se
possible, in respect that as Habakkuk was carried by the
angel in that form to the den where Daniel lay, so think I
the devil will be ready to imitate God as well in that as in
other things, which is much more possible to him to do,
being a spirit, than to a mighty wind, being but a natural
meteor to transport from one place to another a solid body,
as is commonly and daily seen in practice. But in this
violent form they cannot be carried but a short bounds,
agreeing with the space that they may retain their breath;
for if it were longer their breath could not remain
unextinguished, their body being carried in such a violent
and forcible manner.... And in this transporting they say
themselves that they are invisible to any other, except
amongst themselves. For if the devil may form what kind of
impressions he pleases in the air, as I have said before,
speaking of magic, why may he not far easier thicken and
obscure so the air that is next about them, by contracting
it straight together that the beams of any other man's eyes
cannot pierce through the same to see them?'
&c.--_Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, edited by Robert
Chambers.

The following injunction is characteristic of all persecuting
maxims, and is worthy of the disciple of Bodin: 'Witches ought to
be put to death according to the law of God, the civil and the
imperial law, and the municipal law of all Christian nations.
Yea, to spare the life and not to strike whom God bids strike,
and so severely in so odious a treason against God, is not only
unlawful but doubtless as great a sin in the magistrate as was
Saul's sparing Agag.' It is insisted upon by this _sagacious_
author (echoing the rules laid down in the 'Malleus'), that any
and every evidence is good against an exceptional crime: that the
testimony of the youngest children, and of persons of the most
infamous character, not only may, but ought to be, received.

This mischievous production is a curious collection of
demonological learning and experience, exhibiting the reputed
practices and ceremonies of witches, the mode of detecting them,
&c.; but is useless even for the purpose of showing the popular
Scottish or English notions, being chiefly a medley of classical
or foreign ideas, inserted apparently (spite of the royal
author's assurance to the contrary) to parade an array of
abstruse and pedantic learning. That some of the excessive terror
sai