no 



APPENDIX. 



watcned were taught to be ever and anon sweep 

 ing tnc room, and, if they saw any spiders or 

 flies, to kill them, if they could not kill them, 

 then they might be sure they were imps. If 

 witches, under examination or torture, would not 

 confess, all their apparel was changed, and every 

 hair of their body shaven off with a sharp razor, 

 lest they should secret magical charms to prevent 

 their confessing. It was a maxim, too, in these 

 proceedings, that witches were most apt to con 

 fess on Fridays. By such trials as these, and 

 by the accusations of children, old women, and 

 fools, were thousands of unhappy women, con 

 demned for witchcraft, and burned at the stake. 



A work, written by M Thoest, was published 

 a few years ago at Mentz, entitled, &quot;The His 

 tory of Magic, Demons, Sorcerers,&quot; &c. which 

 contains an affecting narrative of the numbers 

 that have suffered for the pretended crime of 

 magic and witchcraft. The cases enumerated 

 are proved from unequivocal authority. In these 

 excesses of the magistrates, it appears, that fe 

 male sorcerers have been the greatest sufferers. 

 Among other curious articles in the collection, we 

 learn, that Christopher de Runtzow,a gentleman 

 of Holstein, whose heated imagination had misled 

 his understanding, consigned eighteen persons to 

 theflames at one time, the victims of a merciless 

 superstition. In a village called Lindheim, con 

 taining about six hundred inhabitants, not less 

 than thirty were destroyed by fire, in the narrow 

 interval between the years 1661 and 1665, mak 

 ing a twentieth part of the whole population con 

 sumed in four years. In this inhuman conduct 

 towards an unhappy class of persons, the author 

 points out Wurtzburg as having frequently been 

 subject to well-merited reproach. It appears 

 from the Ada JWagicaof Naubers, that between 

 Ihe years 1627 and 1629, one hundred and twen 

 ty-seven individuals perished in similar instances 

 of cruelty practised by their brother men. The 

 principal objects of such nefarious dealings were 

 old women, or travellers, and frequently poor 

 children, from nine to ten years of age. Occa 

 sionally such outrages have been perpetrated on 

 persons of some consequence, proficients in 

 knowledge above the general standard of the 

 age, or such as had acquired property by their 

 industry and genius. Among many others in 

 these shocking details, are the respectable names 

 of fourteen vicars, two young gentlemen, some 

 counsellors, the largest or most corpulent man 

 in Wurtzburg, and his wife, the handsomest 

 woman in the city, and a student or scholar en 

 gaged in the study of foreign languages. Those 

 innocent sufferers were frequently put to the tor 

 ture. But what must our feelings and princi 

 ples incline us to think of an enormity here 

 Drought to our recollection, in the instance of a 

 poor girl, Maria Renata, who suffered so late as 

 jn the year 1749 ! 



Thn extent of the judicial murders for witch 



craft is far greater than most persons, who hav 

 not studied the history of demonology, can form 

 any idea. From the period in which Pope In 

 nocent VIII. in 1484, issued his bull against 

 witchcraft, to the middle of the seventeenth cen 

 tury, if we believe the testimonies of contempo 

 rary historians, Europe was little better than a 

 large suburb or outwork of Pandemonium, one 

 half of the population being either bewitching or 

 bewitched. Delrio tells us, that five hundred 

 witches were executed in Geneva, in three 

 months, about the year 1515. &quot; A thousand&quot; 

 says Bartholomeus de Spina, &quot; were executed 

 in one year, in the diocese of Como, and they 

 went on horning at the rate of a hundred per 

 annum for some time after. In Lorraine, from 

 1580 to 1595, Remigius boasts of having burnt 

 nine hundred. In France, the executions for 

 the same crime were fifteen hundred and twenty. 

 In Wurtzburg and Treves, the amount of execu 

 tions in the course of the century preceding 

 1628, is reckoned to be 15,700. It has been 

 calculated that in Germany alone, the number of 

 victims that perished, from the date of Innocent s 

 bull to the eighteenth century, considerably ex 

 ceeds one hundred thousand. The executions 

 were at first confined to crazed old women, or 

 unhappy foreigners, but at length the witchcraft 

 phrenzy rose to such a pitch, and spread so ex 

 tensively, that the lives of more exalted victims 

 were threatened. Noblemen and abbots, presi 

 dents of courts and professors, began to swell the 

 catalogue, and no man felt secure that he might 

 not suddenly be compelled, by torture, to bear 

 witness against his own innocent wife and chil 

 dren. In the Catholic canton of Glarus, in 

 Switzerland, it is said, that a witch was burnt, 

 even so late as the year 1786 ! It is impossible 

 for any rational and humane mind to peruse such 

 a list as the above, without shuc* .&amp;lt;ng and hor 

 ror. How dreadful the results to which igno 

 rance and superstition have led! and how as 

 tonishing the consideration, that judges, law 

 yers, ministers of religion, nobles, and persons of 

 all ranks should have given their sanction, with 

 out the least remorse, to such cruelties and legal 

 ized murders ! 



In Pitcairn s &quot; Criminal Trials,&quot; referred to 

 in the text, a variety of curious documents is con 

 tained, respecting the proceedings of the Justi 

 ciary Court in Scotland against witchcraft, sorce 

 ry, and incantation. One of these trials relates 

 to a gentleman of family, Mr. Hector Monro 

 of Fowies, who was &quot;indytitand accusit&quot;of 

 &quot; sorcerie, incantation.nis, or wichecraft.&quot; This 

 trial contains a complete specimen of the super 

 stition of the age. Mr. Hector, it would appear, 

 had sent for &quot; Johne M Connielly-gar and his 

 wyffes, and Johne Bunes wyffe, in Lylell Alteis, 

 thre notorious and commoune witches.&quot; They 

 had been sent for to assist in restoring the health 

 of Robert Monro, a brother of the said Mr. 



