Admitting their principles to be true, they act wisely: they keep their end, evil as it is, steadily in view. Regers.

WISDOM usually denotes a higher and more refined notion of things immediately presented to the mind, as it were by intuition, without the assistance of ratiocination. Sometimes the word is more immediately used in a moral sense, for what we call prudence or discretion, which consists in the soundness of the judgment, and a conduct answerable thereto.

WISDOM OF SOLOMON, one of the books of the apocrypha. It abounds with Platonic language, and was probably written after the Caballistic philosophy was introduced among the Jews.

WISE (Francis), B. D. and F. S. A., was fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and assistant to Dr. Hudson in the Bodleian library. He became rector of Rotherfield Grays in Oxfordshire, keeper of the archives of the university, and Radcliffe librarian. He published Annales Elfridi Magni, 4to.; Enquiries concerning the First Inhabitants of Europe, 4to.; and Observations on the fabulous Times,

4to. He died in 1677.

WISH, v.n., v. a., & n. s.
WISH ER, N. s.
WISHFUL, adj.

Sax. pircian. To have strong desire;

Lifting up one of my sashes, I cast many a u
melancholy look towards the sea.
WIT, v. n. & n. s.
WITCRACKER, N. S.
WITLESS, adj.
WIT LING, n. s.
WITTICISM,
WITTY, adj.
WITTILY, adv.

pitan, to know; Be wetan; Mod. Go witan. To know used now only in te phrase 'to wit,' Le to make known, tin Jis to say: the reti

WITTINESS, n. s. faculties; the intellect; the imagination; f sentiments produced by rapid fancy of imagination; a man of such fancy in the piza, sound mind or understanding: contrivance; tagem: a witcracker and witling is a retailer of witticism, a smart or witty saying: witty, acute; fanciful: the adverb and noun substante correspond.

No less deserveth his wittiness in devising, his p wiseness.

(long; be disposed ness in uttering, his pastoral rudeness, and his z

WISH FULLY, adv.
or inclined; to long
for; desire; recommend by desiring; ask; a long-
ing desire; desire expressed; thing desired: the
derivatives all correspond.

They have more than heart could wish. Ps. lxxiii. 7.
Wishers and woulders are never good householders.
Proverbs.

I wish it may not prove some ominous foretoken of
misfortune, to have met with such a miser as I am.
Sidney.
With half that wish the wisher's eyes he pressed.
Shakspeare.

From Scotland am I stolen, even of pure love, To greet mine own land with my wishful sight. Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

Id.

Id.

Chapman.

I would not wish them to a fairer death.
Nor could I see a soile, where e'er I came,
More sweete and wishfull.
Digby should find the best way to make Antrim
communicate the affair to him, and to wish his assis-

tance.

Clarendon.

Spee

Why then should witless man so much miswee That nothing is but that which he hath seen! There is an officer, to wit, the sheriff of the shi whose office is to walk up and down his bailiwick,

How can it chuse but bring the simple to their end? how can it chuse but vex and amaze then! Hak

Shakspe

Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is
Unable to support this lump of clay,
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave;
As witting I no other comfort have.
The king your father was reputed for
A prince most prudent, of an excellent
And unmatched wit and judgment.

The old hermit, that never saw pen and ink, wittily said to a niece of king Gordubuck, that the is.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause t is in other men.

A college of witcrackers cannot flout me out humour; dost thou think I care for a satire or a gram?

Will puts in practice what the wit deviseth; Will ever acts, and wit contemplates still;

And, as from wit the power of wisdom riseth, All other virtues daughters are of will.

E

Will is the prince, and wit the counsellor Which doth for common good in counsel sit; And, wher wit is resolved, will lends her power Devis

To execute what is advised by wit.

His works become the trippery of wit. Ben Jo
He kept us slaves, by which we fitly prove
Thai witless pity breedeth fruitless love.
Farts

Hence 'tis a wit, the greatest word of fame,
Grows such a common name;
And wits by our creation they become,
Just so as titular bishops made at Rome.
No man in his wits can make any doubt whether

of bodies.

Wilkins. Sleights from his wit and subtlety proceed. Milton. Wickedness is voluntary frenzy, and every sinner does more extravagant things than any man that is crazed and out of his wits, only that he knows better what he

does.

Tillotson.

be such things as motion, and sensation, and continuity beginning: It may be demanded what the thing we speak of is? or what this facetiousness (or wit as he calls it before) doth import? To which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man. Tis that which we all see and know.' Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. We recommend the whole passage to the reader.

The definition of wit is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or, in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject.

But is there any other beast that lives, Who his own harm so wittily contrives?

Dryden.

Id.

We have a libertine fooling even in his last agonies, with a witticism between his teeth, without any regard to sobriety and conscience. L'Estrange.

Intemperate wits will spare neither friend nor foe,

and make themselves the common enemies of mankind.

WIT is a quality of certain thoughts and expressions much easier perceived than defined. According to Mr. Locke, wit lies in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions to the fancy. Mr. Addison limited this definition considerably, by observing, that every resemblance of ideas does not constitute wit, but those only which produce delight and surprise. Mr. Pope defined wit to be a quick conception and an easy delivery; while, according to a late writer, it consists in an assimilation of distant ideas. The word wit originally signified wisdom. A witte was anciently a wise man. See WITENAGEMOT. So late as the reign of Elizabeth, a man of pregnant wit, of great wit, was a man of vast judgment. We still say, in his wits, out of his wits,

for in or out of sound mind.

It is evident that wit excites in the mind an agreeable surprise, and that this is owing entirely to the strange assemblage of related ideas presented to the mind. This end is effected, 1. By debasing things pompous or seemingly grave; 2. By aggrandising things little or frivolous; 3. By setting ordinary objects in a particular and uncommon point of view, by means not only remote but apparently contrary. Of so much consequence are surprise and novelty, that nothing is more tasteless, and sometimes disgusting, than a joke that has become stale by frequent repetition. For the same reason, even a pun or happy allusion will appear excellent when thrown out extempore in conversation, which would be deemed execrable in print. In like manner, a witty repartee is infinitely more pleasing than a witty attack: for though, in both cases, the thing may be equally new to the reader or hearer, the effect on him is greatly injured when there is access to suppose that it may be the slow production of study and premeditation.. The most comprehensive and lively account of these entertaining qualities which we have yet met with is in Dr. Barrow's Sermons, vol. ii. serm. 14,

Satirical wit is thus well described :-
:-
'True wit is like the polished stone

Dug from Golconda's mine,

Which boasts two different powers in one;
To cut as well as shine.'

WIT (John de), was the son of Jacob de Wit,
burgomaster of Dort, and was born in 1625. He
became well skilled in civil law, politics, mathe-
matics, and other sciences; and wrote a treatise on
the Elements of Curved Lines. Having taken his
degree of LL. D., he travelled into foreign coun-
tries, where he became esteemed for his genius and
prudence. At his return to his native country, in
1650, he became pensionary of Dort, then counsel-
lor-pensionary of Holland and West Friesland,
intendant and register of the fiefs, and keeper of
the great seal. He was thus at the head of affairs
in Holland; but his opposition to the re-establish-
ment of the office of stadtholder, which he thought
a violation of the freedom and independence of
the republic, cost him his life, when the prince of
Orange's party prevailed. He and his brother
Cornelius were assassinated by the populace at the
Hague in 1674, aged forty-seven.
WITCH, n. s. & v. a. Saxon picce. An en-
WITCH CRAFT, n. s. chantress; a woman given
WITCH'ERY.
to unlawful arts; a hag:
to enchant; transport; bewilder: witchcraft and
witchery is the art or practice of witches.

With which weak men thou witchest, to attend. Spens.

Unto thy bounteous baits, and pleasing charms,

Urania name, whose force he knew so well,
He quickly knew what witchcraft gave the blow.

Sidney.

He hath a witchcraft
Over the king in 's tongue. Shakspeare. Henry VIII.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When church-yards yawn.
Id. Hamlet.
Another kind of petty witchery, if it be not altogether
deceit, they call charming of beasts and birds. Raleigh.
believe the confessions of witches, nor the evidence
Wise judges have prescribed that men may not rashly
against them. For the witches themselves are imagina-
tive; and people are credulous, and ready to impute ac-
cidents to witchcraft.

What subtile witchcraft man constrains
To change his pleasure into pains?

Great Comus!
Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries.

Bacon.

Denham.

Milton.

When I consider whether there are such persons as witches, my mind is divided: I believe in general that there is such a thing as witchcraft, but can give no credit to any particular instance of it.

Addison.

WITCH ELM, WITCH HAZEL, in botany. See ULMUS.

WITCHCRAFT, a supernatural power, which persons were formerly supposed to obtain the pos

session of by entering into compact with the devil. They gave themselves up to him body and soul; and he engaged that they should want for nothing, and that he would avenge them upon all their enemies. As soon as the bargain was concluded, the devil delivered to the witch an imp, or familiar spirit, to be ready at a call, and do whatever it was directed. By the assistance of this imp with the devil, the witch, who was almost always an old woman, was enabled to transport herself in the air on a broomstick or a spit to distant places to attend the meeting of the witches; at which the devil always presided. They were enabled also to transform themselves into various shapes, particularly to assume the forms of cats and hares, in which they most delighted; to inflict diseases on whomsoever they thought proper; and to punish their enemies in a variety of ways.

cernible shape, they that watched were taught to be ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they saw any spiders or flies, to kill them; if they could not kill them, then they might be sure they were imps. If witches, under examination or torture, would not confess, all their apparel was changed, and every hair of their body shaven off with a sharp razor, lest they should secrete magical charms to prevent their confessing. Witches were most apt to confess on Fridays.

The belief that certain persons were endowed with supernatural power, and that they were assisted by invisible spirits, is very ancient. The saga of the Romans seem rather to have been sorcerers than witches; indeed the idea of a witch, as above described, could not have been prevalent till after the propagation of Christianity, as the hea thens had no knowledge of the spirit stiled by Christians the devil. Witchcraft was universally believed in Europe till the sixteenth century, and even maintained its ground with tolerable firmness till the middle of the seventeenth. Vast numbers of reputed witches were convicted and condemned to be burnt every year. The methods of discovering them were various. One was, to weigh the supposed criminal against the church bible, which, if she was guilty, would preponderate: another, by making her attempt to say the Lord's Prayer; this no witch was able to repeat entirely, but would omit some part or sentence thereof. It is remarkable that all witches did not hesitate at the same place; some leaving out one part, and some another. Teats, through which the imps sucked, were indubitable marks of a witch; these were always raw, and also insensible; and, if squeezed, sometimes yielded a drop of blood. A witch could not weep more than three tears, and that only out of the left eye! Swimming a witch was another kind of popular ordeal generally practised; for this she was stripped naked, and cross-bound, the right thumb to the left toe, and the left thumb to the right toe. Thus prepared, she was thrown into a pond or river, in which, if guilty, she could not sink; for having, by her compact with the devil, renounced the benefit of the water of baptism, that element, in its turn, renounced her, and refused to receive her into its bosom. Sir Robert Filmer mentious two others by fire: the first, by burning the thatch of the house of the suspected witch; the other, burning any animal supposed to be bewitched by her, as a bog or ox. These, it was held, would force a witch to confess. The trial by the stool was another method used for the discovery of witches. It was thus managed: Having taken the suspected witch, she was placed in the middle of a room upon a stool or table, cross legged, or in some other uneasy posture; to which, if she submitted not, she was then bound with cords; there she was watched, and kept without meat or sleep for the space of twenty-four hours (for, they said, within that time they should see her imp come and suck). A little hole was likewise made in the door for imp> to come in at ; and lest it should come in some less dis

By such trials as these, and by the accusations of children, old women, and fools, were thousands of unhappy women condemned for witchcraft, and burnt at the stake. It would be ridiculous to attempt a serious refutation of the existence of witches; and at present, luckily, the task is unnecessary. In this country, at least, the discouragement long given to all suspicion of witchcraft, and the appeal of the statutes against that crime, have very much weakened, though perhaps they have not entirely eradicated, the persuasion. On the continent, too, it is evidently on the decline; and, notwithstanding the exertions of Dr. De Haen and of the celebrated Lavater, we have little doubt but that in a short time, posterity will wonder at the credulity of their ancestors. Most of the facts which have been brought forward by the advocates for witchcraft bear in their front evident marks of trick and imposture. The crime of witchcraft, which was punished capitally by the law of Moses, was justly punished under the Jewish theocracy, as an act of rebellion against the divine majesty; by attempting to deceive the people, by leading them to trust in demons, and other imaginary beings.

WITE, v. a. Sax. pizan. To blame; reproach.
Scoffing at him that did her justly wite,
She turned her boat about.

Spenser. WITENA-GEMOT, or WITENA-MOT, among the Anglo-Saxons, was a term which literally signified the assembly of the wise men; and was applied to the great council of the nation of latter days called the parliament.

WITH, prep. Sax. pið. By; for; on the side of; by means of; near; amongst; noting the cause; means; instrument; opposition or contest; connexion; company; appendage; confidence. Johnson says With and by it is not always easy to distinguish, nor perhaps in distinction always observed. With seems rather to denote an instrument, and by a cause: thus, he killed his enemy with a sword, but he died by an arrow. The arrow is considered rather as a cause, as there is no mention of an agent. If the agent be more remote, by is used; as, the vermin which he could not kill with his gun, he killed by poison:' if these two prepositions be transposed, the sentence, though equally intelligible, will be less agreeable to the common modes of speech.'

He shall lye with any fryar in Spain.
Pity your own, or pity our estate,
Nor twist our fortunes with your sinking fate.
Men might know the persons who had a right to re-
gal power, and with it to their obedience.

Locke.

Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee. Tatler.
Such arguments had invincible force with those
Pagan philosophers who became Christians. Addison.
Though Jove himself no less content would be,
To part his throne, and share his heaven with thee.
Pope.
WITHAL', adv. With and all. Along with the
rest; likewise; at the same time.

Yet it must be withal considered that the greatest part of the world are they which be farthest from per

fection.

Hooker.

Milton.

The one contains my picture, prince;
If you chuse that, then am yours withal. Shakspeare.
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
We owe to christianity the discovery of the most per-
fect rule of life that ever the world was acquainted
Tillotson.
withal.

Perish his sire, and perish I withal,
And let the house's heir and the hoped kingdom fall.
Dryden.

With and draw.
WITH'DRAW, v. a. & v. n.
Sax. pið, or piðen. To take back; bereave; re-
tire; retreat.

Impossible it is that God should withdraw his presence from any thing, because the very substance of

God is infinite.

Hooker.

Milton.

She from her husband soft withdrew. Duumvir has passed the noon of life; but cannot withdraw from entertainments which are pardonable only before that stage of our being.

Tatler.

WITHE, n. s. Sax. pidde. A willow twig. An Irish rebel put up a petition that he might be hanged in a with, and not a halter, because it had been so used with former rebels.

Bacon.

These cords and wythes will hold men's consciences,
when force attends and twists them. King Charles.
Birch is of use for ox-yoaks, hoops, screws, wythes
for faggots.
Mortimer's Husbandry.
WITH'ER, v. n. & v. a.
Sax. geriderod, dry,
faded. To fade; grow sapless; dry up to make
to fade or dry away.

It shall wither in all the leaves of her spring."
Ezekiel xvii. 9.
The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but
it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth.

James i. 11.

That which is of God we defend, to the uttermost of that ability which he hath given: that which is otherwise, let it wither even in the root from whence it hath Hooker. sprung.

Shakspeare.

Look how I am bewitched; behold, mine arm
Is like a blasted sapling, withered up.
Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will
change

To withered, weak, and grey.

Milton.

Vain men, how vanishing a bliss we crave, Now warm in love, now withering in the grave!

Dryden.

The soul may sooner leave off to subsist than to love; and, like the vine, it withers and dies, if it has South's Sermons. aothing to embrace.

WITHERING (William), M. D., a distinguished physician and writer on botany, was born in 1741, and studied at Edinburgh, where he took his doctor's degree in 1766. He then settled at Stafford, and afterwards at Birmingham, where he was speedily raised to eminence. The chief objects of his attention, independent of his duties as a medical practitioner, were chemistry and botany. Being subject to pulmonic disease, he thought it desirable, in 1793 and 1794, to pass the winter at Lisbon and after his return home did not again resume his practice to any extent. He died at the Larches, near Birmingham, in November, 1799. His principal publications are, A Systematic Arrangement of British Plants, 2 vols. 8vo., 1776, extended in the edition of 1787 to three volumes, and in that of 1796 to four; An Account of the Scarlet Fever and Sore Throat, or Scarletina Anginosa, 1779, 8vo.; An Account of the Foxglove, and some of its Medical Uses, with Practical Remarks on the Dropsy, and other Diseases, 1785, 8vo.; A Chemical Analysis of the Waters at Caldas da Rainha, Lisbon, 1795, 4to.; beside a translation of Bergman's Sciagraphia Regni Mineralis, and papers in the Philosophical Transactions relative to mineralogy.

WITHERS, n. s. From withe, a twig, came wither, a horse collar; and thus withers is the joining of the shoulder-bones at the bottom of the neck and mane, towards the upper part of the horse's shoulder.

Let the galled beast wince;
Shakspeare.
We are unwrung in the withers.
Rather than let your master take long journies, con-
trive that the saddle may pinch the beast in his withers.
Swift.

WITHHOLD', v. a. With and hold. Withheld, or withholden, pret. and part. Spenser has, for the sake of rhyme, written withhault. To restrain; keep back.

Soon as Titan 'gan his head exault,
And soon again as he his light withhault,
Their wicked engines they against it bent.