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had rendered him eagerly inquisitive after supernatural agencies, in which he had been trained from infancy to believe. He appears to have furnished himself with all the magical lumber of the times; and from this, together with his small gleanings on the spot, to have drawn up his Dialogue, on which he apparently prided himself not a little. But James was an honest man; those who made him credulous could not make him cruel and unjust; and many things occurred, which disturbed his confidence in his creed, before he came to the throne of this kingdom. It may be reasonably doubted, whether there was an individual in England who cared less about witches than James I., at the moment of his accession. In the Act which made witchcraft felony, he rather followed than led, and was pushed on by some of the wisest and best men of the age, who could scarcely restrain their impatience for the reenactment of the old severities. Even then, the King hesitated; and the Bill was recalled and recast three several times. Yet we are required to believe that witchcraft was scarcely heard of in this country, "till the example of the sapient James made the subject popular!"

It is equally false, that the reprint of the Demonologie, which appeared in Scotland more than thirty years before the date of Ford's play, encouraged the publication of works of this kind. There were far more treatises on the subject of sorcery, witchcraft, &c. published under Elizabeth, than under James; many of them drawn up by profound and elaborate scholars. However this be, James, as has been already observed, had greatly altered his creed before he left Scotland, and not long after renounced it altogether. Fuller, in his Church History, speaks in yet stronger terms of this monarch's disbelief in witchcraft; and even Hutchinson admits, (page 216,) that "he came off very much from the notion, in his elder years." The sullen republican, Osborne, who was strongly prejudiced

against James, has yet the honesty to give an anecdote, on his own knowledge, in which the King, by his personal investigation of an imposture, (and, indeed, adds Osborne, "I must confess he was the promptest man living in detecting an imposture,") saved the life of a poor old woman whom his wise justices would have hung for a witch. The truth is, that his well-meaning curiosity (unkingly as it may be thought) rendered it unsafe to play those paltry juggles with him by which so many innocents suffered under other rulers. So far, indeed, were witches from being hunted down without mercy under James, that, after the Lancashire trials in 1612, (with which, by the way, he had nothing to do,) they appear to have been almost forgotten: and it was not till the fanatics of the Long Parliament (twenty years after the decease of this monarch) had taken all power into their own hands, that the "hunters" were let slip, and stimulated to the pursuit and destruction of these miserable creatures, "in every part of the kingdom,' without mercy." In the twenty-three years which James sat on the English throne, it may be fairly questioned whether so many witches suffered death: No, no, it was not this calumniated prince, who, in 1645,* dispatched that monster of stupidity and blood, Hopkins, the witchfinder, and Stern, accompanied by two Puritan ministers, and occasionally assisted, as it appears, by Mr. Calamy, "to see there was no fraud or wrong done"! and the good Mr. Baxter, who took no small satisfaction in the process. "The hanging of a great number of witches," as the latter says, "by the discovery

* The Editor of the last edition of the State Trials observes, with great naïveté, "Witches seem to have abounded in England more than usual about the middle of the seventeenth century:" they do so; but he should have remembered, that James, the object of his spleen, is not accountable for this.Vol. iv. p. 819.

Hutchinson marks, with just indignation, (87,) the slight manner in which this most credulous and unfeeling puritan (who experienced no "compunctious visitings" to the last) notices the brutal sacrifice of these poor creatures; and,

of Hopkins in 1645, 1646, is famously known." And, indeed, so it ought to be; for it was famously performed. In Suffolk, and the neighbouring counties, in two years only, Mr. Ady says there were nearly a hundred hanged ;* Hutchinson computes them at above fourscore; Butler says, that, within the first year, threescore were hung in one shire alone; and Zachary Grey affirms, that he "had seen a list of those who suffered for witchcraft, during the Presbyterian domination of the Long Parliament, amounting to more than three thousand names!" Yet we hear of nothing but the persecution of witches by "the sapient James;" and this base and sottish calumny is repeated from pen to pen, without fear and without

shame!

G. 493. W. 444.

Read:

those remote places.

those remoter places. And for,

when he has been three days absent-Read, when he has been but three days absent. The force of the expression depends upon it.

G. 494. W. 445.-Thou'st the way.

Read: Thou know'st the way.

G. 498. W. 448.-In sins and mischief.
Read: In sins and mischiefs.

G. 499. W. 449.—

the dowry of our sin.

This is altogether wrong. Read:

the dowry of my sin. Frank alludes to the marriage portion which he had just received with Susan.

above all, the careless contempt which he displays in speaking of "the hanging of an old reading (so marked by Baxter) parson, named Lowes."—p. 80. He had two imps, it seems; but this was not the worst of him; he was a malignant, and read Homilies!

It might almost raise a smile in these times, if the subject were not of so horrible a cast, to mark the easy manner in which Whitelocke, the Parliamentary Commissioner, in his Memorials, records the transactions of the day. “July 25th, 1645, twenty witches in Norfolk executed!" And thus he goes on. I have not the heart to proceed with his list of victims; but they must amount to many hundreds. "In one village," he says, in 1650, "out of fourteen families, fourteen individuals were burned for witches." And so the saints drove merrily on.-Poor James!

G. 501. W.450.-Oh, God!

Read: O gods!

G. 503. W. 451.-Any loose lubrick 'scapes in him. singular use of the word lubrick, as a substantive."

"This is a

Unluckily for Mr. Weber's grammatical accuracy, lubrique is not a substantive; nor is scapes, as he supposes, a verb. But the passage is too plain for more words. In the same page, for and counsel, read good counsel.

G. 507. W. 455.-Thou art my husband, death; I embrace thee. This spoils the metre; read:

Thou art my husband, death, and I embrace

thee!

G. 508. W. 455.—And may he better die, and sweeter live. What obliquity of intellect could lead to this ridiculous corruption of a pathetic and impressive passage! Read:

And may he better die, and better live!

G. 510. W. 457.-The others branch'd velvet.

Read: The other's cloak branch'd velvet.

Although Mr. Weber omits the principal word in this short passage, he is careful to inform us, in a note, that "branch'd velvet is velvet with figures stamped upon it!" What this means, he only knows. A branched cloak is a cloak with ornamental slips, (wings, as they are sometimes called by our old writers,) or fringes, dependent from the shoulders. "I inquired," Mr. Waldron says, "of a fashionable dress-maker the meaning of branched; and was told that it meant the tufts and other ornaments of a robe or gown."-See Jonson, vol. v. p. 425.

G. 512. IV. 458.-" Enter Cuddy, as Hobby Horse."

Good! But Cuddy enters as himself, bringing the hobby-horse in his hands.

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G.518. W.463.—For "What you call," read, "What do you call?" And for "breakedst my back," read, “brak'st my back."

G. 519. W. 464.-Let us have some mild questions:

Have

you mild answers!

For this strange stuff, read :

Let us, to some mild questions,

Have your mild answers.

The Justice speaks to Mother Sawyer.

G. 519. W. 464.-You speak too!

Read:

You speak to.

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G. 520. W. 465.-Give way; let her tongue, &c.
Read: Give way, and let her tongue.

G. 524. W. 468.-Oh, my ribs are made of a payn'd hose. "Paned hose are what would now be called ribbed breeches. The intended pun will be easily understood!"

To one of Mr. Weber's receiving, nothing is difficult. Paned hose, however, were a kind of trunk breeches, formed of stripes of various coloured cloth, occasionally intermixed with slips of silk or velvet, stitched together. The allusion in the text is to the facility with which they might be rent asunder.

G. 525. W. 469.-She beat out her brains.

Read:

She beat out her own brains.

G. 527. W. 471.-" Exit Banks, Rat. and Countrymen."
Very good! The 4to reads Exe.

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