time see the doer, or the cause. Such actions are sure to be attributed to some witch or demon; for if we come to find they are slily performed by artists of our own species, and by causes purely natural, our delight dies with our amazement.

It is therefore one of the most unthankful offices in the world to go about to expose the mistaken notions of witchcraft and spirits; it is robbing mankind of a valuable imagination, and of the privilege of being deceived. Those, who at any time undertook the task, have always met with rough treatment and ill language for their pains, and seldom escaped the imputation of atheism, because they would not allow the devil to be too powerful for the Almighty. For my part, I am so much a heretic as to believe, that God Almighty, and not the devil, governs the world.

If we inquire what are the common marks and symptoms by which witches are discovered to be such, we shall see how reasonably and mercifully those poor creatures were burnt and hanged, who unhappily fell under that name.

In the first place, the old woman must be prodigiously ugly: her eyes hollow and red, her face shrivelled; she goes double, and her

voice trembles. It frequently happens, that this rueful figure frightens a child into the palpitation of the heart: home he runs, and tells his mamma that goody such a one looked at him, and he is very ill. The good woman cries out, her dear baby is bewitched, and sends for the parson and the constable.

It is, moreover, necessary, that she be very poor. It is true, her master Satan has mines and hidden treasures in his gift; but no matter, she is for all that very poor, and lives on alms. She goes to Sisly the cookmaid for a dish of broth, or the heel of a loaf, and Sisly denies them to her. The old woman goes away muttering, and perhaps in less than a month's time Sisty hears the voice of a cat, and strains her ancles, which are certain signs that she is bewitched.

A farmer sees his cattle die of the murrain, and the sheep of the rot, and poor goody is forced to be the cause of their death, because she was seen talking to herself the evening before such an ewe departed, and had been gathering sticks at the side of the wood where such a cow ran mad.

The old woman has always for her companion an old gray cat, which is a disguised devil too, and confederate with goody in

works of darkness. They frequently go journeys into Egypt upon a broom-staff in half an hour's time, and now and then goody and her cat change shapes. The neighbours often overhear them in deep and solemn discourse together, plotting some dreadful mischief you may be sure.

There is a famous way of trying witches, recommended by King James I. The old woman is tied hand and foot, and thrown into the river, and if she swims she is guilty, and taken out and burnt; but if she is innocent, she sinks, and is only drowned.

The witches are said to meet their master frequently in churches and church-yards. I wonder at the boldness of Satan and his congregation, in revelling and playing mountebank farces on consecrated ground; and I have as often wondered at the oversight and ill policy of some people in allowing it possible.

It would have been both dangerous and impious to have treated this subject at one certain time in this ludicrous manner. It used to be managed with all possible gravity, and even terror; and indeed it was made a tragedy in all its parts, and thousands were sacrificed, or rather murdered, by such evidence and colours, as, God be thanked, we

are at this day ashamed of. may be miserable now, and

for it.

An old woman not be hanged

AN ACCOUNT OF THE

AUGUSTAN AGE OF ENGLAND.

THE history of the rise of language and learning is calculated to gratify curiosity rather than to satisfy the understanding. An account of that period only, when language and learning arrived at its highest perfection, is the most conducive to real improvement, since it at once raises emulation, and directs to the proper objects. The age of Leo X. in Italy is confessed to be the Augustan age with them. The French writers seem agreed to give the same appellation to that of Louis XIV. but the English are yet undetermined with respect to themselves.

Some have looked upon the writers in the times of Queen Elizabeth as the true standard for future imitation; others have descended to the reign of James I. and others still lower, to that of Charles II. Were I to be permittted to offer an opinion upon

this subject I should readily give my vote for the reign of Queen Anne, or some years before that period. It was then that taste was united to genius; and, as before, our writers charmed with their strength of thinking, so then they pleased with strength and grace united. In that period of British glory, though no writer attracts our attention singly, yet, like stars lost in each other's brightness, they have cast such a lustre upon the age in which they lived, that their minutest transactions will be attended to by posterity with a greater eagerness than the most important occurrences of even empires, which have been transacted in greater obscurity.

At that period there seemed to be a just balance between patronage and the press. Before it, men were little esteemed whose only merit was genius; and since, men who can prudently be content to catch the public, are certain of living without dependence. But the writers of the period of which I am speaking were sufficiently esteemed by the great, and not rewarded enough by booksellers, to set them above independence.

Fame consequently then was the truest road to happiness; a sedulous attention to the mechanical business of the day makes the present never-failing resource.