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.

WITCHES.

Hard luck, alake! when poverty and eild
Weeds out o'fashion, and a lanely bield,
Wi' a sma cast o wiles, should in a twitch,
Gie ane the hatefu' name-a wrinkled witch.

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 knowledge, which have done so much to rectify the judg

ment, 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 17th 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

duct us.

is not our intention here to enter upon the very extensive field to which these general views would conSuffice 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 18th century, displayed in the case of

THE WITCHES OF PITTEN WEEN, 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,

“IV of June, 1563.

73. Anentis Witchcraftes."

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.

'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 realme, 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 by the Queenes Majestie, and the three estaites foresaides, that na-maner of person or persones, of quhat-sum-ever estaite, degree or condition, they be off, take upon hand in onie times hereafter to use onie maner of witchcraftes, sorcerie, or necromancie, nor give themselves furth to have onie seik crafte or knowledge thereof, their-throw abusand the people: nor that na person seek onie help, response, or consultation at onie sik users or abusers forsaidis of witch-craftes, sorceries, or necromancie, under the paine of death, alsweil to be execute against the user, abuser, as the seeker of the response or consultation. And this to be put to execution be the justice, Schireffis, Stewards, Baillies, Lordes of Regalites and Royalties, their deputies, and eithers ordinar judges incompetent within this realme, with all vigour, have power to execute the samen."*

It deserves also to be remarked, that the trials for

* It has been doubted, and we think with much propriety, whether the framers of this act themselves believed in witchcraft, and whether by denouncing the same heavy penalty against the dupe and the impostor, they even expected it to be executed at all. The judges and juries however, never seem to have any doubts about the matter.