nexion with that horrid
belief in witchcraft which cost so many innocent persons and crazy
impostors their lives for the supposed commission of impossible crimes.
In the next chapter I propose to trace how the general disbelief in the
fairy creed began to take place, and gradually brought into discredit
the supposed feats of witchcraft, which afforded pretext for such cruel
practical consequences.

LETTER VI.

Immediate Effect of Christianity on Articles of Popular
Superstition--Chaucer's Account of the Roman Catholic Priests
banishing the Fairies--Bishop Corbett imputes the same Effect to the
Reformation--His Verses on that Subject--His Iter
Septentrionale--Robin Goodfellow and other Superstitions mentioned
by Reginald Scot--Character of the English Fairies--The Tradition
had become obsolete in that Author's Time--That of Witches remained
in vigour--But impugned by various Authors after the Reformation, as
Wierus, Naudaeus, Scot, and others--Demonology defended by Bodinus,
Remigius, &c.--Their mutual Abuse of each other--Imperfection of
Physical Science at this Period, and the Predominance of Mysticism
in that Department.

Although the influence of the Christian religion was not introduced to
the nations of Europe with such radiance as to dispel at once those
clouds of superstition which continued to obscure the understanding of
hasty and ill-instructed converts, there can be no doubt that its
immediate operation went to modify the erroneous and extravagant
articles of credulity which lingered behind the old pagan faith, and
which gave way before it, in proportion as its light became more pure
and refined from the devices of men.

The poet Chaucer, indeed, pays the Church of Rome, with its monks and
preaching friars, the compliment of having, at an early period, expelled
from the land all spirits of an inferior and less holy character. The
verses are curious as well as picturesque, and may go some length to
establish the existence of doubts concerning the general belief in
fairies among the well-instructed in the time of Edward III.

The fairies of whom the bard of Woodstock talks are, it will be
observed, the ancient Celtic breed, and he seems to refer for the
authorities of his tale to Bretagne, or Armorica, a genuine Celtic
colony:--

"In old time of the King Artour,
Of which that Bretons speken great honour,
All was this land fulfilled of faerie;
The