for the maist beautifu' leddie o' a' the world was coming sailing doun the glen!'-Such was the eagerness and even ecstacy of the child, that the call was instantly obeyed, and old and young followed her straight out of doors to see this delightful vision. They looked up the glen, as she pointed, but in vain nothing unusual could be seen or heard, till a sudden and dreadful crash behind them made every one look instantly round, and explained at once the benevolent mission of this lovely lady of the wood; the house which had just been emptied of all its inmates had fallen flat to the ground.* BROWNIES. The brownies formed a class of beings distinct in habit and disposition from the freakish and mischievous elves. They were meagre, shaggy, and wild in their appearance. Cleland, in his satire against the Highlanders, compares them to 'Fawnics, or Brownies, if ye will, In the day time the brownies lurked in remote recesses of the old houses, which they delighted to haunt, and in the night sedulously employed themselves in discharging any laborious task which they thought might be acceptable to the family, to whose service they had devoted themselves. But, although like Milton's lubber fiend, they love to stretch themselves by the fire, they do not drudge from the hope of recompense. On the contrary, so delicate is their attachment, that the offer of reward, *The last story of the Plora appeared some time ago in a poetical dress, in the shape of stanzas inserted in a late number of the Edinburgh Annual Register. but particularly of food, infallibly occasions their disappearance for ever. The last brownie known in Etterick forest, resided at Bodsbeck, a wild and solitary spot, where he exercised his functions undisturbed, till the scrupulous devotion of an old lady induced her to hire him away, as it was termed, by placing in his hands a porringer of milk and a piece of money. After receiving the hint to depart, he was heard the whole night to how! and cry, 'Farewell to Bonnie Bodsbeck!' which he was compelled to abandon for ever.-When the menials of a Scottish family protracted their vigils around the kitchen fire, Brownie, wearie of being excluded from the midnight hearth, sometimes appeared at the door, seemed to watch their departure, and thus admonish them: Gang a' to your beds, Sirs, and dinna put out the wie grieshoch (embers)'-It seems no improbable conjecture that the brownie is a legitimate descendant of the Las familiaris of the ancients. The next a-kin to the fairies is the witch tribe, though their origin be of a different stamp. The following account of the persecutions of some unfortunate creatures will throw a degree of light on the state of society both preceding and at the time to which the transaction occurs. لا WITCHES. Hard luck, alake! when poverty and eild GENTLE SHEPHERD. The wishes and probably still more, the terrors of man, in that rude state of society in which it has not yet begun to trace effects towards the causes in the established laws of nature, seem every where to have laid the foundation of a multiplicity of popular creeds, in which the object is to connect man with mysterious beings of greater power and intelligence than himself. The character which the imagination gave with this intercourse was the consequence, in some degree, of accidental occurrence, but still more, perhaps of local circumstances, and of the social condition of the people, The vicissitudes of human life, and of human affairs, however, do not permit the most prosperous people to ascribe pure benevolence to these superior beings; and so much greater is the sensibility of men to painful and disastrous events, and the dread of their recurrence, than to such instances of good fortune as either happen very rarely, or are neutralized by their frequency, that in the superstitions of every age and country, perhaps, the number and power, and activity, of capricious spirits, or of such as are decidedly hostile to human happiness, will be found to predominate, or to have exerted, at least an equal influence in the common affairs of life, with the beneficent. This propensity to reduce the invisible beings whose power and knowledge were recognised in almost every great event, to the level of men in other respects, naturally led to a belief in their occasional manifestations, both in their own proper form, and in the assumed garb of humanity. It was, however, in every respect, desirable that the more immediate intercourse between the worlds of matter and of spirit should be carried on by a chosen few of the human race, to whom their fellow mortals might apply, as to the delegates of invisible power, on every great emergency. Such seems to have been the origin of oracles and priests, and all the other delusions of paganism, both in ancient and modern times. The light of christianity, and the progress of knowl edge, which have done so much to rectify the judgment, as well as to purify the heart, by displaying the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, have not yet altogether dispelled the illusions which had possessed the imagination during the infancy and helplessness of rational beings. On the contrary, some passages in the Holy Scriptures themselves, though evidently applicable only to the peculiar circumstances of the theocratical government of the Jews, or to the first promulgation of the gospel, have been not only taken in the most literal sense, but held to prove continued succession, through every age of the world, of a class of human beings endowed with the power of infringing the established laws of nature, of exercising this power for the most insignificant purposes. In the records of ignorance and credulity, there is not perhaps a more melancholy proof of the aberration of the human mind, than that which is exhibited by the very general belief in witchcraft, which, in this country, continued to prevail, even to the close of the seventeenth century, and which, even at the present moment, is far from being completely eradicated. The sex, age, condition, of the individuals commonly accused of this crime, the utter improbability of the accusation itself, and of the cruel acts by which it was attempted to prove it-the horrid means by which confessions were extorted,—and the cruel doom which awaited conviction-do not appear to have raised any doubts of the reality of their guilt, and very rarely to have excited in the minds of their judges those feelings of commiseration, which nothing but the grossest superstition has ever been able altogether to repress with the sufferings of the greatest criminal. But it is not our intention here to enter upon the very extensive field to which these general views would conduct us. Suffice it, on this occasion, merely to notice the law and practice of Scotland, in regard to the alleged crime of witchcraft; and then to mark the dawn of improvement in public opinion at the commencement of the eighteenth century, displayed in the case of THE WITCHES OF PITTENWEEN, IN FIFESHIRE. It is a singular circumstance in the history of this delusion in Scotland, that the only statute against witchcraft passed so late as in 1563, a period when the superstition of the dark ages was shaken to its foundation by the spirit of inquiry, which, in a few years, led to the complete establishment of the reformation. As this remarkable statute, which brought so many innocent beings to an untimely end, is not very long, we shall here insert it. The reader cannot fail to perceive, on comparing this simple and concise enactment with the elaborate and voluminous acts of the present age, how much the technical part of the science of legislation has been improved in the intermediate period: 'QUEEN MARIE,-ninth parliament, 73. Anentis Witchcraftes.' 'Item, For sa meikle as the Queenis Majestie, and the three estaites in this present parliament, being informed that the heavie and abominable superstition used by divers of the lieges of this realine, be using of witchcraftes, sorcerie, and necromancie, and credence given thereto in times by-gone, against the law of God; and for avoiding and away-putting of all such vaine superstition in times to come; it is statute and ordained * Our acquaintance with these personages is chiefly indebted to some curious original documents, and to several very rare tracts printed at the time when the events they describe had very recently occurred. VOL. I. 18 |