a
cottage that adjoined the Gipsey house, lived an old woman,
granddaughter of Queen Margaret, who inherited her title. She was
niece of Queen Budget, who was buried (_see Lysons_, vol i. p. 107.)
at Dulwich, in 1768. Her rank seemed, however, to be merely titular;
nor do we find that the gipsies paid her any particular respect, or
that she differed in any other manner than that of being a
householder, from the rest of her tribe.—

Footnote 70:

A private dwelling house.

Footnote 71:

The woods, hedges or bushes.

Footnote 72:

His wench, &c.

Footnote 73:

Clothes.

Footnote 74:

Hens.

Footnote 75:

Turkies.

Footnote 76:

Young Pigs.

Footnote 77:

Geese.

Footnote 78:

Plunder, goods, or money acquired by theft.

Footnote 79:

Legend is also used by authors to signify the words or letters
engraven about the margins, &c. of coins. It is also applied to the
inscription of medals, of which it serves to explain the figures or
devices. In point of strictness the legend differs from the
inscription, the latter properly signifying words instead of figures
placed on the reverse of a medal.

Footnote 80:

See Geddes’s Tracts.

Footnote 81:

See Geddes’s Tracts.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

96 תגת הגה.

143 μαν εια μαντεια

144 χλησων κληδων

149 γε γη

152 υαvτεiα μαντεια

171 ΦΥΣΙΟΤΝΩΜΙΑ ΦΥΣΙΟΓΝΩΜΙΑ

229 קסומי נאלי באוכ קסומי נא לי באוב

מעינן מעונן

230 הש נחש

232 חיבר חבר נחשחובר חבר

חיבר חבר חובר חבר

ἐπὰδων ἐπάδων

233 חיבר חובר

מחכם אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר
חובר חברים חברים מחכם

חיבר חבר חובר חבר

234 שיאל אוב שואל אוב

Ἐγγαϛείμυθος Ἐγγαστρίμυθος

שיאל אוב שואל אוב

Ἐγγαϛείμυθος Ἐγγαστρίμυθος

235 כהם אוב בהם אוב

באיב באוב

Ἐγγαϛείμυθῳ Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ

236 בעלת איב בעלת אוב

בעלת איב בעלת אוב

איב אוב

חיבר חבר חובר חבר

237 ירעני ידעני

יעשח איב וידעני יעשה אוב וידעני

איב אוב

בעלת בוא בעלת אוב

239 איב כעלוה בעליה אוב

הטהגים המהגים

243 הרטמים חרטמים

מבשפים מכשפים

חבטים חכמים

להש להט

דהט חדב להט חרב

245 בלהטוהם קסומי־נא לי

איב אוב

Ohh Obh

μαντεϊον μαντεῖον

Ὅπ θεασάμπνυον τὸ γύναιον ἅνδρa Ὅτι θεασάμενον τὸ γύναιον ἄνδρa
246 σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται, σεμνὸν καὶ θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται,
καὶ πρὸς την ὅψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ καὶ πρὸς την ὄψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ
σὺ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σάουλος σύ, φησὶν, ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σαοῦλος

247 אלהום אלהים

Elochim Elohim

249 ידץ ידע

250 διπλοίδα ἱεραπκηὶ διπλοΐδα ἱερατικήν

251 Θεῷτηὶ μερηὶ ὅμοιος Θεῷ τὴν μορφὴν ὅμοιος

292 חולם עולם

holam gnolam

לחולם לעולם

leholam legnolam

256 θoοὺς θεοὺς

1. Note that in the author's Hebrew transliterations 'hh' indicates a hard 'aitch'. 2. Note that in the author's Hebrew transliterations 'gn' indicates a (silent) hard glottal-stop. 3. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 4. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 5. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 7. Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.