Ancient Door in the Cheetham Library, Manchester, from a Drawing by C. W. H.

To front p. 172.

chymy, in the various languages of mankind and of the lower animals, in the belles lettres, in moral philosophy, pneumatology, divinity, magic, history, and prophecy. They could control the winds, the waters, and the influence of the stars; they could raise earthquakes, induce diseases, or cure them, accomplish all vast mechanical undertakings, and release souls out of purgatory. They could influence the passions of the mind-procure the reconciliation of friends or foes -engender mutual discord-induce mania and melancholy-or direct the force and objects of the sexual affections.

Such was the object of demonology, as taught by its most orthodox professors. Yet other systems of it were devised, which had their origin in causes attending the propagation of Christianity. For it must have been a work of much time to eradicate the universal belief, that the Pagan deities, who had become so numerous as to fill every part of the universe, were fabulous beings. Even many learned men were induced to side with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than endeavour to reconcile it with their acknowledged systems of demonology. They taught that such heathen objects of reverence were fallen angels in league with the prince of darkness, who, until the appearance of our Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion. According to the various ranks which these spirits held in the vast kingdom of Lucifer, they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take up their abode in the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas.

But, although the various attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities were, by the early teachers of Christianity, considered in the more humble light of demoniacal delusions, yet for many centuries they possessed great influence over the minds of the vulgar. In the reign of Hadrian, Evreux in Normandy was not converted to the Christian faith, until the devil, who had caused the obstinacy of the inhabitants, was finally expelled from the Temple of Diana. To this goddess, during the persecution of Diocletian, oblations were rendered by the inhabitants of London. In the 5th century, the worship of her existed at Turin, and incurred the rebuke of Saint Maximus. From the 9th to the 15th century, several denunciations took place of the women, who in France and Germany travelled over immense spaces of the earth, acknowledging Diana as their mistress and conductor. In rebuilding Saint Paul's cathedral in London, remains of several of the animals used in her sacrifices were found; for slight traces of this description of reverence subsisted so late as the reign of Edward the First, and of Mary. Apollo, also, in an early period of Christianity, had some influence at Thorney, now Westminster. About the 11th century, Venus formed the subject of a monstrous apparition, which could only have been credited from the influence which she was still supposed to possess. A young man had thoughtlessly put his ring around the marble finger of her image. This was construed by the Cyprian goddess as a plighted token of marriage; she accordingly paid a visit to her bridegroom's bed at night, nor could he get rid of his bedfellow until the spells of an ex

orcist had been invoked for his relief. In the year 1536, just before the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna, a Spanish merchant, while travelling in Sicily, saw the apparition of Vulcan attended with twenty of his Cyclops, as they were escaping from the effects which the overheating of his furnace foreboded.*

To the superstitions of Greece and Rome we are also indebted for those subordinate evil spirits named genii, who, for many centuries, were the subject of numerous spectral illusions. A phantasm of this kind appeared to Brutus in his tent, prophesying that he should be again seen at Philippi. Cornelius Sylla had the first intimation of the sudden febrile attack with which he was seized, from an apparition who addressed him by his name; concluding, therefore, that his death was at hand, he prepared himself for the event, which took place the following evening. The poet Cassius Severus, a short time before he was slain by order of Augustus, saw, during the night, a human form of a gigantic size,-his skin black, his beard squalid, and his hair dishevelled. The phantasm was, perhaps, not unlike the evil genius of Lord Byron's Manfred:

"I see a dusk and awful figure rise
Like an infernal god from out the earth;
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form

Robed as with angry clouds; he stands between
Thyself and me-but I do fear him not."

* See an interesting dissertation on this subject in Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 382. It is also noticed in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 197.