io8 On Popular Blujions, 



He has charaflerized Agrippa rather too llrongly, if the 

 fourth book of the Occult Philofophy be fpurious ; 



Sir Agrippa, for profound 



And folid lying much renown'd. C. T. 



(H) p. 46. Wierus had a controverfy with a clergyman 

 of Stutgard, named Brentius, on the fubjeft of hail-ftorms. 

 Brentius had advanced, in a fermon printed in Wierus's 

 Liber Apologeticus, that although* witches did not caufe hail 

 by their own power, (for he believed it to be of diabolical 

 origin) and although the devil impofed on them, by making 

 them believe tkat to be performed at their defire, which 

 he (hould do at any rate, yet they were objefts of pnnilh- 

 aieni, becaufe they had confented to the mifchief. Wierus 

 replied very properly, that the law did not judge of inten- 

 tions, but of fadls : Brentius rejoined that the confent of 

 a witch to the devil's exciting a hail-ftorm, was a conatus 

 fcrfc^us, which Wierus denied. The peafants continued 

 to apprehend and procure the condemnation of witches, 

 whenever their hay was damaged by hail. Obferve the 

 jnconfiilency of human reafon : A perfon who has the 

 power of raifsng violent ftorms, of darting the thunder- 

 bolt, and overturning the dwellings of men, cannot refcue 

 herfelf from the hands of a petty conftable. 



(I) p. 50. It appears from Lucian's original ftory of 

 the afs, that ointments were in ufe among the fuppofed 

 Grecian witches, in order to their conveyance to the 

 witch-meetings. Apuleius has improved fo far upon him, 

 in the ftory of the murdered bladders, (which Cervantes 

 borrowed, fox Don Quixote) that the afs of the Greek mull 

 give place. 



(K) p. 51. In 1695, Richard Dugdale was Caid to have 

 given his foul to the devil, that he might become the bell 

 dancer in Lancafhire, but the fraudulent demon affefted 

 him with convulfions. Some tninijlen who attended him 



held 



