196 The Lancashire Witches. 



been done with it, since Lancashire's bonny daughters 

 need no instructor in the art of sorcery. In youth, with 

 eyelids delicate as flower-petals; in maturity, remind- 

 ing us of Ceres ; the best part of the charm they work 

 is still not discovered till the end ; for not the deepest 

 witchery is that which captures, but that which holds 

 in meshes that wax stronger every day, and makes the 

 enchantress more beloved when old and faded even 

 than when shining in life's roseate and clad in lilies. 

 Theirs is 



" The light which never wintry blast 



Blows out, nor rain, nor snow extinguishes 

 The light that shines from loving eyes upon 

 Eyes that love back, till they can see no more." 



But fair countenances existed in Lancashire long before 

 there was demonology, and plausible as the above solu- 

 tion may appear, the use of the phrase dates undiscover- 

 ably farther back. Mr Baines, in the " History of 

 Lancashire," (i. 571,) quotes a passage from an old 

 manuscript in the Bodleian collection, bearing the date 

 of 1602, in which it occurs in the plainest form; and 

 that the association of female beauty with Lancashire 

 is no late matter of comment may be judged also from 

 quaint old Fuller, who, in the " Worthies of England," 

 expresses his hearty belief that " the God of nature 

 having given fair complexions to the women of this 

 country, Art may save her paines (not to say her 

 sinnes) in endeavouring to better them," (ii. 107.) 



