th
jewels) to be carried about with him, over which he still lamented. At last
a venerable bishop, that followed his court, prayed earnestly to God
(commiserating his lord and master's case) to know the true cause of this
mad passion, and whence it proceeded; it was revealed to him, in fine,
"that the cause of the emperor's mad love lay under the dead woman's
tongue." The bishop went hastily to the carcass, and took a small ring
thence; upon the removal the emperor abhorred the corpse, and, instead
[5227]of it, fell as furiously in love with the bishop, he would not suffer
him to be out of his presence; which when the bishop perceived, he flung
the ring into the midst of a great lake, where the king then was. From that
hour the emperor neglected all his other houses, dwelt at [5228]Ache, built
a fair house in the midst of the marsh, to his infinite expense, and a
[5229]temple by it, where after he was buried, and in which city all his
posterity ever since use to be crowned. Marcus the heretic is accused by
Irenaeus, to have inveigled a young maid by this means; and some writers
speak hardly of the Lady Katharine Cobham, that by the same art she
circumvented Humphrey Duke of Gloucester to be her husband. Sycinius
Aemilianus summoned [5230]Apuleius to come before Cneius Maximus, proconsul
of Africa, that he being a poor fellow, "had bewitched by philters
Pudentilla, an ancient rich matron, to love him," and, being worth so many
thousand sesterces, to be his wife. Agrippa, _lib. 1. cap. 48. occult.
philos._ attributes much in this kind to philters, amulets, images: and
Salmutz _com. in Pancirol. Tit. 10. de Horol._ Leo Afer, _lib. 3_, saith,
'tis an ordinary practice at Fez in Africa, _Praestigiatores ibi plures,
qui cogunt amores et concubitus_: as skilful all out as that hyperborean
magician, of whom Cleodemus, in [5231] Lucian, tells so many fine feats
performed in this kind. But Erastus, Wierus, and others are against it;
they grant indeed such things may be done, but (as Wierus discourseth,
_lib. 3. de Lamiis. cap. 37._) not by charms, incantations, philters, but
the devil himself; _lib. 5. cap. 2._ he contends as much; so doth
Freitagius, _noc. med. cap. 74._ Andreas Cisalpinus, _cap. 5_; and so much
Sigismundus Scheretzius, _cap. 9. de hirco nocturno_, proves at large.
[5232]"Unchaste women by the help of these witches, the devil's kitchen
maids, have their loves brought to them in the night, and carried back
again by