CIRCUMSTANTIAL RVIDENCK. 185 



experience. We may remember the incredulity of the King of 

 Siam, who, when the Dutch ambassador, entertaining him with an 

 account of his own country, told him that the water in cold wea- 

 ther was so hard that men walked upon it, and that it would even 

 bear an elephant, replied, hitherto I have believed the strange things 

 you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober fair man, but 

 now I am sure you lie.* The Japanese who witnessed in 1803 

 the assent of Garnerin from Petersburgh, evinced no surprise, and 

 being asked if they had seen any thing of the same kind in Japan, 

 answered no, but that nothing was more common among them ; and 

 that the reason why they had not seen it was that the sorcerers in 

 Japan traverse the air only during the night. 



How instructive are the circumstantial details contained in our 

 own State Trials of cases of imputed witchcraft, and of communica- 

 tions with evil spirits ! The venerable and excellent Hale consign- 

 ed many persons to death for witchcraft. Upon the trial of two 

 women at Bury St. Edmunds, in 1685, that good man said to the 

 jury, that there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt, 

 and left the case to them, with his prayer that " the great God of 

 Heaven would direct their hearts in that matter." The learned 

 Sir Thomas Brown, one of the first physicians and philosophers of 

 his time, and the author of A Treatise on Vulgar Errors, declared 

 himself " clearly of opinion that the persons were bewitched :" it 

 is superfluous to add that they were executed. 



It is astonishing how prevalent is yet the common belief in 

 witchcraft. It was formerly a current belief that a corpse would 

 bleed in the presence of its murderer ; and I could adduce some 

 most curious cases of the unfavorable influence of this notion upon 

 individuals of whose sincerity there can be no doubt, as well as upon 

 the issue of judicial proceedings. A refusal to touch the corpse has 

 often been advanced as cogent evidence of guilt ; and, strange to 

 say, the last few years have presented many cases which shew the 

 deep belief still entertained on this subject amongst the uninformed. 

 So late as 1754, in a trial before the Court of Justiciary in Scot- 

 land, two witnesses deposed to their having seen a spirit, which told 

 them where the body was to be found, and that the accused was the 

 murderer. How many great names might be adduced as believers 

 in relations of apparitions, which may be admitted to have been 

 grounded upon mental impressions so strong as to be undistinguish- 



• Locke, On the Human Understanding^ b. iv., c. 16, s. 6. 

 VOL. VI. — NO. XX. AA 



