in England, having discovered the numerous impostures and illusions which he had often referred to as authorities, he grew suspicious of the whole system of “Daemonologie,” and at length recanted it entirely.  With the same conscientious zeal James had written the book, the king condemned it; and the sovereign separated himself from the author, in the cause of truth; but the clergy and the parliament persisted in making the imaginary crime felony by the statute, and it is only a recent act of parliament which has forbidden the appearance of the possessed and the spae-wife.

But this apology for having written these treatises need not rest on this fact, however honourably it appeals to our candour.  Let us place it on higher ground, and tell those who asperse this monarch for his credulity and intellectual weakness, that they themselves, had they lived in the reign of James I., had probably written on the same topics, and felt as uneasy at the rumour of a witch being a resident in their neighbourhood!

* * * * *

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AGE.

This and the succeeding age were the times of omens and meteors, prognostics and providences—­of “day-fatality,” or the superstition of fortunate and unfortunate days, and the combined powers of astrology and magic.  It was only at the close of the century of James I. that Bayle wrote a treatise on comets, to prove that they had no influence in the cabinets of princes; this was, however, done with all the precaution imaginable.  The greatest minds were then sinking under such popular superstitions:  and whoever has read much of the private history of this age will have smiled at their ludicrous terrors and bewildered reasonings.  The most ordinary events were attributed to an interposition of Providence.  In the unpublished memoirs of that learned antiquary, Sir Symouds D’Ewes, such frequently occur.  When a comet appeared, and D’Ewes, for exercise at college, had been ringing the great bell, and entangled himself in the rope, which had nearly strangled him, he resolves not to ring while the comet is in the heavens.  When a fire happened at the Six Clerks’ Office, of whom his father was one, he inquires into the most prominent sins of the six clerks:  these were the love of the world, and doing business on Sundays:  and it seems they thought so themselves; for after the fire the office-door was fast closed on the Sabbath.  When the Thames had an unusual ebb and flow, it was observed, that it had never happened in their recollection, but just before the rising of the Earl of Essex in Elizabeth’s reign,—­and Sir Symonds became uneasy at the political aspect of affairs.

All the historians of these times are very particular in marking the bearded beams of blazing stars; and the first public event that occurs is always connected with the radiant course.  Arthur Wilson describes one which preceded the death of the simple queen of James I. It was generally imagined that “this great light in the heaven was sent as a flambeaux to her funeral;” but the historian discovers, while “this blaze was burning, the fire of war broke out in Bohemia.”  It was found difficult to decide between the two opinions; and Rushworth, who wrote long afterwards, carefully chronicles both.