Matthew Hale; the Long Parliament sanctioning the execution of three thousand victims during their dynasty; and thirty thousand persons are estimated to have been executed in two hundred years. The last execution for witchcraft in England was at Huntingdon, in 1716, when a mother and her daughter were hanged. In 1736, the old laws were repealed, the pretended exercise of such arts being punished in future only by imprisonment and pillory. The last burning in Scotland was in 1722; but a girl was burnt in Ireland so late as 1786. Nevertheless, cases in our own time denote witchcraft to linger in some parts of the country, as was proved in 1809 and 1827; not more than six years since, a poor woman narrowly escaped with her life from the water ordeal. The print represents a reputed witch of great notoriety, named Elizabeth Sawyer*, who is the principal character in a rare play, the Witch of Edmonton, and was executed in the year 1621. The charms by which these impostors worked were short rhymes at the different stages. *Copied from a rare print, in the possession of the author of Vathek. Several of them have been preserved; one of which sets the whole affair in a ludicrous light. In the fifteenth century an old dame was tried for using witchcraft in curing diseases, when the judges offered to liberate the accused, if she would divulge her charm. This she readily did, and informed the court that the charm consisted in repeating the following words, after the stipulated pay, a loaf of bread and a penny : "My loaf in my lap, One of the frauds of witchcraft was the witch pretending to transform herself into a certain animal; the favourite and most usual transformation being to a cat. Hence cats were formerly * Charms against witchcraft still linger among us, as witness the old Scotch custom of throwing a little dry malt and a handful of salt on the top of the mash, in brewing, "to keep the witches from it:" hence indifferent beer is vulgarly called "water bewitched." Again, horseshoes were nailed on the thresholds of doors, "to hinder the power of witches that enter into the house." In Aubrey's time, most of the houses at the west end of London, probably Monmouth-street, then a wealthy quarter, had a horseshoe on the threshold; and in 1813, Sir Henry Ellis counted no less than seventeen horseshoes in Monmouth-street, nailed against the steps of doors. It was also lucky to find old iron, especially a horseshoe. This notion has been current in our time, as well as the nailing of the shoes beneath the sill and over the door, in Sussex; where, in childhood, we have accounted ourselves lucky in finding a horseshoe. Scot mentions hawthorn gathered on May day as a charm against witches. subjected to extreme persecution by unfeeling persons their supposed intimacy with witches. being quite sufficient to render them unpopular with the ignorant vulgar. Steevens, the commentator on Shakspeare, observes that in some counties of England a cat was formerly closed up with a quantity of soot in a cask, suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman diversion, which was terminated by hunting to death the unfortunate cat. The fondness of cats for warmth has procured them numberless enemies, by nestling about infants in cradles and beds; thus giving rise to the notion that cats suck the breath of children, so as to produce disease and death. The error is twofold; for, if cats did suck the breath, the form of their mouth would prevent their interrupting breathing by the mouth and nose at the same time. Yet this error has been made to palliate the cruelties inflicted upon the cat. The details or machinery of the superstitions which we have here strung together are scattered through many hundred volumes. We see throughout them how error multiplies error, and how difficult must be the eradication of the offspring from the minds of the people. This can only be done by striking at the root and branch of these misconceptions; or, in other words, by beginning at the beginning, or modes of education, from the nursery throughout life-according to the opinion just now received among economists— that "education closes not with the boy; education is the work of a life." Improved habits of thought, or the results of this after-education, will teach men to weigh and consider what may appear startling to their reason, rather than content themselves with wonder. Meanwhile, it must be conceded that many of these superstitions may be traced to the proneness of men to "turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes," thus causing themselves to suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils; 66 as if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it." "I have known," says Addison," the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merrythought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics." * Bulwer. 353 DOMESTIC SERVANTS. Man upon man depends, and, break the chain, CRABBE. A RETROSPECTIVE glance at the early pages of the present volume, but more especially at that portion of them which shows the progress of education in this country, will throw considerable light upon the corresponding improvement in the social condition of the English people. Our present purpose is, however, to advert to one portion of this interesting subject, and by glancing at the scheme of servitude in ages long since, to contrast its oppressive laws with the liberty of the servant in the present day. Under the Anglo-Saxons, parents are known to have exposed their children for sale in the market-place, like cattle; and, an old historian accuses the Anglo-Saxon nobility of selling their female servants as slaves to foreigners thus proving the practice of slavery in England many centuries since. All landed estates amongst the Anglo-Saxons were cultivated by great numbers of slaves, who were not so much the property of the master, A A |