regards men themselves, it might be presumed that the devil could
not by any means terrify them half so much, were they actually to meet
and converse with him face to face: so true it is that his satanic
majesty is not near so black as he is painted.

However useful the undertaking might prove, to give a true history of
this "tyrant of the air," this "God of the world," this "terror and
overseer of mankind," it is not our intention to become the devil's
biographer, notwithstanding the facility with which the materials might
be collected. Of the devil's origin, and the first rise of his family,
we have sufficient authority on record; and, as regards his dealings, he
has certainly always acted in the dark; though many of his doings both
moral, political, ecclesiastical, and empirical, have left such strong
impressions behind them, as to mark their importance in some
transactions, even at the present period of the christian world. These
discussions, however, we shall leave in the hands of their respective
champions, in order to take, as we proceed, a cursory view of some of
the _diableries_ with which mankind, in imitation of this great master,
has been infected, from the first ages of the world.

The Greeks, and after them the Romans, conferred the appellation of
Demon upon certain _genii_, or spirits, who made themselves visible to
men with the intention of either serving them as friends, or doing them
an injury as enemies. The followers of Plato distinguished between their
gods--or _Dei Majorum Gentium_; their demons, or those beings which were
not dissimilar in their general character to the good and bad angels of
Christian belief,--and their heroes. The Jews and the early christians
restricted the name of Demon to beings of a malignant nature, or to
devils properly so called; and it is to the early notions entertained by
this people, that the outlines of later systems of demonology are to be
traced.

It is a question, we believe, not yet set at rest by the learned in
these sort of matters, whether the word _devil_ be singular or plural,
that is to say, whether it be the name of a personage so called,
standing by himself, or a noun of multitude. If it be singular, and used
only personal as a proper name, it consequently implies one imperial
devil, monarch or king of the whole clan of hell, justly distinguished
by the term DEVIL, or as our northern neighbours call him "the muckle
horned deil," and poetically, after B