miliar meetings in our day
[1624] and company of witches and devils, there is some
probability for it. I know that Biarmannus, Wierus, and some
others stoutly deny it ... but Austin (lib. xv. _de Civit.
Dei_) doth acknowledge it. And he refers to Plutarch, _Vita
Numae; Wierus, de Praestigiis Daemon., Giraldus Cambrensis,
Malleus Malef., Jacobus Reussus, Godelman, Erastus, John
Nider, Delrio, Lipsius, Bodin, Pererius, King James, &c_.
The learned and curious work of the melancholy Student of
Christ Church and Oxford Rector has been deservedly
commended by many eminent critics. That 'exact mathematician
and curious calculator of nativities' calculated exactly,
according to Anthony Wood (_Athenae Oxon._), the period of
his own death--1639.

The acts of Incubus assume an important part in witch-trials and
confessions. Incubus is the visitor of females, Succubus of
males. Chaucer satirises the gallantries of the vicarious Incubus
by the mouth of the wife of Bath (that practical admirer of
Solomon and the Samaritan woman),[88] who prefaces her tale with
the assurance:--

That maketh that ther ben no fayeries,
For ther as wont was to walken an elf
Ther walketh noon but the _Lymitour_ himself.

* * * * *

Women may now go safely up and downe;
In every busch and under every tre
Ther is noon other _Incubus_ but he.

[88] The wife of Bath, who had buried only her fifth
husband, must appear modest by comparison. Not to mention
Seneca's or Martial's assertions or insinuations, St. Jerome
was acquainted with the case of a woman who had buried her
_twenty-second_ husband, whose conjugal capacity, however,
was exceeded by the Dutch wife who, on the testimony of
honest John Evelyn, had buried her _twenty-fifth_ husband!

Reginald Scot has devoted several chapters of his work to a
relation of the exploits of Incubus.[89] But he honestly warns
his readers 'whose chaste ears cannot well endure to hear of such
lecheries (gathered out of the books of divinity of great
authority) to turn over a few leaves wherein I have, like a
groom, thrust their stuff, even that which I myself loath, as
into a stinking corner: howbeit none otherwise, I hope, but that
the other parts of my writing shall remain sweet.' He repeats a
story from the 'Vita Hieronymi,' which seems to insinuate some
suspicion of the character of a certain Bishop Sylvanus. It
rel