praying that it might be forgiven, that it might not be followed by evil consequences to himself, his family, or his country; in this picture you have a representation of a truly great and magnanimous spirit, a spirit to which the divine influence of our religion had given an expansion and a lustre, that Roman or Grecian virtue never knew; a spirit that had achieved a greater victory than warrior ever won, a victory over itself; a spirit so noble and so pure that it felt no shame in acknowledging an error, and no humiliation in atoning for an injury. If the contemplation of this bright example shall have imparted. a glow of emulation to your hearts, your patience in listening, I am sure, will not go unrewarded.' pp. 129–132.

In taking a survey of this dark period in the history of our land, it seems but reasonable, so far at least as relates to the delusion itself, to number it with those times of ignorance,' which as in compassion for Pagan darkness, the Apostle tells us, 'God winked at.' And considering the bitter contrition, that followed, in which the judges and the accusers, the magistrates and the clergy alike partook, we may believe what is recorded of the penitent Israelites after a season of general reformation, that their cry went up to the holy place, and the Lord hearkened and healed the people.' But our wonder at the extent of this delusion of our ancestors will be greatly diminished, when we remember, what indeed must never be overlooked in any impartial view of these times, that it was a delusion they shared with all ages and all nations, not only before but after them. And here, did our limits permit, we should gladly follow Mr. Upham in the interesting and instructive view of this subject, which chiefly occupies his Second Lecture. The reader may find there collected a multitude of curious and authentic facts, which will well reward his attention. Sir Walter Scott, in his work on Demonology, has also brought together from the vast stores of his reading a yet greater variety; but they are less skilfully arranged, and not sufficiently distinguished from the legends and tales of romance, in which that celebrated writer delights, to furnish the same valuable instruction. In the brief and judicious summary of Mr. Upham, we see, that from the days of the Witch of Endor, through the fabulous periods of heathen antiquity to the commencement of the Christian era, and thence amidst the superstitions of the Romish Church, and under the influence of the perverted 'doctrine of devils,' almost to the present time, there have never been wanting

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believers in witchcraft, or victims to its delusion. ber of these victims in Europe, at various periods, far exceeded, as did the spirit of persecution, any thing known or imagined in this country, in which, from the beginning to the end of the fanaticism, only twenty persons were actually put to death.* But in 1484, after Pope Innocent the Eighth had issued his bull for the punishment of persons suspected of witchcraft, multitudes became its victims. Forty-one aged females,' says Mr. Upham, were consigned to the flames in one nation, and, not long after, one hundred were burned in the devoted valleys of Piedmont; forty-eight were burned in Ravensburg in five years; and in the year 1515, five hundred were burned at Geneva, in three months!'— ' In 1576, seventeen or eighteen were condemned in Essex, in England,' while in France, it is affirmed, though the authority is not given, that a single judge, Remigius, condemned and burned nine hundred within fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, in the single district of Lorraine; and as many more fled out of the country' to escape the fury of the persecution, so that 'whole villages were depopulated.' 'During the whole of the sixteenth century,' adds our author, there were executions for witchcraft in all civilized countries. More than two hundred were hanged in England;' 'several only a few years before the proceedings commenced in Salem;' but, it is worthy of remark, a considerable number in various parts of Great Britain some years after the prosecutions had entirely ceased in America.'

It has been said, that the first impulse to the prosecution of witchcraft in this country was given by certain passages selected and studiously circulated from the works of Richard Baxter. There is no doubt of his firm faith in the doctrine. Mr. Upham states, that he wrote his book, entitled The Certainty of the World of Spirits,' for the special purpose

*To those of our readers, who may not have read these Lectures, the following summary, given by Mr. Upham, of the exact extent of this calamity will be acceptable.

'During the prevalence of this fanaticism, twenty persons lost their lives by the hand of the executioner ;'. 'most of these persons were advanced in years, and many of them left large families of children;’· eight, whose names and places of residence are also given, 'were condemned to death, but did not suffer. Besides these, fifty-five persons escaped death by confessing themselves guilty, one hundred and fifty were in prison, and more than two hundred others were accused.' pp. 34, 35.

of confirming and diffusing the belief; and that he kept up a correspondence with the Mathers, both the father and son, stimulating and encouraging them in their proceedings against certain witches in Boston. We have also been told, on an authority entitled to respect, that the first effectual step to the checking of this delusion was the influence of an opinion of the excellent Dr. Edmund Calamy, who, alarmed at the dreadful extent to which the persecutions were carried, expressed his belief, that it was possible even for good men to be bewitched.'

That good men, even the greatest and the best, may be deluded, the whole history we have been considering is one continued proof. And if in these imperfect remarks we have found ourselves compelled, however reluctantly, to concur with the writer in his censures of one so prominent as was Dr. Mather, it is not because he was deceived, for almost all others were deceived with him; or because he was urgent for measures, from which few had the wisdom or the courage to dissent; * but because he was willing to convert a general delusion into an instrument of selfish ambition and because, after the delusion had past, and the injustice and cruelty of the whole proceedings were manifest, he neither seemed to repent of them, nor to share in the general solicitude to atone for them.

;

To us of the present day it may seem impossible, that such a delusion could again prevail; or that, even if it should, it could be followed by such bitter persecutions on the one hand, or, on the other, by such appalling sufferings. Happily the advancing lights of philosophy and of religion leave us to good hopes. The phenomena of the physical world have been so fully explained, that what was once mysterious, or was ascribed to preternatural influences, is now easily understood,

* Among the very few, who have vindicated their claims to this distinction, by publicly maintaining their dissent at the time, Mr. Upham mentions with deserved respect the truly revered and learned Samuel Willard, of the Old South in Boston, author of the Body of Divinity,' and one of the most esteemed ministers of his times; and Major Šaltonstall, who publicly expressed his disapprobation by retiring from his seat on the bench. This noble conduct, however, was maintained at fearful hazards; for the accusers repeatedly cried out upon Mr. Willard, and seemed to experience a fiend-like satisfaction in the thought of bringing infamy and death upon the best and most honored citizens of the colonies. See Lectures, p. 31.

as among the familiar operations of nature.

The doctrine

of Devils,' also, if it still exists in its earlier forms, is stripped of most of its absurdities; and though men may not yet be ready to admit, what beyond all comparison is the most alarming truth, that within their own hearts, even their sinful and cherished lusts, are the 'Satans' of their own creation, whom they have most to dread; yet they have ceased to invest the prince of darkness with a rival sovereignty, believing that the spirits are in subjection to the Father of spirits, and that the devils also believe and tremble.

But though we may not apprehend the same delusions, it were presumptuous indeed to expect freedom from all others. The sources of error remain, though the particular forms of it may change. They are constantly varying with the changes of society. If there is a fanaticism of superstition, let it not be forgotten, that there is also the fanaticism of unbelief; and we have recently seen it asserted, what only the fool can say in his heart, that the faith of the existence of a God can exert no good influence on the virtue or happiness of men. Who can question too, that the same love of the marvellous, the same indulgence of an uncontrolled imagination, or even of a perverted curiosity; the same passion for power in ministers or in rulers; the same readiness to turn popular excitements into instruments of personal advancement, may produce at this day evils not less deplorable than those, which in the days of our fathers seemed the fruit only of religious fanaticism? It is the improvement we should make of this history, and it is among the sound practical instructions which the writer himself deduces from it, and enforces with the eloquence of conviction, that there is no safety, but in simple truth; - that when men suffer their imaginations to usurp the place of reason, or their passions to be inflamed by sympathy, especially by that most dangerous form of it, party spirit, they may work a work,' which, in its consequences to themselves or to others, they would not believe, though a man should tell it them.' The history of the present day, not less in its secular than in its religious fervors, affords, we fear, but too exact an illustration of all this. The spirit of witchcraft is abroad in its furious zeal, in its obtrusive inquisitions, and its stern denunciations. It assumes to itself to try the spirits, and according to its own standard to pronounce men friends or enemies of order, justice, and the

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laws. 'Its leading features,' says Mr. Upham, whose remarks, though written before the full developement of the transactions to which we refer, are so excellent, that we adopt them as the best possible expression of our meaning, 'its leading features and most striking aspects have been repeated in places, where witches and the interference of supernatural beings are never thought of. For whenever a community gives way to its passions and spurns the admonitions and casts off the restraints of reason, there is a delusion, that can hardly be described in any other phrase. We cannot glance our eye over the face of our country without beholding such scenes; and so long as they are exhibited, so long as we permit ourselves to invest objects of little or no real importance with such an inordinate imaginary interest, that we are ready to go to every extremity rather than relinquish them, we are following in the footsteps of our fanatical ancestors. It would be wiser to direct our ridicule and reproaches to the delusions of our own times, rather than to those of a previous age; and it becomes us to treat with charity and mercy, the failings of our predecessors, at least until we have ceased to repeat and imitate them.’

Maiker.

ART. VIII. Travels in Malta and Sicily, with Sketches of Gibraltar in 1827. By ANDREW BIGELOW, Author of 'Leaves from a Journal in North Britain and Ireland.' Boston. 1831. Carter, Hendee, & Babcock. 8vo. pp. 550.

THERE are no books, the rapid multiplication of which is to be regarded with so much forbearance, as books of travels. The face of things, the manners, customs, and institutions in many countries in Europe and South America have been changed so frequently and materially, during the last thirty or forty years, that it is only from the recent traveller we can learn their present condition. It is an advantage, also, when we can avail ourselves of the observations and researches in foreign countries of one who has been brought up among us; partly because he will be curious in those matters which, from similarity of education and circumstances, will be most likely to interest us, and partly because his comparisons and

VOL. XI.

N. S. VOL. VI. NO. II.

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