WIT 



jng optic nerve, fupplied in great abundance by the vici- 

 nity of the brain, muft make a fund of volatile matter to 

 be difpenfed, and, as it were, determined by the eye. 



Here, then, we have both the dart, and the hand to fling 

 it. The one furniflied with all the force and vehemence, 

 and the other with all the fharpnefs and aftivity, one would 

 require. No wonder if their etfeds be great ! 



Do but conceive the eye as a (ling, capable of the fwifteft 

 and intenfeft motions and vibrations: and again, as communi- 

 catino- with a fource of fuch matter, as the nervous juice ela- 

 borated in the brain ; a matter fo fubtile and penetrating, that 

 it is fuppofed to fly inftantaneoufly through the fohd capil- 

 laments of the nerves ; and fo adive and forcible, that it 

 difl;ends and convulfes the mufcles, and diftorts the limbs, 

 and alters the whole habitude of the body, giving motion 

 and aftion to a mafs of inert, inadive matter. A projedile 

 of fuch a nature, flung by fuch an engine as the eye, mull 

 have an efFed wherever it ftrikes : and the efi^ed will be 

 limited and modified by the circumftances of the difl:ance, 

 the impetus of the eye, the quaUty, fubtilty, acrimony, &c. 

 of the juices, and the dehcacy, coarfenefs, &c. of the objed 

 it falls on. 



This theory, it is fuppofed by many, may account for 

 fome of the phenomena of witchcraft, particularly of that 

 branch called fafcination. It is certain the eye has al- 

 ways been efteemed the chief feat, or rather organ, of 

 witchcraft ; though, by moft, without knowing why, or 

 wherefore : the efFed was apparently owing to the eye ; 

 but how, was not dreamed of. Thus, the phrafe, to have 

 an evil eye, imports as much as to be a witch. And hence 

 Virgil, 



" Nefcio quis teneros oculus mihi fafcinat agnos.". 



Again, old bilious perfons are thofe moft frequently 

 fuppofed to have the faculty ; the nervous juice in them 

 being depraved and irritated by a vicious habitude of 

 body, and fo rendered more penetrating and malignant. 

 And young perfons, chiefly children and girls, are moft 

 affeded by it ; becaufe their pores are patent, their juices 

 incoherent, and their fibres delicate and fulceptible. Ac- 

 cordingly the witchcraft mentioned by Virgil only reaches 

 to the tender lambs. 



Laftly, the faculty is only exercifed when the perfon is 

 difpleafed, provoked, irritated, &c. it requiring fume ex- 

 traordinary ftrefs and emotion of mind to dart a proper 

 quantity of the effluvia, with a fufiicient impetus, to pro- 

 duce the effed at a diftance. That the eye has fome very 

 confiderable powers is paft difpute. 



The ancient naturalifts affure us, that the bafilifli and 

 opoblepa kill other animals merely by flaring at them. If 

 this fail of credit, a late author an"ures us to have feen a 

 moufe running round a large fnake, which flood looking 

 carneftly at it, with its mouth open ; flill the moufe made 

 lefs and lefa circles about it ; crying all the while, as if 

 compelled to it ; and, at laft, with much feeming reluc- 

 tance, ran into the gaping mouth, and was immediately 

 fwallowed. 



Who has not obferved a fetting-dog ; and the efFeds of 

 its eye on the partridge ? The poor bird, when once its eyes 

 meet thofe of the dog, ftands as if confounded, regardlefs 

 of itfelf, and eafily lets the net be drawn over it. We re- 

 member to have read of fquirrels alfo ftupified and over- 

 come by a dog's flaring hard at them, and thus made to 

 drop out of the trees into his mouth. 



That man is not fecure from the hke affedions is matter 

 of eafy obfervation. Few people but have, again and again, 

 fek the effeds of an angry, a fierce, a commanding, a dif- 



5 



W I T 



dainful, a lafcivious, an intreating eye, &c. Thefe effeds 

 of the eye, at leaft, make a kind of witchcraft. But our 

 readers will excufe our enlarging. 



Witchcraft prevailed to fuch a degree both in England 

 and Scotland in the 1 6th century, that it attraded the at- 

 tention of government under the reign of Henry VIII., 

 in whofe 33d year was enaded a ftatute which adjudged 

 all witchcraft and forcery to be felony without benefit of 

 clergy ; and at the commencement of the reign of Eliza- 

 beth, the evil feems to have been very much on the increafe ; 

 for bifliop Jewel, in a fermon preached before the queen in 

 1558, tells her ; " It may pleafe your grace to uuderftand 

 that witches and forcerers within thefe four laft years are 

 marvelloufiy increafed within your grace's realm. Your 

 grace's fubjeds pine away even unto the death, their colour 

 fadeth, their flefli rotteth, their fpeech is benumbed, their 

 fenfes are bereft ; I pray God they never pradife further 

 than upon the fubjed." Of the prevalence of this delu- 

 fiou in 1584, we have the teflimony of Reginald Scot, in 

 his treatife intitled " The Difcoverie of Witchcraft," 

 written in behalf of the poor, the aged, and the fimple, as 

 the author informs us ; and it refleds Angular difcredit on 

 the age in which it was produced, that a detedion fo com- 

 plete, both with regard to argument and i^ad, ihould have 

 failed in effeding its purpofo. The mifchief, inftead of 

 being reftrained, was rapidly accelerated by the pubhcation 

 of the " Dsmonologie" of king James, at Edinburgh, in 

 the year 1597 ; and the contagion was promoted by the 

 fuccefiion of James to the throne of Elizabeth. In the 

 year 1603, the royal treatife was printed at London, with 

 an alarming preface concerning the increafe of witches or 

 enchanters, " thefe deteftable flaves of the devil ;" and it 

 was accompanied by a new ftatute againft witches, which 

 defcribes the crime in a variety of particulars, and enads, 

 that offenders, duly and lawfully convided and attainted, 

 (hall fuffer death. Reginald Scot, in the treatife above- 

 mentioned, has pourtrayed at large the charader of thofe 

 who were branded with the appellation of witches, ftating 

 the deeds that were imputed to them, and the nature of 

 their fuppofed compact with the devil. The abode of a 

 witch is admirably defcribed by Spenfer, the defcription 

 being formed from an exifting fubjed : 



" There in a gloomy hollow glen flie found 

 A little cottage built of ftickes and reedes 

 In homely wife, and wald with fods around ; 

 In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes 

 And wilful want, all carelefs of her needes : 

 So choofing folitarie to abide 

 Far from all neighbours, that her devilifh deeds 

 And hellifli arts from people ftie might hide, 

 And hurt far off unknowne whom ever /he envide." 



Faerie Queene. 



Scot has, with Angular induftry, coUeded from every 

 writer on the fubjed the minutiae of witchcraft, and he has 

 annexed comments for the purpofe of refuting and expofing 

 them ; whereas James, the royal pedant, wrote in defence of 

 this folly, and, unfortunately for truth and humanity, the 

 dodrine of the monarch was preferred to that of the fage. 



The old laws made in England and Scotland againft con- 

 juration and witchcraft are repealed by a late ftatute, and no 

 perfon is to be profecuted for any fuch crime. 9 Geo. II. 

 c. 5. See Conjuration. 



WITCHES-BuTTER, a name given by the common 

 people of England to a fort of tremella growing on the 

 bark of old trees, in form of a corrugated membrane. 



WITELSHOFEN, in Geography, a town of Ger- 



many. 



