1

These eleven WITCHES beginning to dance, (which is an usual ceremony at their convents or meetings, where sometimes also they are vizarded and masked,) on the sudden one of them missed their chief, and interrupted the

rest with this speech. eve. Well month.

Hag. Sisters, stay, we want our Dame;
Call upon her by her name,

2

And the charm we use to say;
That she quickly anoint," and come away.

1 Charm Dame, dame! the watch is set:

Quickly come, we all are met. -
From the lakes, and from the fens,
From the rocks, and from the dens,
From the woods, and from the caves,
From the church-yards, from the graves,
From the dungeon, from the tree
That they die on, here are we!

Comes she not yet?
Strike another heat.

2 Charm The weather is fair, the wind is good,
Up, dame, on your horse of wood:

Or else tuck up your gray frock,

And saddle your goat, or your green cock,"

1 See the king's majesty's book (our sovereign) of Demonology, Bodin. Remig. Delrio. Mal. Malefi. and a world of others in the general: but let us follow particulars.

2 Amongst our vulgar witches, the honor of dame, (for so I translate it) is given with a kind of pre-eminence to some special one at their meetings; which Delrio insinuates, Disquis. Mag. lib. 2. quæst. 9. quoting that of Apuleius, lib. de Asin. aureo. de quadam caupona, regina Sagarum. And adds, ut scias etiam tum quasdam ab iis hoc titulo honoratas. Which title M. Philipp. Ludwigus Elich. Dæmonomagiæ, quæst. 10. doth also remember.

When they are to be transported from place to place, they use to anoint themselves, and sometimes the things they ride on. Beside Apul. testimony, see these later, Remig. Dæmonolatriæ lib. 1. cap. 14. Delrio, Disquis. Mag. 1. 2. quæst. 16. Bodin. Dæmonoman. 1. 2. c. 14. Barthol. de Spina. quæst. de Strigib. Philippo Ludwigus Elich. quæst. 10 Paracelsus in magn. et occul. Philosophia, teacheth the confection. Unguentum ex carne recens natorum infantium, in pulmenti forma coctum, et cum herbis somniferis, quales sunt Papaver, Solanum, Cicuta, &c. And Giov. Bapti. Porta, lib. 2. Mag. Natur. cap. 16.

These places, in their own nature dire and dismal, are reckoned up as the fittest from whence such persons should come, and were notably observed by that excellent Lucan in the description of his Erichtho, lib. 6. To which we may add this corollary out of Agrip. de occult. philosop. 1. 1. c. 48. Saturno correspondent loca quævis fœtida, tenebrosa, subterranea, religiosa et funesta, ut cœmeteria, busta, et hominibus deserta habitacula, et vetustate caduca, loca obscura, et horrenda, et solitaria antra, caverna, putei: præterea piscina, stagna, paludes, et ejusmodi. And in lib. 3. c. 42. speaking of the like, and in lib. 4. about the end, Aptissima sunt loca plurimum experientia visionum, nocturnarumque incursionum et consimilium phantasmatum, ut cemeteria, et in quibus fieri solent executiones criminalis judicii, in quibus recentibus annis publicæ strages facte sunt, vel ubi occisorum cadavera, necdum expiata, nec ritè sepulta, recentioribus

annis subhumata sunt.

Delrio, Disq. Mag. lib. 2. quæst. 6. has a story out of Triezius of this horse of wood: but that which our witches call so, is sometimes a broom-staff, sometimes a reed, sometimes a distaff. See Remig. Dæmonol. lib. 1. cap. 14. Bodin. 1.2. cap. 4. &c.

6 The goat is the Devil himself, upon whom they ride often to their solemnity, as appears by their confessions in Rem. and Bodin. ibid. His majesty also remembers the story of the devil's appearance to those of Calicut, in that form, Dæmonol. lib. 2. cap. 3.

7 Of the green cock we have no other ground (to confess ingenuously) than a vulgar fable of a witch, that with a cock of that color, and a bottom of blue thread, would transport herself through the air; and so escaped (at the time of her being brought to execution) from the hand of justice. It was a tale when I went to school; and somewhat there is like it in Mart. Delr. Disq. Mag. lib. 2. quæst. 6. of one Zyti, a Bohemian, that, among other his dexterities, aliquoties equis rhedariis vectum, gallis gallinaceis ad epirrhedium suum alligatis, subsequebatur

3 Charm. The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain,

The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,
And the frog peeps out o' the fountain;
The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a turning; 8
The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a burning:

The ditch is made, and our nails the spade,
With pictures full, of wax and of wool;
Their livers I stick, with needles quick;
There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood.
Quickly, dame, then bring your part in,
Spur, spur upon little Martin,10

Merrily, merrily, make him sail,

A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail,
Fire above, and fire below,

With a whip in your hand, to make him go

8 All this is but a periphrasis of the night, in their charm, and their applying themselves to it with their instruments, whereof the spindle in antiquity was the chief: and beside the testimony of Theocritus, in Pharmaceutria (who only used it in amorous affairs) was of special act to the troubling of the moon. To which Martial alludes, lib. 9. ep. 30. Quie nunc Thessalico Lunam deducere rhombo, &c. And lib. 12. ep. 57. Cum secta Colcho Luna vapulat rhombo.

This rite also of making a ditch with their nails is frequent with our witches, whereof see Bodin. Remig. Delr. Malleus Mal. Godelman. 1. 2. de Lamiis, as also the antiquity of it most vively exprest by Hor. Satyr. 8. lib. 1. where he mentions the pictures, and the blood of a black lamb. All which are yet in use with our modern witchcraft. Scal pere terram (speaking of Canidia and Sagana)

Unguibus, et pullam divellere mordicus agnam
Cœperunt: cruor in fossam confusus, ut inde
Maneis elicerent animas responsa daturas.
Lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea, &c.

And then by and by,

-Serpentes atque videres

Infernas errare caneis, Lunamque rubentem,
Ne foret his testis, post magna latere sepulchra.

Of this ditch Homer makes mention in Circe's speech to
Ulysses, Odyss. K. about the end, Bo@pov spúčat, &c. And
Ovid. Metam. lib. 7. in Medea's magic,

Iaud procul egesta scrobibus tellure duabus
Sacra facit, cultrosque in gutture velleris atri
Conjicit, et patulas perfundit sanguine fossas.

And of the waxen images, in Hypsipyle's epistle to Jason
where he expresseth that mischief also of the needles:
Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea fingit;
Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus.
Bodin. Dæmon. lib. 2. cap. 8. hath, (beside the known story
of king Duffe out of Hector Boetius) much of the witches
later practice in that kind, and reports a relation of a French
ambassador's, out of England, of certain pictures of wax,
found in a dunghill near Islington, of our late queen's:
which rumor I myself (being then very young) can yet 10-
member to have been current.

10 Their little Martin is he that calls them to their conventicles, which is done in a human voice, but coming forth, they find him in the shape of a great buck goat, upon whom they ride to their meetings, Delr. Disq. Mag. quæst. 16. lib. 2. And Bod. Dæmon. lib. 2. cap. 4. have both the same relation from Paulus Grillandus, of a witch. Adveniente nocte et hora evocabatur voce quadam velut humana ab ipso Dæmone, quem non vocant Dæmonem, sed Magisterulum, aliæ Magis trum Martinettum, sive Martinellum. Quæ sic evocata, mox sumebat pyxidem unctionis et linebat corpus suum in quibusdam partibus et membris, quo linito exibat ex domo. et inveniebat Magisterulum suum in forma hirci illam expectantem apud ostium, super quo mulier equitabat, et applicare solebat fortiter manus ad crineis, et statim hírcus ille adscendebat per aerem, et brevissimo tempore deferebat ipsam, &c.

684

O, now she's come!

Let all be dumb.

At this the DAME' entered to them, naked-armed, bare-footed, her frock tucked, her hair knotted, and folded with vipers; in her hand a torch made of a dead man's arm, lighted, girded with a snake. To whom they all did reverence, and she spake, uttering, by way of question, the end wherefore they came.2

Dame. Well done, my Hags! And come we fraught with spite,

To overthrow the glory of this night?
Holds our great purpose?

Hag. Yes.

Dame. But wants there none

Of our just number?

Hags. Call us one by one,

And then our dame shall see.

Dame. First, then advance,3
My drowsy servant, stupid Ignorance,
Known by thy scaly vesture; and bring on
Thy fearful sister, wild Suspicion,

[As she names them they come forward.

1 This dame I make to bear the person of Ate, or Mischief, (for so I interpret it) out of Homer's description of her, L. A. where he makes her swift to hurt mankind, strong, and sound of her feet; and Iliad. T. walking upon men's heads; in both places using one and the same phrase to signify her power, Βλαπτοῦσ ̓ ἀνθρώπους, Ledens homines. I present her barefooted, and her frock tucked, to make her seem more expedite, by Horace's authority, Sat. 8. lib. 1. Succinctam vadere palla Canidiam pedibus nudis, passoque capillo. But for her hair, I rather respect another place of his, Epod. lib. ode 5. where she appears Canidia brevibus implicata viperis Crincis, et incomptum caput. And that of Lucan, lib. 6. speaking of Erichtho's attire,

Discolor, et vario Furialis cultus amictu Induitur, vultusque aperitur crine remoto, Et coma vipercis substringitur horrida sertis, For her torch, see Remig. lib. 2. cap. 3.

2 Which if it had been done either before, or otherwise,

had not been so natural. For to have made themselves their own decipherers, and each one to have told upon their entrance what they were, and whither they would, had been a piteous hearing, and utterly unworthy any quality of a poem: wherein a writer should always trust somewhat to the capacity of the spectator, especially at these spectacles; where men, beside inquiring eyes, are understood to bring quick ears, and not those sluggish ones of porters and mechanics, that must be bored through at every act with narrations.

3 In the chaining of these vices, I make as if one link produced another, and the Dame were born out of them all, so as they might say to her, Sola tenes scelerum quicquid possedimus omnes. Nor will it appear much violenced, if their series be considered, when the opposition to all virtue begins out of Ignorance, that Ignorance begets Suspicion, (for Knowledge is ever open and charitable) that Suspicion, Credulity, as it is a vice; for being a virtue, and free, it is opposite to it: but such as are jealous of themselves, do easily credit any thing of others whom they hate. Out of this Credufty springs Falsehood, which begets Murmur: and that of Murmar presently grows Malice, which begets Impudence: and that Impudence, Slander: that Slander, Execration: Execration, Bitterness: Bitterness, Fury: and Fury, Mischief. Now for the personal presentation of them, the authority in poetry is universal. But in the absolute Claudian, there is a particular and eminent place, where the poet not only produceth such persons, but almost to a like purpose, in Ruf. lib. 1. where Alecto, envious of the times,

infernas ad limina tetra sorores
Concilium deforme vocat, glomerantur in unum
Innumera pestes Erebi, quascunque sinistro
Nox genuit fætu: nutrix discordia belli,
Imperiosa fames, leto vicina senectus,
Impatiensque sui morbus, livorque secundis
Anxius, et scisso morens velamine luctus,
Et timor, et cæco præceps audacia vultu:

with many others, fit to disturb the world, as ours the night.

Whose eyes do never sleep; let her knit hands
With quick Credulity, that next her stands,
Who hath but one ear, and that always ope;
Two-faced Falsehood follow in the rope;
And lead on Murmur, with the cheeks deep
hung;

She, Malice, whetting of her forked tongue;
And Malice, Impudence, whose forehead's lost;
Let Impudence lead Slander on, to boast
Her oblique look; and to her subtle side,
Thou, black-mouth'd Execration, stand applied;
Draw to thee Bitterness, whose pores sweat gall;
She, flame-ey'd Rage; Rage, Mischief.

Hags. Here we are all.

Dame. Join now our hearts, we faithful opposites 4

To Fame and Glory. Let not these bright nights
Of honor blaze, thus to offend our eyes:
Shew ourselves truly envious, and let rise
Our wonted rages: do what may beseem
Such names, and natures; Virtue else will deem
Our powers decreas'd, and think us banish'"
earth,

No less than heaven. All her antique birth,
As Justice, Faith, she will restore; and, bold
Upon our sloth, retrieve her age of gold.

We must not let our native manners, thus,
Corrupt with ease. Ill lives not, but in us.
I hate to see these fruits of a soft peace,
And curse the piety gives it such increase.
Let us disturb it then," and blast the light;
Mix hell with heaven, and make nature fight
Within herself; loose the whole hinge of
things;

And cause the ends run back into their springs.
Hags. What our Dame bids us do,
We are ready for.

Dame. Then fall to.

But first relate me, what you have sought,

4 Here again by way of irritation, I make the dame par sue the purpose of their coming, and discover their natures more largely which had been nothing, if not done as doing another thing, but moratio circa vilem patulumque orbem; than which, the poet cannot know a greater vice; he being that kind of artificer, to whose work is required so much exactness, as indifferency is not tolerable.

5 These powers of troubling nature, frequently ascribed to witches, and challenged by themselves wherever they are induced, by Homer, Ovid, Tibullus, Pet. Arbiter, Seneca, Lucan, Claudian, to whose authorities I shall refer more anon. For the present, hear Socrat. in Apul. de Asin. aureo, 1. 1. describing Meroe the witch. Saga et divinipotens cœlum deponere, terram suspendere, fontes durare, monteis diluere, manes sublimare, deos infimare, sidera extinguere, tartarum ipsum illuminare; and 1. 2. Byrrhena to Lucius, of Pamphile. Maga primi nominis, et omnis carminis sepulcralis magistra creditur, quæ surculis et lapillis, et id genus frivolis inhalatis, omnem istam lucem mundi sideralis, imis tartari et in vetustum chaos mergit: as also this latter of Remigius, in his most elegant arguments before his Dæmonolatria. Quâ possit evertere funditus orbem, Et maneis superis miscere, hæc unica cura est. And Lucan. Quarum quicquid non creditur, ars est.

This is also solemn in their witchcraft, to be examined, either by the devil or their dame, at their meetings, of what mischief they have done and what they can confer to a future hurt. See M. Philippo Ludwigus Elich. Dæmonomagiæ lib. quæst. 10. But Remigius, in the very form, lib. 1. Dæmonolat. c. 22. Quemadmodum solent heri in villicis procuratoribus, cum eorum rationes expendunt, segnitiem negligentiamque durius castigare; ita Dæmon, in suis comitiis, quod tempus examinandis cujusque rebus atque actionibus ipse constituit, eos pessimè habere consuevit, qut nihil afferunt quo se nequiores ac flagitiis cumulatiores doceant. Nec cuiquam adeo impune est, si à superiore conventu nullo se scelere novo obstrinxerit; sed semper

Where you have been, and what you have brought.

1 Hag. I have been all day, looking after 1 A raven, feeding upon a quarter;

And, soon, as she turn'd her beak to the south,
I snatch'd this morsel out of her mouth.

2 Hag. I have been gathering wolves' hairs,
The mad dog's foam, and the adder's ears;
The spurging of a dead-man's eyes,
And all since the evening star did rise.

oportet, qui gratus esse volet in alinm, novum aliquod facinus fecisse: and this doth exceedingly solicit them all, at such times, lest they should come unprepared. But we apply this examination of ours to the particular use; whereby, also, we take occasion, not only to express the things (as vapors, liquors, herbs, bones, flesh, blood, fat, and such like, which are called Media magica) but the rites of gathering them, and from what places, reconciling, as near as we can, the practice of antiquity to the neoteric, and making it familiar with our popular witchcraft.

1 For the gathering pieces of dead flesh, Cornel. Agrip. de occult. Philosoph. lib. 3. cap. 42. and lib. 4. cap. ult. observes, that the use was to call up ghosts and spirits, with a fumigation made of that (and bones of carcasses) which I make my witch here, not to cut herself, but to watch the raven, as Lucan's Erichtho, lib. 6:

Et quodcunque jacet nuda tellure cadaver
Ante feras volucresque sedet: nec carpere membra
Vult ferro manibusque suis, morsusque luporum
Expectat siccis raptura à faucibus artus.

As if that piece were sweeter which the wolf had bitten, or the raven had pick'd, and more effectuous and to do it, at her turning to the south, as with the prediction of a storm. Which, though they be but minuter in ceremony, being observed, make the act more dark and full of horror.

2. Spuma canum, lupi crines, nodus hyena, oculi draconum, serpentis membrana, aspidis aures, are all mentioned by the ancients in witchcraft. And Lucan particularly, lib. 6.

Huc quicquid fætu genuit natura sinistro

Miscetur, non spuma canum, quibus unda timori est,
Viscera non lyncis, non duræ nodus hyena
Defuit, &c.

And Ovid. Metamorph. lib. 7. reckons up others. But for the spurging of the eyes, let us return to Lucan, in the same book, which piece (as all the rest) is written with an admirable height.

Ast ubi servantur saxis, quibus intimus humor
Ducitur, et tracta durescunt tabe medulle
Corpora, tunc omneis avidè desvit in artus,
Iminersitque manus oculis, gaudetque golatos
Effodisse orbeis, et siccæ pallida rodit
Excrementa manus.

3. Pliny writing of the mandrake, Nat. Hist. 1. 25. c. 13. and of the digging it up, hath this ceremony, Cavent cffossuri contrarium ventum, et tribus circulis ante gladio eircumscribunt, postea fodiunt ad occasum spectantes. But we have later tradition, that the forging of it up is so fatally dangerous, as the groan kills, and therefore they do it with dogs, which I think but borrowed from Josephus's report of the root Baæras, lib. 7. de Bel. Judaic. Howsoever, it being so principal an ingredient in their magic, it was fit she should boast, to be the plucker up of it herself. And, that the cock did crow, alludes to a prime circumstance in their work for they all confess, that nothing is so cross, or baleful to them in their nights, as that the cock should crow before they have done. Which makes that their little masters or martinets, whom I have mentioned before, use this form in dismissing their conventions. Eja, facessite propere hinc omnes, nam jam galli canere incipiunt. Which I interpret to be, because that bird is the messenger of light, and so, contrary to their acts of darkness. See Remig. Dæmonolat. lib. 1. cap. 4. where he quotes that of Apollonius, de umbra Achillis, Philostr. lib. 4. cap. 5. And Euseb. Cæsariens. in confutat, contra Hierocl. 4. de gallicinio.

4. I have touched at this before, in my note upon the first, of the use of gathering flesh, bones, and sculls: to which I now bring that piece of Apuleius, lib. 3. de Asino aureo, of Pamphile. Priusque apparatu solito instruxit feralem officinam, omne genus aromatis, et ignorabiliter aminis literatis, et infœlicium navium durantibus clavis

3 Hag. I last night lay all alone On the ground, to hear the mandrake groan; And pluck'd him up, though he grew full low And, as I had done, the cock did crow.

[scull,

4 Hag. And I have been choosing out this From charnel houses, that were full; From private grots, and public pits: And frighted a sexton out of his wits.

5 Hag. Under a cradle I did creep, By day; ad when the child was asleep,

defletorum, sepuitorum etiam cadaverum expositis multis admodum membris, hic nares et digiti, illic carnosi clavl pendentium, alibi trucidatorum servatus cruor, et extorta dentibus ferarum trunca calvaria: And for such places, Lucan makes his witch to inhabit them, lib. 6. Desertaque busta Incolit, et tumulos expulsis obtinet umbris.

5. For this rite, see Barthol. de Spina, quæst. de Strigibus, cap. 8. Mal. Malefic. tom. 2. where he disputes at large the transformation of witches to cats, and their sucking both their spirits and the blood, calling them Striges, which Godelman, lib. de Lamiis, would have à stridore, et avibus fœdissimis ejusdem nominis, which I the rather incline to, out of Ovid's authority. Fast. lib. 6. where the poet ascribes to those birds, the same almost that these do to the witches.

Nocte volant, puerosque petunt nutricis egenteis.
Et vitiant cunis corpora rapta suis:
Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris,
Et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent.

6. Their killing of infants is common, both for confection of their ointment (whereto one ingredient is the fat boiled, as I have shewed before out of Paracelsus and Porta) as also out of a lust to do murder. Sprenger in Mal. Malefic. reports that a witch, a midwife in the diocese of Basil, confessed to have killed above forty infants (ever as they wero new born, with pricking them in the brain with a needle) which she had offered to the devil. See the story of the three witches in Rem. Dæmonola. lib. cap. 3, about the end of the chapter. And M. Philippo Ludwigus Elich. Quæst. 8. And that it is no new rite, read the practice of Canidia Epod. Horat. lib. ode 5. and Lucan, lib. 6, whose admirable verses I can never be weary to transcribe:

Nec cessant à cæde manus, si sanguine vivo
Est opus, erumpat jugulo qui primus aperto
Nec refugit cædes, vivum si sacra cruorem
Extaque funereæ poscunt trepidantia mensæ.
Vulnere si ventris, non quâ natura vocabat,
Extrahitur partus calidis ponendus in aris;
Et quoties sævis opus est, et fortibus umbris
Ipsa facit maneis. Hominum mors omnis in usa est.

7. The abuse of dead bodies in their witchcraft, both Porphyrio and Psellus are grave authors of. The one lib. de sacrif. de vero cultu. The other lib. de Dæmo. which Apuleius toucheth too, lib. 2. de Asin. aureo. But Remigius, who deals with later persons, and out of their own mouths, Dæmonol. lib. 2. cap. 3. affirms, Hac et nostræ ætatis maleficis hominibus moris est facere, præsertim sic cuju supplicio affecti cadaver exemplo datum est, et in crucem sublatum. Nam non solum inde sortilegiis suis materiam mutuantur: sed et ab ipsis carnificinæ instrumentis, reste, vinculis, palo, ferramentis. Siquidem iis vulgi etiam opinione inesse ad incantationes magicas vim quandam et potestatem. And to this place I dare not, out of religion to the divine Lucan, but bring his verses from the same book

Laqueum nodosque nocentels

Ore suo rupit, pendentia corpora carpsit,
Abrasitque cruces, percussaque viscera nimbis
Vulsit, et, incoctas admisso sole medullas.
Insertum manibus chalybem nigramque per artus
Stillantis tabi saniem, virusque coactum
Sustulit, et nervo morsus retinente pependit.

8. These are Canidia's furniture, in Hora. Epod. lib. ode 5. Et uncta turpis ova ranæ sanguine, plumanque nocturna strigis. And part of Medea's confection in Ovid. Metamorph. lib. 7. Strigis infames, ipsiscum carnibus, alas. That of the skin (to make a purse for her fly) was meant ridiculous, to mock the keeping of their familiars.

9. Cicuta, hyoscyamus, ophioglosson, solanum, martagon, doronicum, aconitum, are the common venefical ingredients remembered by Paracelsus, Porta, Agrippa, and others. which I make her to have gathered, as about a casile

At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose.
6 Hag. I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Kill'd an infant to have his fat.

A piper it got, at a church-ale,

I bade him again blow wind in the tail.

Here the Dame put herself in the midst of them
and began her following Invocation :
You fiends and furies (if yet may be
Worse than ourselves) you that have quaked to

see

The sun and the wind had shrunk his veins;

I bit off a sinew; I clipp'd his hair,

I brought off his rags that danced in the air.

8 Hag. The screech-owl's eggs, and the feathers black,

The blood of the frog, and the bone in his back,
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keep sir Cranion in.

9 Hag. And I have been plucking, plants
Hemlock, henbane, adder's-tongue, [among,
Night-shade, moon-wort, libbard's-bane;
And twice, by the dogs, was like to be ta'en.
10 Hag. I, from the jaws of a gardener's bitch,
Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the
Yet went I back to the house again, [ditch:
Kill'd the black cat, and here's the brain.

11 Hag. I went to the toad breeds under the wall,

I charm'd him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch'd out the eyes of the owl before,
I tore the bat's wing; what would you have

more?

Dame. Yes, I have brought, to help our vows, Horned poppy, cypress boughs,

The fig-tree wild that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the larch-tree comes,
The basilisk's blood, and the viper's skin:
And now our orgies let us begin.

church, or some vast building (kept by dogs) among ruins and wild heaps.

10. Ossa ab ore rapta jejunæ canis, Horace gives Canidia, in the place before quoted. Which jejunæ, I rather change to gardener's, as imagining such persons to keep mastiff's for the defence of their grounds, whither this hag might also go for simples: where, meeting with the bones, and not content with them, she would yet do a domestic hurt, in getting the cat's brains: which is another special ingredient; and of so much more efficacy, by how much blacker the cat is, if you will credit Agr. Cap. de Suffitibus.

11. These also, both by the confessions of witches, and testimony of writers, are of principal use in their witchcraft. The toad mentioned in Virg. Geor. lib. 1. Inventusque canis Bufo. Which by Pliny is called Rubeta, Nat. Hist. 1. 32. c. 5. and there celebrated for the force in magic. Juvenal toucheth at it twice within my memory, Satyr. I. and 6; and of the owl's eyes, see Corn. Agrip. de occult. Philosoph. 1. 1. c. 15. As of the bat's blood and wings there: and in the 25th chapter with Bapt. Porta, 1. 2. c. 26.

12. After all their boasted labors, and plenty of materials, as they imagine, I make the dame not only to add more, but stranger, and out of their means to get, (except the first, Papaver cornutum, which I have touch'd at in the confection,) as Sepulchris caprificos erutas, et cupressos funebreis, as Iforace calls them, where he arms Canidia, Epod. lib. ode 5. Then Agaricum Laricis, of which see Porta, lib. 2. de Nat. Mag. against Pliny. And Basilisci, quem et Saturni sanguinem vocant venifici, tantasque vires habere ferunt. Cor. Agrip. de occult. Philos. 1. 1. c. 42. With the viper remembered by Lucan; lib. 6. and the skins of serpents. Innataque rubris

Equoribus custos pretiosæ vipera conchæ,
Aut viventis adhuc Lybicæ membrana cerastæ.

And Ovid lib 7.

Nec defuit illis

Squamea ciniphei tenuis membrana chelydri.

And to our powers resign'd your whips and

brands

[lands. When we went forth, the scourge of men and You that have seen me ride, when Hecate Durst not take chariot; when the boisterous sea, Without a breath of wind, hath knock'd the And that hath thundered, Jove not knowing sky; [why:

When we have set the elements at wars,
Made midnight see the sun, and day the stars;
When the wing'd lightning, in the course hath

staid;

And swiftest rivers have run back, afraid,
To see the corn remove, the groves to range,
Whole places alter, and the seasons change;
When the pale moon, at the first voice down fell
Poison'd, and durst not stay the second spell.
You, that have oft been conscious of these sights.
And thou, three-formed star, that on these
nights

Art only powerful, to whose triple name [same;
Thus we incline, once, twice, and thrice the
If now with rites profane, and foul enough,
We do invoke thee; darken all this roof,
With present fogs: exhale earth's rot'nest va-
pors,
[tapers.
And strike a blindness through these blazing
Come, let a murmuring charm resound,
The whilst we bury all i' the ground
But first, see every foot be bare;
And every knee.

1 Wherein she took occasion to boast all the power attributed to witches by the ancients, of which every poet (or the most) do give some: Homer to Circe, in the Odyss Theocritus to Simatha, in Pharmaceutria; Virgil to Alphest bæus, in his Eclogue, Ovid to Dipsas, in Amor. to Medea and Circe, in Metamorph. Tibullus to Saga; Horace to Canidia, Sagana, Veia, Folia; Seneca to Medea, and the nurse, in Herc. CEte. Petr. Arbiter to his Saga, in Frag, and Claudian to Megæra, lib. 1. in Rufinum; who takes the habit of a witch, as they do, and supplies that historical part in the poem, beside her moral person of a Fury; confirming the same drift in ours.

2 These invocations are solemn with them, whereof we may see the forms in Ovid. Metam. lib. 7. in Sen. Trag. Med. in Luc. lib. 6. which of all is the boldest and most horrid, beginning, Eumenides, Stygiumque nefas, pœnæque nocentum, &c.

3 The untying of their knots is, when they are going to some fatal business; Sagana is presented by Horace; Expedita, per totum donium spargens Avernale is aquas, horret capillis ut marinus asperis echinus, aut currens aper.

4 Hecate, who is called Trivia, and Triformis, of whom Virgil, Eneid. lib. 4. Tergeminamque Hecaten, tria virginis ora Dianæ. She was believed to govern in witchcraft; and is remembered in all their invocations: see Theoer. in Pharmaceut. xap' 'Ekúra daonλri, and Medea in Senec. Meis vocata sacris noctium sidus veni, pessimos induta vultus: fronte non unâ minax. And Ericht. in Luc. Persephone, nostræque Hecatis pars ultima, &c.

5 This rite of burying their materials is often confessed in Remigius, and described amply in Hor. Sat. 8. lib. 1. Utque lupi barbam variæ cum dente colubræ abdiderint furtim terris, &c.

The ceremony also, of baring their feet, is expressed by Ovid. Metamorph. lib. 7. as of their hair:

Egreditur tectis vestes induta recinctas,
Nuda pedem, nudos humeris infusa capillos,