harmless meteors which hover above moist and fenny places in the night-time, and emit a glimmering light, have been regarded as malicious spirits, endeavouring to deceive the bewildered traveller, and lead him to destruction. The ticking noise of the little insect called the death-watch-a screech-owl screaming at the window-a raven croaking over a housea dog howling in the night-time-a hare or a sow crossing the road-the meeting with a bitch with whelps, or a snake lying in the road-the falling of salt from a table-and even the curling of a fibre of tallow in a burning candle,* have been regarded with apprehensions of terror, as prognostics of impending disasters, or of approaching death.

In the Highlands of Scotland, the motions and appearances of the clouds were, not long ago, considered as ominous of disastrous events. On the evening before new year's day, if a black cloud appeared in any part of the horizon, it was thought to prognosticate a plague, a famine, or the death of some great man in that part of the country over which it seemed to hang; and in order to ascertain the place threatened by the omen, the motions of the cloud were often watched through the whole night. In the same country, the inhabitants regard certain days as unlucky, or ominous of bad fortune. That day of the week on which the 3d of May falls is deemed unlucky throughout the whole year. In the isle of Mull, ploughing, sowing, and reaping are always begun on Tuesday, though the most favourable weather for these purposes be in this way frequently lost. In Morven none will, upon any account, dig peat or turf for fuel on Friday. The age of the moon is also much attended to by the vulgar Highlanders; and an opinion prevails, that if a house take fire while the moon is in the decrease, the family will from that time decline in its circumstances, and sink into poverty.t

In England, it is reckoned a bad omen to break a lookingglass, as it is believed the party to whom it belongs will lose his best friend. In going a journey, if a sow cross the road, it is believed the party will meet either with a disappointment or a bodily accident before returning home. It is reckoned unlucky to see first one magpie, and then another; and to kill a magpie, it is believed, will certainly be

* Called in Scotland, the dead speal.
+ Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. Omen.

punished with some terrible misfortune. If a person meet a funeral procession, it is considered necessary always to take off the hat, which keeps all the evil spirits that attend the body in good-humour. If, in eating, a person miss his mouth, and the victuals fall, it is reckoned very unlucky, and ominous of approaching sickness. It is also considered as unlucky to present a knife, scissors, razor, or any sharp cutting instrument, to one's mistress or friend, as they are apt to cut love and friendship; and to find a knife or razor denotes ill luck or disappointment to the party.

Among the ancient nations, there was hardly any cir cumstance or occurrence, however trivial, from which they did not draw omens. This practice appears to have taken its rise in Egypt, the parent country of almost every superstition of paganism; but from whatever source it may have derived its origin, it spread itself over the whole inhabited globe, even among the most civilized nations, and at this day it prevails more or less among the vulgar in every coun try. Even kings and emperors, sages and heroes, have been seized with alarm at the most trivial circumstances, which they were taught to consider as ominous of bad fortune, or of impending danger. Suetonius says of Augus tus, that he believed implicitly in certain omens; and that, si mane sibi calceus perperam, ac sinister pro dextero inducereter, ut dirum,if his shoes were improperly put on in the morning, especially if the left shoe was put upon his right foot, he held it for a bad omen."

Thus it appears, that the luminaries of heaven, the clouds, and other meteors that float in the atmosphere, the actions of animals, the seasons of the year, the days of the week, the most trivial incidents in human life, and many other circumstances, have afforded matter of false alarm t mankind. But this is not all: man, ever prone to disturb his own peace, notwithstanding the real evils he is doomed to suffer, has been ingenious enough to form imaginary monsters which have no existence, either in heaven or on earth, nor the least foundation in the scenes of external nature. He has not only drawn false conclusions from the objects which have a real existence, to increase his fears; but has created, in his imagination, an ideal world, and peopled it with spectres, hobgoblins, fairies, satyrs, imps, wraiths, genii, brownies, witches, wizards, and other fan

tastical beings, to whose caprices he believes his happiness and misery are subjected. An old wrinkled hag is supposed to have the power of rendering miserable all around her, who are the objects of her hatred. In her privy chamber, it is believed, she can roast and torment the absent, and inflict incurable disorders both on man and beast ;* she can transport herself through the air on a spit or a broomstick; or, when it serves her purpose, she can metamorphose herself into a cat or a hare; and by shaking a bridle over a person asleep, can transform him into a horse; and, mounted on this new-created steed, can traverse the air on the wings of the wind, and visit distant countries in the course of a night. A certain being called a fairy, though supposed to be at least two or three feet high, is believed to have the faculty of contracting its body, so as to pass through the keyhole of a door; and though they are a distinct species of beings from man, they have a strong fancy for children; and hence, in the Highlands of Scotland, new-born infants are watched till the christening is over, lest they should be stolen or exchanged by those fantastic existences. The regions of the air have been peopled with apparitions and terrific phantoms of different kinds, which stalk abroad at the dead hour of night to terrify the lonely traveller. In ruined castles and old houses, they are said to announce their appearance by a variety of loud and dreadful noises; sometimes rattling in the old hall like a coach and six, and rumbling up and down the staircase like the trundling of bowls or cannon-balls. Especially in lonely church-yards, in retired caverns, in deep forests and dells, horrid sounds are said to have been heard, and monstrous shapes to have appeared, by which whole villages have been thrown into consternation.t

* The reader will find abundance of relations of this kind in "Satan's Invisible World discovered," a book which was long read with avidity by the vulgar in this country, and which has frequently caused emotions of terror among youthful groups on winter evenings, while listening to its fearful relations, which could never be eradicated, and has rendered them cowards in the dark during all the subsequent periods of their lives.

That many of the superstitious opinions and practices above alluded to still prevail even within the limits of the British empire, appears from the following extract from the

Nor have such absurd notions been confined to the illiterate vulgar; men of considerable acquirements in literature, from ignorance of the laws of nature, have fallen into the same delusions. Formerly, a man who was endowed with considerable genius and knowledge was reckoned a magician. Doctor Bartolo was seized by the Inquisition at Rome, in the sixteenth century, because he unexpectedly cured a nobleman of the gout; and the illustrious Friar Bacon, because he was better acquainted with experimental philosophy than most persons of the age in which he lived, was suspected, even by the learned ecclesiastics, of having dealings with the devil. Diseases were at those times imputed to fascination, and hundreds of poor wretches were dragged to the stake for being accessory to them. Mercatus, physician to Philip II. of Spain, relates, that he

"In Staffordshire,

Monthly Magazine" for July, 1813, p. 496. they burn a calf in a farm-house alive, to prevent the other calves from dying. In the same county, a woman having kept a toad in a pot in her garden, her husband killed it, and she reproached him for it, saying, she intended the next Sunday to have taken the sacrament for the purpose of getting some of the bread to feed him with, and make him thereby a valuable familiar spirit to her. At Long Aston, a young farmer has several times predicted his own end, from what he calls being looked over; and his mother and father informed a friend of mine (says the relater) that they had sent to the white witch doctor, beyond Bridgewater, by the coachman, for a charm to cure him (having paid handsomely for it); but that he had now given him over, as her spells were more potent than his. If not dead, he is dying of mere fear, and all the parish of his class believe it. There is also, in that parish, an old man who sells gingerbread to the schools, who is always employed to cure the red water in cows, by means of charms and verses which he says to them. In the Marsh, we have water doctors who get rich; at the mines, diviners with rods, who find ores and water; and at Weston-super-Mare, they see lights before funerals, and are agreed that the people in that parish always die by threes, i. e. three old, three young, three men, three women, &c. Such are a part only of the superstitions of the west in 1813!"

Every one who is much conversant with the lower ranks of society will find that such notions are still current and believed by a considerable portion of the population, which is the only apology that can be made for stating and counteracting such opinions.

D

had seen a very beautiful woman break a steel mirror to pieces, and blast some trees by a single glance of her eyes! Josephus relates, that he saw a certain Jew, named Eleazar, draw the devil out of an old woman's nostrils, by the application of Solomon's seal to her nose, in the presence of Vespasian. Dr. Mynsight is said to have cured several bewitched persons with a plaster of asafoetida. How the asafoetida was efficacious was much disputed among the learned. Some thought the devil might consider such an application as an insult, and ran off in a passion; but others very sagely observed, that as devils were supposed to have eyes and ears, it was probable they might have noses too. James VI., who was famed for his polemics and theological acquirements, wrote a treatise in defence of witchcraft, and persecuted those who opposed his opinions on this subject. The pernicious effects in mines, occasioned by the explosion of hydrogen gas, were formerly imputed to the demons of the mine. Van Helmont, Bodinus, Strozza, and Luther attributed thunder and meteors to the devil. Socrates believed he was guided by a demon. Dr. Cudworth, Glanville, and others wrote in defence of witchcraft and apparitions. But it would be endless to detail all the foolish opinions which have been imbibed and propagated even by men who pretended to genius and learning.

Besides the opinions to which I have now adverted, and which have a direct tendency to fill the mind with unnecessary apprehensions, there is also an immense variety of foolish and erroneous opinions which pass current for genuine truths among a great majority of mankind. That a man has one rib less than a woman,-that there is a certain Jew still alive who has wandered through the world since the crucifixion of Christ,-that the coffin of Mahomet is suspended in the air between two loadstones, that the city of Jerusalem is in the centre of the world,-that the tenth wave of the sea is greater and more dangerous than all the rest, that all animals on the land have their corresponding kinds in the sea,-that there is a white powder which kills without giving a report,-that the blood of a goat will dissolve a diamond,-that all the stars derive their light from the sun, that a candle made of human fat, when lighted, will prevent a person asleep from awaking, with many other similar unfounded positions,-are regarded as indisputable