of thousands of
victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many
became crazed on the subject of the philosopher's stone, and committed
follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought a
venial offence, in very many countries of Europe, to destroy an enemy
by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of
stabbing a man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple.
Ladies of gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder,
until poisoning, under their auspices, became quite fashionable. Some
delusions, though notorious to all the world, have subsisted for ages,
flourishing as widely among civilised and polished nations as among
the early barbarians with whom they originated,--that of duelling, for
instance, and the belief in omens and divination of the future, which
seem to defy the progress of knowledge to eradicate them entirely from
the popular mind. Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion
of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate
gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece
of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent of these
delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been well
said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while
they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Some of the subjects introduced may be familiar to the reader; but the
Author hopes that sufficient novelty of detail will be found even in
these, to render them acceptable, while they could not be wholly
omitted in justice to the subject of which it was proposed to treat.
The memoirs of the South-Sea madness and the Mississippi delusion are
more complete and copious than are to be found elsewhere; and the same
may be said of the history of the Witch Mania, which contains an
account of its terrific progress in Germany, a part of the subject
which has been left comparatively untouched by Sir Walter Scott in his
_Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_, the most important that
have yet appeared on this fearful but most interesting subject.

Popular delusions began so early, spread so widely, and have lasted so
long, that instead of two or three volumes, fifty would scarcely
suffice to detail their history. The present may be considered more of
a miscellany of delusions than a history--a chapter only in the great
and awful book of human folly which yet remains to be written, and
whic