HONESTY. 275 



The same poet shows us that, in supers! itious 

 times, the magician was applied to as well as the 

 physician in dangtroua eases; and we have some- 

 where read that it was a common practice to call in 

 the aid of magic when medicine failed : — 



Beseeching him with prayer, and with praise, 



If either salves, or oyles, or herhes, or charmes, 

 A foredone wight from (lore of death mote raise, 

 He would at her request prolong her nephew's daies. 



Spexser. 



That such ideas actually occupied the minds of men 

 in unenlightened days we have numerous authentic 

 accounts related in history ; and that what is 

 strongly impressed upon the minds of the ignorant 

 should in some degree affect the learned is not so 

 wonderful, as it is difficult to shake off the preju- 

 dices of the age we live in : of this we have a 

 striking example in the capacious mind of the great 

 Verulam, who in his Natural History acknowledges 

 his belief in witches. Yet we do not consider him. 

 capable of consulting magicians or wizards ; but it 

 would have been scarcely possible to have escaped the 

 prevailing opinion, in an age when numerous persons 

 openly professed the art of magic, and every de- 

 formed and ugly old woman was persecuted as a witch. 

 Even in later times than those of the celebrated 

 Chancellor, a firm belief in witchcraft seems to have 

 possessed the minds of the nation ; for Butler 



