ordered for two reafons; firft, the men, having the whole direction of this affair, are wife enough to flip their own necks out of the collar; and fecondly an old woman is grown by cuftom the most avoided and most unpitied creature under the fun, the very name carrying contempt and fatire in it. And fo far indeed we pay but an uncourtly fort of respect to Satan, in facrificing to him nothing but the dry fticks of human nature.

We have a wondering quality within us, which finds huge gratification when we fee ftrange feats done, and cannot at the fame time fee the doer, or the caufe. Such actions are fure to be attributed to fome witch or dæmon; for if we come to find they are flily performed by artifts of our own fpecies, and by caufes purely natural, our delight dies with

our amazement.

It is therefore one of the moft unthankful offices in the world, to go about to expose the mistaken notions of witchcraft and fpirits; it is robbing mankind of a valuable imagination, and of the privilege of being deceived. Thofe, who at any time undertook the tafk, have always met with rough treatment and ill language for their pains, and feldom efcaped the imputation of atheifin, because they would not allow the devil to be too powerful for the Almighty. For my part, I am fo much a heretic as to believe, that God Almighty, and not the devil, governs the world.

If we inquire what are the common marks and fymptoms, by which witches are difcovered to be fuch, we fhall fee how reasonably and mercifully those poor creatures were burnt and hanged, who unhappily fell under that name.

In the firft place the old woman must be prodigioufly ugly; her eyes hollow and red, her face Thrivelled; he goes double, and her voice trem

bles.

bles. It frequently happens, that this rueful figure frightens a child into the palpitation of the heart: home he runs, and tells his mamma, that goody fuch a one looked at him, and he is very ill. The good woman cries out, her dear baby is bewitched, and fends for the parfon and the constable.

It is moreover neceffary, that the be very poor. It is true, her mafter Satan has mines and hidden treasures in his gift; but no matter, fhe is for all that very poor, and lives on alms. She goes to Silly the cook maid for a dish of broth, or the heel of a loaf, and Sily denies them to her. The old woman goes away muttering, and perhaps in less than a month's time Sifly hears the voice of a cat, and ftrains her ancles, which are certain figns that she is bewitched.

A farmer fees his cattle die of the murrain, and the fheep of the rot, and poor goody is forced to be the caufe of their death, becaufe fhe was feen talking to herself the evening before fuch an ewe departed, and had been gathering fticks at the fide of the wood where fuch a cow run mad.

The old woman has always for her companion an old grey cat, which is a difguifed devil too, and confederate with goody in works of darknefs. They frequently go journies into Egypt upon a broom-staff in half an hour's time, and now and then goody and her cat change fhapes. The neighbours often over-hear them in deep and folemn difcourfe together, plotting fome dreadful mifchief you may be fure.

There is a famous way of trying witches, recommended by king James I. The old woman is tied hand and foot, and thrown into the river, and if fhe fwims fhe is guilty, and taken out and burnt; but if he is innocent, fhe finks, and is only drowned.

The

The witches are faid to meet their mafter frequently in churches and church-yards. I wonder at the boldness of Satan and his congregation, in revelling and playing mountebank farces on confecrated ground; and I have as often wondered at the overfight and ill policy of fome people in allowing it poffible.

It would have been both dangerous and impious to have treated this fubject at one certain time in this ludicrous manner. It used to be managed with all poffible gravity, and even terror; and indeed it was made a tragedy in all its parts, and thousands were facrificed or rather murdered by fuch evidence and colours, as, God be thanked! we are at this day afhamed of. An old woman may be miferable now, and not be hanged for it.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE

AUGUSTAN AGE OF ENGLAND.

THE hiftory of the rife of language and learning is calculated to gratify curiofity rather than to fatisfy the understanding. An account of that period only, when language and learning arrived at its highest perfection, is the moft conducive to real improvement, fince it at once raises emulation and directs to the proper objects. The age of Leo X. in Italy is confeffed to be the Auguftan age with them. The French writers feem agreed to give the fame appellation to that of Lewis XIV. but the English are yet undetermined with refpect to

themselves.

Some

Some have looked upon the writers in the times of Queen Elizabeth as the true ftandard for future imitation; others have defcended to the reign of James I. and others still lower, to that of Charles II. Were I to be permitted to offer an opinion upon this fubject, I fhould readily give my vote for the reign of Queen Anne, or fome years before that period. It was then that tafte was united to genius, and, as before, our writers charmed with their ftrength of thinking, fo then they pleafed with ftrength and grace united. In that period of British glory, though no writer attracts our attention fingly; yet, like ftars loft in each other's brightnefs, they have caft fuch a luftre upon the age in which they lived, that their minuteft tranfactions will be attended to by pofterity with a greater eagerness, than the moft important occurrences of even empires, which have been tranfacted in greater obfcurity.

At that period there feemed to be a juft balance between patronage and the prefs. Before it men were little esteemed, whofe only merit was genius; and fince men, who can prudently be content to catch the public, are certain of living without dependance. But the writers of the period of which I am fpeaking, were fufficiently efteemed by the great, and not rewarded enough by bookfellers, to fet them above independance. Fame confequently then was the trueft road to happiness; a fedulous attention to the mechanical business of the day makes the present never-failing resource.

The age of Charles II, which our countrymen term the age of wit and immorality, produced fome writers that at once ferved to improve our language and corrupt our hearts. The king himself had a large fhare of knowledge, and fome wit, and his courtiers were generally men, who had been brought in the school of affliction and experience. For

up

this reafon, when the funshine of their fortune returned, they gave too great a loose to pleasure, and language was by them cultivated only as a mode of elegance. Hence it became more enervated, and was dafhed with quaintneffes, which gave the public writings of those times a very illiberal air.

L'Eftrange, who was by no means fo bad a writer as fome have reprefented him, was funk in party faction, and having generally the worft fide of the argument often had recourfe to fcolding, pertnefs, and confequently a vulgarity, that difcovers itself even in his more liberal compofitions. He was the firft writer, who regularly enlifted himself under the banners of a party for pay, and fought for it through right and wrong for upwards of forty literary campaigns. This intrepidity gained him the efteem of Cromwell himself, and the papers he wrote even juft before the revolution, almoft with the rope about his neck, have his ufual characters of impudence and perfeverance. That he was a ftandard-writer cannot be difowned, because a great many very eminent authors formed their ftyle by his. But his ftandard was far from being a juft one; though, when party confiderations are fet afide, he certainly was poffeffed of elegance, eafe, and perfpicuity.

Dryden, though a great and undisputed genius, had the fame caft as L'Eftrange. Even his plays discover him to be a party-man, and the fame principle infects his ftyle in fubjects of the lighteft nature; but the English tongue, as it ftands at prefent, is greatly his debtor. He first gave it regular harmony, and difcovered its latent powers. It was his pen that formed the Congreves, the Priors, and the Addisons, who fucceeded him; and had it not been for Dryden, we never fhould have known a Pope, at leaft in the meridian luftre he now difplays. But Dryden's excellencies as a writer were not

confined