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Inquisition taken at Maidstone, 2 Dec. [1602], after the death of Reginald Scot, generosus.

He was seised of a tenement and 20 acres of land called Graynecourtte, held of Th. Scott, Esq., as of his manor of Brabourne, a tenement called Essex, and 20 acres of land in two parcels in Allington [Aldington], held of Edw. Hall, as of his manor of Pawlson. One parcel of land called Haythorne field, containing 20 acres in Bonington, held of the Queen in capite, and a tenement and one parcel of land lying in Barefield, containing two acres in Brabourne, tenure unknown, and one acre in Brabourne and 5 acres in Brabourne, and two parcels in Smeeth, and 30 acres of marsh called Gatesleaf, in Newchurch, held of Martin Barneham, Esq., as of his manor of Bylsyngton.

He died 9 Oct., 41 Eliz. [1599], at Smeeth.

Elizabeth, wife of Sackville Turner, gent., is his daughter and next heir, and was 28 years of age and more at his death.

Alice, his widow, has received the rents since his death.

[Elizabeth was the next heir to his own property, but that which was his own through his wife Alice, he specially devised “to her and to her heirs”.]

The Cause and History of the Work.—That is, what induced Scot to write it, and why did he set it forth as he did? inquiries which involve, among other matters, a short notice of the position then and previously held by witchcraft in England. His Hoppe-garden shows him to us as a man of intelligence, foresighted and reflective of thought, and desirous of improving the state of his country and countrymen. It shows him also as one who could not only seize a thought and commend it to others, but as one who had perseveringly put his idea into practice, found it feasible, and then so learnt the processes necessary for growing the plant, and preparing its catkins and storing them for use, that a priori one would suppose that he had done what he did not, namely, visited Holland and learnt the processes on the spot. The same qualities are seen in his Witchcraft, as is also his independence of thought. No sooner had his suspicions been aroused than he proceeded, as shown by the work and its references, to investigate the matter thoroughly and perseveringly. To this also he was encouraged, or rather led, by yet other two qualities, his straightforwardness or honesty of purpose, and his compassion, for these taught him that he was engaged in a righteous work, that of rescuing feeble and ignorant, though it may be too pretentious and shrewish, old women from false charges and a violent death, and in a noble work in endeavouring to stem the torrent of superstition and cruelty which was then beginning to overflow the land.

Nor was this the result in any way of a mind sceptically inclined. His book shows that he accepted the opinions of his day, unless he had been led to inquire into them, and either re-receive them as facts or discard them. Led doubtless by his academic training, it is abundantly clear that he had inquired into the grounds of his belief in the Established Church, and into the additions that had been made to its faith in the course of illiterate ages by the Popish Church. He had read Plotina, who taught him that the so-called vicars of Christ and his vice-gerents on earth were often devils incarnate and standard-bearers of vice, and that the system which did now and again produce a St. Francis d’Assis—all reverence to his name—produced also the congeners of Loyola, and Loyola himself, whose followers, while assuming to themselves the holy name of Socii Jesu, made that name famous and infamous, and their tenets execrated throughout the civilised world. But he accepted with some doubting, having, as he thought, great authority for it and no means of investigation, the story of the Remora; and accepted without doubting the beliefs that the bone of a carp’s head, and none other, staunched blood, the value of the unicorn’s horn, and the like, and—notwithstanding his disbelief in astrology—that seed-time and springing were governed by the waxing and waning of the moon. He also believed that precious stones owed their origin to the influences of the heavenly bodies; and besides his credulous beliefs as to certain waters, narrated at the commencement, he in the next chapter gives the absurdly wonderful virtues of these stones, some, as he says, believed in by him, “though many things most false are added”.

How then came he to inquire into and write so strongly against witchcraft? Before the time of the eighth Henry, sorcerers were dealt with by the ecclesiastical law, which punished them as heretics. Moreover, their supposed offences against the person seem, chiefly at least, to have been taken notice of when they were supposed to interfere with high or state matters or persons, as in the cases of Joan of Arc or Dame Eleanor Cobham. But in Henry’s time, probably through the extension of continental ideas, aided, it may be, by a desire to restrain the ecclesiastical power, c. 8 of the thirty-third year of his reign was passed. By this it was enacted, that witches, etc., who destroyed their neighbours, and made pictures [images] of them for magical purposes, or for the same purposes made crowns, swords, and the like, or pulled down crosses, or declared where things lost or stolen were become, should suffer death and loss of lands and goods, as felons, and lose the privileges of clergy and sanctuary. Afterwards, by 1 Edw. I, c. 12, this and other offences first made felonies in Henry’s time were no longer to be accounted such. Thirdly, in the fifth year of Elizabeth, Parliament, by its twelfth chapter, enacted, that whereas many have practised sorceries to the destruction of people and their goods, those that cause death shall suffer as was declared by 33 Henry VIII, c. 8, except that their wives and heirs shall not have their rights affected by such attainder. But that when a person was only injured, or their goods or cattle destroyed, the offenders should for the first offence suffer a year’s imprisonment, and once a quarter be exposed in the pillory in a market town for six hours, and there confess their offences; and for the second offence suffer death as felons, with the exceptions before rehearsed. While any who seek treasure, or would bring about unlawful love, or hurt anyone in his body or goods, should for a first offence be imprisoned and suffer as before, and for a second be imprisoned for life and forfeit his goods and cattle. This, so far as humanity is concerned, is a distinct advance on Henry’s enactment, though an apparent going back from that of Edward. Perhaps, as before, it arose from a desire to remove the offences from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical law, which would have burnt them, nor, as evidenced by its little results, does it seem to have been made through any mania or scare in the matter. This came on later, when, as we are told by Brian Darcie in 1582, at what time, under pie-crust promises of favour, he was endeavouring to get women to confess, and then be hanged,—“there is a man of great learning and knowledge come over lately into our Queenes Majestie, which hath advertised her what a companie and numbers of Witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other of her Justices have received Commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites.” Alas, this man of great learning and knowledge seems to have been none other than that otherwise light of the English Church, the great, good, and pious Bishop Jewel, who, having returned from a forced residence abroad, was speedily promoted by her Majesty, and in a sermon preached before her, in 1572, brought in the subject as follows:—

“Heere perhaps some man will replie, that witches, and conjurers often times chase away one Divell by the meane of another. Possible it is so; but that is wrought, not by power, but by Collusion of the Divels. For one Divell, the better to attaine his purpose, will give place, and make as though he stood in awe of another Divell. And by the way to touch but a word or two of this matter for that the horrible using of your poore subjects inforceth thereunto. It may please your Grace to understand, that this kind of people, I meenes witches and sorcerers, within these few last yeeres, are marvellously increased within this your Grace’s realme. These eies have seene most evident and manifest marks of their wickednesse. Your Grace’s subjects pine away even unto the death, their collour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benummed, their senses are bereft.”

“Wherefore, your poore subjects most humble petition unto your Highnesse, is, that the lawes touching such malefactours, may be put in due execution. For the shole of them is great, their doings horrible, their malice intollerable, the examples most miserable. And I pray God, they never practise further, then upon the subject. But this only by the way, these be the scholers of Beelzebub the chief captaine of the Divels.”

The plantings of the Queen in the commissions of her Justices thus instigated and encouraged, produced an abundant crop. According to the Dedications of Scot, Sir Roger Manwood, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, had had “in these causes such experience”, A ii. v., while Sir Thomas Scot, as Justice of the Peace, had also had “manie poore old women convented before him for ... witchcraft”, A. vi. Various booklets also, presently to be spoken of more at large, excited still more the imaginations of a credulous people, and it had been supposed, before Scot wrote, as will be seen on p. 473, and in my note on that page, that the Queen’s person had been aimed at in that way.

It thus appears that though Scot may have been brought up in a traditional but little-regarded belief in witchcraft, he, when he was at least thirty-four, was not only unprepared, but startled, to witness and take part in this new departure from justice and mercy. Witchcraft, chiefly looked on as useful in discovering things lost, or in bringing a wished-for sweetheart to return the love of the seeker, or in curing ailments simple or grievous, became feared, reviled, and sought out: sought out by Commission of the Queen, sought out by the people as a great and fearful evil rapidly overspreading the land, and able and willing, like the Plague and Black Death, to count its victims by thousands, and from the cottage to the throne itself. He, a man both intelligent and compassionate, sees poor, old, decrepit creatures eking out a miserable livelihood by begging an occasional dole from their better off neighbours; ill-tempered by age and condition, and therefore abusive when refused such dole, or on slighter causes, sometimes perhaps through old knowledge or superstition, but probably more often for the sake of gain, pretending to be wise above what is known; he sees these accused of selling their souls for the sake of such a position in the world, he hears them accused sometimes of foul, more frequently of unlikely, crimes and acts, nay, such as an unprejudiced common sense must laugh at, while the evidence is nearly always so faulty that, were the accusation a different one, it would be at once turned inside out and thrown aside. Unfortunately, too, some of these old women being more or less mad, and others driven through fear on the one hand, or through promised favour on the other, confess themselves capable of doing these things, though any man of sense and observation could detect their state or motives. Luckily, too, he had had close to him, and in his wife’s family, the known and talked-of imposture of the Holy Maid of Kent; and in his own time and close to his own door, the case of the Pythonist of Westwell, at first carried out triumphantly, and then, on her own confession and her re-acted acts, branded as an impostor, like the Holy Maid. The Dutchman, too, at Maidstone, after being set forth as a worker of miracles and an exorcist, was found to be a rogue; and “manie other such miracles had beene latelie printed, whereof diverse had beene bewraied.” He had taken part also—apparently as one engaged for the defence—in that piece of folly called the trial of Margaret Simons, and knew the history of Ade Davie, and of her restoration to sanity without exorcism, hanging, or burning.

Is it not natural that his suspicions, and more than suspicions, should have been aroused, and that he should have been thus led to take up the whole subject seriously? One who had given himself up, as Wood says, to reading and thought as well as to healthy and useful exercise, must have sought for and obtained books on either side of the subject, and in especial the known book of Wier; and thoughtful reading of these, and meditation must have led him to extend his views, and gather them into a harmonious and consistent whole. Meanwhile, however, the bloodthirsty superstition daily increased, and there were published first, the mad book or books of Richard Gallis—spoken of in pp. 132–3—of the witches at Windsor, now, I believe, unfortunately lost, where, among other things, he narrates how, at a Sabbath meeting, he had a hand-to-hand encounter with the devil, and wounded him so sore that he stank of brimstone; and in 1582, there took place the wholesale condemnation of the poor old women of St. Osees, thirteen I believe of whom were hanged. There had been no such condemnation before in England. It is not unlikely that he himself witnessed their condemnation—see pp. xxv–vi. So unusual was it, that—as I cannot but believe on other evidence, as stated in my noting on Macbeth—a ballad was written on it, which became very commonly known, and was remembered as late as 1606. This same unusual breadth of punishment also created so much attention that Justice Brian Darcie thought it worth while to set forth in print, not the trial, but the depositions taken before him, and thus inform a too ignorant public that he and he alone was the primary cause of such a purification.

These facts, and especially this last, aroused, I believe, Scot’s compassion and indignation, and made both find vent in printed words. And besides these likelihoods, including that of date, there are two at first sight seemingly contradictory facts, which made themselves manifest to me when I first carefully read the book, and before I had formed any opinion on their causes, and which are on this view reconciled. These facts are, that while the plan which he has adopted, and his facts and conclusions, seem to have been deliberately sought out, thought over, and canvassed, there are evidences throughout of a feverous haste of composition, such feverous haste as the above spoken of emotions would excite in a man like Scot, who had witnessed so horrible and so bloody a perversion of justice. The proof of the first fact I leave to be observed by the intelligent reader; but while the second must also be observed by him, it is needful, to the full exposition of my argument, that I should collect in one view most at least of the details. This haste is evidenced in some of his corrected errata, but more in those that he did not correct. Thus we have, on p. 174, a curious slip, by which Pharaoh becomes a Persian, and Nebuchadnezzar takes Pharaoh’s place as an Egyptian king, for other parts of the book prove conclusively that this was an unintentional lapsus, and one a second time overlooked when the book was re-read before the title-page and the preliminary leaves were set up. Similar are his errors as to Haias and Sedaias, for at one time he speaks of Rabbi Sedaias Haias, repeating it also at the last when he gives his “forren authors” consulted, and between these speaks of them as two persons, as they were. More especially would I call attention to his blunders as to Argerius Ferrerius. He quotes him—yet he is always Ferrarius—five times in his text, twice in his table of contents, and once in his “authors used”. So in his translation from him, the “s” of “verbis” being indistinct in some copies, he read the word as “verbi”, and thereby translated the sentence into such unmistakable nonsense that this alone should have shown him his error. So, also, we have the senseless, because careless, rendering of the sword in hand passage, p. 257; and with these may be classed his adoption of T. R.’s curious mistranslations from Wier’s Pseudomonarchia, or from another copy of the Empto. Salomonis, for a moment’s consideration would have shown him their absurdity, and led him to turn to Wier. In p. 19 also, we find “infants” where, as stated in my note, all the editions of the Mal. Malef. in the British Museum have “infames”; and this, though a slip of memory, betokens, when taken with the rest, overhaste. These slips, in an ordinary writer, would lead to another conclusion, but not in this case, where we have evidence of both ordinary and recondite knowledge, of conclusions tried by actual experiment, of a quick and intelligent perception, and of what may be called, in a good sense, a ready and acute subtlety in refuting or retorting allegations or objections.

Our author’s indebtedness to Cornelius Agrippa and to Wier has, in a great measure, been anticipated in what has been said; but a few words may here be added. Casually coming across their books when he became a reader of out-of-the-way works, he did not become a follower of theirs, and then write a book, as the disciples of Pythagoras wrote books to expound and hand down the doctrines of their master. Wier had written a book against witchcraft, and a clear and comprehensive book. But while Scot certainly followed Wier in point of time, and as certainly was much indebted to him for the perfecting of his book, yet, as I have said, Scot seems to have taken up his belief against the reality of witchcraft from what he in his own experience had witnessed; and my view, that he was then led to read Wier and Cornelius Agrippa, and the writers on the other side, seems to me confirmed by what we find as to his indebtedness to Wier. The “Notings on Wier” show that, while he copied him in some other instances, he borrowed from him mainly a long list of illustrations, some of which even he may have drawn independently from the same sources as did Wier.

Bibliography.—We do not find an entry of Scot’s Hoppe-garden in the Stationers’ Registers, because the entries about 1574 are wanting. But why do we not find so large and important a book as the Witchcraft of 1584 so entered, the writer being of a family of no mean repute, and the head of his house, Sir Th. Scot, being in those days a man of some mark? The answer, after what has been said, is simple. He upheld and defended a heresy, the existence and diabolical powers and practices of witches being believed in and guarded against, by the Queen, the bishops, and the people. Hence the reply of the Stationers’ Company would most certainly have been—the same as in more trifling cases—“provided he shall get the bishop of London his alowance to yt”, words which, under the circumstances, would have been a refusal, and a refusal which, had any steps been taken against him after its publication, would have told against him. Hence he resolved to print it, taking all the blame and responsibility on his own shoulders, no stationer’s name being connected with it, and the name of the printer appearing only at the end of the book, without date or place of address—“Imprinted at London by | William Brome.” And here, by the way, it may be mentioned that though called in catalogues a quarto, its signatures are in eights. As before stated, both Thomas Ady and Anthony à Wood tell us that it “did for a time make great impressions on the Magistracy and Clergy”, and that it did so generally is shown by the appearance of Webster’s, Ady’s, and other books on the same side, and those of Gifford, Perkins, and others, on the other, including King James, who, in 1597, issued his Dæmonologie specially against it. Whether Elizabeth or the authorities under her took any notice of it is doubtful, for, as I have said, he was still an Esquire in 1587; and the last words of his will, “for greate is the trouble my poor wief hath had with me, and small is the comforte she hath receyved at my hands”, and his designation of himself as “gent.”, point rather to a voluntary surrender of his office, through weakness and ill-health, than to a dismissal.

But zeal for the truth, as he believed it, combined with his fears for himself, for he believed that he had been the object of witchcraft and of the machinations of the evil powers more than once, though luckily in vain, led the royal author on the other side to cause Scot’s book to be burned by the common hangman; and, as is also said by Cole, not one copy alone, as significant of its character, and of its being a liber prohibitus in the eyes of this Protestant Pope, but as many as could be laid hands upon. While, too, I have as yet found no direct proof of this latter statement, it is perhaps in some degree confirmatory of it, that no copies of the book exist in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, nor in that of Lambeth Palace, nor in that of Sion College. To the same cause is most likely due the exceedingly neat copy of various chapters, and parts of chapters, contained in the Sloane MS., ff. 2189, in the British Museum, its date according to the experts there being circa 1620. At one time I had suspected that these extracts had been made with the intent of writing a book either for or against the truth of witchcraft; but the methodical neatness of all but the first two or three pages, the manner in which the typographical form of the book is followed, the consecutive, though broken manner, in which the extracts follow one another, the absence of any word or any sign of remark or comment throughout, now cause me to hold that it was a copy made by or for one who took such portions as he wished from a book otherwise inaccessible.

Turning back to this burning, I would say also that I have not come across any English contemporary, or even early statement as to it, much less as to its date. Perhaps, however, without much fear of error, we may suppose it to have been done immediately after the Act against witches, passed in the first year of James’s reign. By it the Act 5 Eliz. was repealed, and any conjuration, etc., of an evil spirit was made a crime punishable by death as a felon, the culprit losing all benefit of clergy and sanctuary. The finding of treasure by magical means, provoking to unlawful love, or destroying of cattle, was for the first offence to bring with it imprisonment for one year, standing in the pillory once a quarter for six hours, and confessing his crime, as in the Act repealed; and for the second offence death as a felon, though the dowry and the heirship were not attainted. This Act itself shows how strong were James’s convictions in the matter, as does the publication in London of his Dæmonologie in the same year, it being entered on the Stationers’ Registers on the 3rd April 1603. Scot’s book was therefore against James’s belief, and the esteem in which it was held against his own powers as a reasoner and author. While, however, so far as I can find, we owe the knowledge of this burning to a German source, its extreme likelihood is corroborated by what I have said, that James’s belief in witchcraft was with him an undoubted Article of Faith, and by the fact that various books, known and unknown, were at different times publicly burnt during his reign, though no official records of these burnings have been preserved.

Cole, as quoted in Bliss’s edition of the Athen. Oxon., gives the account as made by Thomasius de crimine magiæ, a book which I believe does not exist. There is a Thesis inaugaralis de crimine magiæ submitted in 1701 by Johan Reiche to the Regia Academia Fredericiana ... præside D. Christiano Thomasio. But Reiche refers to an earlier writer—“Gisberti Voetii | Theologiæ in Acad. Ultrajectina Professoris | Selectarum | Disputationum | Theologicarum, | Pars Tertia. | .... | Ultrajecti, | Ex Officina Johannis à Waesberge, | Anno CIↃ IↃ C LIX, |” which says, p. 564:

“... Reginaldus Scot nobilis Anglus magiæ crimen aperte negavit, & ex professo oppugnavit, omnes ejus mirabiles effectus aut ad melancoliam, aliosve naturales morbos, aut ad artem, industriam, & agilitatem hominum figmentis & præstigiis suis illudentium, aut ad stolidas imaginationes, dictorum magorum, aut ad vanas nugas & fictiones eorundem magorum referens. Ejus liber tit. Discoverie of Withcraft [sic] in Anglia combustus est; quem nominatim etiam perstringit Sereniss. Magnæ Briantniæ [sic] Rex Jacobus in Dæmonologia, eumque tangit diffusissimæ eruditionis Theologus Johannes Raynoldus, in cens. lib. Apocryph. tom. 2 prælect. 169. In eundem, sed innominatum calamum strinxit eximius & subacti judicii Theologus, Guilelm. Perkinsus in tractatu de Bascanologia. Pars libri istius Reginaldi Scot elenctica (nam reliqua in editione Anglicana conjurationes continebat,) in Belgicum idioma translata est, ante annos aliquot Lugd. Batav. per Thomam Basson: ex illius libri lectione, seu fonte perenni, non pauci ab illo tempore docti & indocti in Belgio fluctuare, & de Magia σκεωτικιζειν ac λιβερτινιζειν (ut Libertinis & Semilibertinis infesta est patria nostra) quin eo ignorantiæ sæpe prolabi, ut non iniquè illis applicari potuerit, quod Sereniss. Rex Jacobus in Dæmonologiâ subdito suo Reginaldo Scot: esse quasi novos Sadduccæos: cum omnes diabolorum operationes & apparitiones suaviter exibilant: tanquam anicularum, aut superstitionis meticulosæ phantasmata ac sabellas. Sunt & alii, sed pessimi magiæ patroni, qui ad Deum & divina charismata seu gratias gratis datas, aut ad angelos bonos, operationes magicas referunt.”

Dr. W. N. du Rieu, Librarian of the University of Leyden, kindly informs me, that a translation into Dutch, “omitting some formulæ of malediction and other matters which would more interest English readers,” was made and edited by Th. Basson, an English stationer living at Leyden in 12mo in 1609. It was undertaken at the instigation of the professors of law and history, and its dedication, dated 10th January 1609, was to the Curators of the University, and to the burgomasters of Leyden. A second and corrected edition, published by his son, G. Basson, was also printed at Leyden in 1637, though the dedication is dated 8th May 1637, Amsterdam.

Though in various of the notes the passages have been spoken of, yet to call attention to the matter, and in the hope that others may be more successful, I would add that I have not discovered the principle on which he went, nor his authorities, for his Scripture readings. In his Latin quotations he generally quotes the Vulgate, twice or thrice Beza, or Beza varied, while at other times he goes by some other translation, or possibly makes it himself. So his long English quotation, p. 284, is not taken from Wycliffe’s, Tyndale’s, Cranmer’s, Coverdale’s, Matthews’, or from the Genevan, Bishops’, or Rheims versions, though more like the Genevan, while, curiously enough, it precedes the one of 1611 by one or two verbal coincidences. Hence, I believe that he varied the Genevan version according to his own views and taste, and am the more inclined to this in that the passage is not in Italics, the then type and mark of quotations, but in Romans.

Notwithstanding, however, the decree that had gone forth, and, notwithstanding the strange Sadducean assertion, not argument, set forth by James, and followed by John Rainolds, D.D., in his work on the Apocrypha (tom. ii, 1032), and by Gisbert Voet, the book’s inherent excellency, as reported by Ady, and as evidenced by the notices of it in the various books on either side that afterwards came forth, and in part, perhaps, through that decree itself, called for its reproduction; and in 1651 it was issued with a new title-page, though naturally it was again not entered on the Stationers’ Registers. This time it was really—as evidenced by the signatures—a quarto. The text was one and the same with that printed off by Richard Cotes; but there were three issues, and three slightly different title-pages. The first bears—LONDON | Printed by Richard Cotes. 1651. The second has—Printed by R. C. and are to be sold by Giles Calvert, dwelling at the | Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls. 1651. And except for these final words, separated on both title-pages by a line from the rest, both are word for word, and even to the misprint “superstions” identical. The explanation, in all probability, if not certainty, being that my “first” one was the first issue, when the publisher thought it more prudent to withhold his name; the other, a second issue of copies still called for, when, finding no ill results, he had become bolder. The third has below the line spoken of: London | Printed by E. [not R.] Cotes and are to be sold by Thomas Williams at the | Bible in Little Britain 1654. In this “Scots” is printed without the apostrophe, “men”, “women”, and “children”, as also “treatise”, have capital initials; on both occasions it has “Devils”, not “Divels”; and the last line but one above the dividing line ends “De-” not “Divels”, and “superstions” is rightly printed “superstitions”. These variations in the title-page, and the exact conformity of the text as to the various peculiarities of the letters, words, and sizes of the punctuation, show that Williams had come into possession of Calvert’s remainder, or of his set-up type, and had issued these sheets, prefixing a new title-page of his own, printed by E. Cotes.

There is not the slightest evidence of a copy of the 1584 edition having been prepared for the press, beyond the new title-page, and on two occasions the translation of Latin, that Scot had not—as he had done in similar instances—translated. The Latin-named ingredients on p. 184 are Englished, and I have thus been enabled to give them in my notings with the more probability that they are correct. The second instance is, as stated in my margin, on p. 416. Two or three press errors are corrected, one of them not a certain emendation, and all within the competency of an ordinary compositor or reader; but no others, not even that of “increase” for “incense”, p. 446, while fresh errors, indicative of a careless “reader”, are made.

What has been thus said as to the character of this second reprint, goes to prove that it was a publisher’s venture based upon the demand for the book, and, therefore, for gain, and one which he carried out spite of its having been burnt, and placed among the “prohibited books”. In like manner, and for the like purpose, and as before, without entry in the Stationers’ Registers, there was brought out the third, and so-called folio edition of 1665, though the sheets are in sixes. All but the title-page, which, curiously enough, was again re-written, though still bearing, like the second, the words, “By Reginald Scot Esquire”; it is a careless reprint of that second, with all its errors, and new ones superadded. But as a novelty and inducement to buy, nine chapters, commencing the fifteenth book, and a second book of the “Discourse on Devils and Spirits”, were added by an anonymous author. Who this anonymity was, I have uselessly spent some little time in inquiring, time that might have been better employed, even had I found him. But it goes to prove that these additions were merely made for novelty’s sake, and its glamour and gain, in that the writer was a believer in, and not improbably, from his minute directions, as well as from his reticence, a practiser of witchcraft, or of what he thought to be witchcraft. He also, and I give this as one possible clue, was a strong believer in the perishable Astral spirit of a man, as well as of Astral spirits in general, and much of his “Discourse” is taken up with remarks on these.

I may here add, as showing the carelessness with which these second and third editions were edited, a note of the errata marked in the first and not corrected in them.

75, 21. “We,” so the second; in the third the (,) is rightly placed after “years”. A correction that could have been made by the least intelligent of “readers”.

168, 31. “Earth read firmament.” Not corrected.

247, 29. “Write add it.” Not corrected.

269, 16. “If there be masses delete If.” Retained, but the second attempts to correct by inserting “no” before “masses”, and the third follows suit, though it is as nonsensical as before.

463, 16. “Their business read that business.” Not corrected.

Beyond these, the limited edition now printed is the only other known to me. As stated in the preface, it is a reprint of the first edition, with some slight alterations in the lettering, but not in the spelling. Besides the few errata that have been found and recorded, the small heading on its left hand pages up to p. 24 is “Chap. —”, like that on the right hand, instead of being “1 or 2 Booke”. So also in the earlier pages, the marginal references, though correct, are not printed line for line with the original. The pictorial initial letters of the first chapter of each book occupy in the original almost a third of the page. The first word of a chapter has only its first two letters—including its pictorial letter—in capitals, but the remainder, as well as the rest of the first line, is in larger type than the rest. The original being also in black letter was enabled to use both Romans and Italics as variants, whereas the reprint could only use Italics. The rule of the original is, however, in general very simple. “The — Chapter”, the contents of the chapter and proper names are in Romans; “The — Booke” and quotations in Italics; the translations of quotations in Romans. Wherever there can be any doubt the type of the original is marked in the margin, as are occasional uses by the author of [] to distinguish them from the editor’s use of the same. It may be added that “The — Chapter”, and the contents of the chapter, have been transposed. The V like arrangement of the lines at the end of a chapter have not been followed, but been imitated according to the spirit in which they were employed; for, after an investigation made for the purpose, it was found that they do not indicate a division of the text or matter, but were simply compositors’ devices to fill up a page when that page either ended a book, or when its blank space did not allow of the commencement of a new chapter. Similarly, on one page, a (∵) was added to complete the page. And, in like manner, if there was still space at the end of a book, an engraving was inserted. I would add that all the page references that I make are to the pages of the 1584 edition.

I had collected for an appendix various grammatical peculiarities of the age; but they increased the number of pages, and therefore the price of the book, without, as seemed to me, sufficient cause, more especially as the reader can readily consult Dr. Abbot’s Shakesperian Grammar, as well as notices in other books. One point, however, ought to be attended to. Though an educated and University man, accustomed to Latin and Greek, he, like all of his time, followed the then frequent habit of using singular verbs after plural nominatives not immediately preceding them. A close examination of these, both in Scot and Greene, another literate and Utriusque Academiæ in Artibus Magister; and one notable one in Ben Jonson, who elsewhere, so far as I know, avoids this error; as well as those in Shakespeare and others, have shown me that they cannot be explained as is sought in Dr. Abbot’s Shakesperian Grammar, § 333, where the form of the verb is held to be a remnant of the northern early English third person plural in “s”. The instances alone of the auxiliary verbs so used set this theory aside, and show that the custom was due to carelessness, habit, the remoteness or after position of the true nominatives, and to the nearness of another word, sometimes even to a transposed objective; or of a “that” or “which” that had the look of a singular, or in the case of a double nominative, to both words being considered as implying one thought, as indeed they often did, being merely synonyms. Our Elizabethan ancestors would have said: “Pity and compassion moves me,” because they held pity and compassion were one and the same; and the habit of using Saxon and Latin, or other synonyms, led them to use the same construction when the meanings were but allied. This seems to me the more likely explanation: but the reader may prefer this—that our ancestors took the phrase to be elliptical, and that the verb really employed after both substantives was to be understood after the first and before the “and”.

Contemporary Notices of Scot.—Of strictly contemporary notices, I know of but two. In Nash’s Four Letters Confuted, 1593, he asks, ed. Grosart, ii, 252: “How is the Supplication a diabolicall Discourse, otherwise than as it intreats of the diverse natures and properties of Divels and spirits? in that far fetcht sense may the famous defensative against supposed Prophecies, and the Discoverie of Witchcraft be called notorious Diabolicall discourses, as well as the Supplication, for they also intreate of the illusions and sundrie operations of spirits.” The second is in Gabriel Harvey’s Pierce’s Supererogation, 1593, ed. Grosart, ii, 291: “Scottes discoovery of Witchcraft, dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in certaine principall Chapters, & speciall passages, hitteth the nayle on the head with a witnesse: howsoever I could have wished, [G. H. is nothing if he be not quasi-critical and emending] he had either dealt somewhat more curteously with Monsieur Bodine, or cōfuted him somewhat more effectually.”

Of course, various of the after-writers on witchcraft, whichever side they took, either spoke of him explicitly, or alluded to him; Webster, Wagstaffe, Ady, and others, on the same side as Scot, and Meric Casaubon, Cotta, etc., ending with Glanvil on the other. But these, the really curious in such matters may be left to search out for themselves. Only I would like to mention John Deacon’s and John Walker’s Dialogicall Discourses of ... Devils [etc.], 1601, both because they, being clergymen, had the boldness—besides adding new arguments of their own, and though their wording is somewhat less decided than their own evident belief—out of three explanations of the case of the Witch of Endor which they set before the reader, to plainly prefer Scot’s view of her ventriloquism, both naming him in the text, and giving the reference to his page in their margin; and secondly, because so far as a hasty look enables one to give an opinion, they spoke more rationally on magical and other points than one would at that date expect. They also quote the opinion of Hippocrates on magical cures, as given by Scot, p. 450, and show that they take it, though not literally, from him, and not from Hippocrates directly, by giving a reference to Scot in the margin. Afterwards they published in 1603, a second large work, A summarie[?] answer to John Darrell, the first work having been also suggested by the same impostor, and his setting forth of himself as a caster out of devils.

I have said on p. xxii that the discovery of Scot’s name in the Subsidy Rolls for 1586 and 1587 with the affix of “Armiger” was for me an important find. And now I would explain that it was so, inasmuch as it set my mind at rest as to the oneness of the Raynold of the Hoppe-garden with the Reginald Scot Esquire, of the Witchcraft. Aware that Reynold and Reginald were variants of one name, used of and by the same person, the following facts hindered me for a long time from accepting the common belief that the Raynold and Reginald of these two works were one and the same. First, the author of the Hoppe-garden in each of his signatures to the editions of 1574–6–8, three in each, appears as Raynold. In the marriage entry, in the pay-account of the Kent forces, in the Muster-roll, and in the Will, it is also Raynold. But in 1584, throughout the Witchcraft, that is, four times in all, the name appears as Reginald. Secondly, in the Will of 1599, in accordance with the want of any title on the title-page of the Hoppe-garden, he describes himself as “gent”, and in the Inquisitio p. m., though he is called Reginald, the document being in Latin, he is, as in his Will, “generosus”. But in the title-page of the Witchcraft, he is Reginald Scot Esquire. The finding no evidence of the separate existence of a Raynold and a Reginald, the frequent references to the Scriptures in the Witchcraft, and the very frequent references to the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, in the “Address to the Reader” of the Hoppe-garden, the use in both works, as already quoted, of certain legal phrases, and the occurrence in the prefatory part of the Hoppe-garden of “with the licour (or rather the lucre)”, and “condemne the man, or rather the mynde”, a trick of language not unfrequently repeated in the Discoverie, a trick resulting from his love of irony, shook my doubts. But there were still, the want of any title after the name in the Hoppe-garden, the “gent” of the Will, and the “generosus” of the Inquisitio, as against the “Esquire” of the Discoverie. First, however, Hunter’s suggestion, that his esquireship was due to his having been appointed a Justice of the Peace, and then the discovery of armiger after his name, have removed all reasonable doubts; and to turn our belief to a positive certainty, it only remains to discover that he was a Justice of the Peace.

Possibly the reader may now expect some pages on Scot’s style as a writer, and on his claim—his claim, yet not one made by himself—to be considered an English classic. But, besides that, I am not “greatly æsthetic”, and besides having expressed my opinions in more than one place in this Introduction, I think that any reader, with any appreciation of style, and of the manner in which an argument ought to be carried out, can come to but one conclusion. Such belief, I may add, is strengthened by this, that most writers whom I have consulted are of this opinion: and I would conclude with three quotations, chiefly regarding the way in which he carried out his argument. The Rev. Jos. Hunter, in his MS. Chorus Vatum, ch. v, says: “In fact, I had no notion of the admirable character of this book till I read it this September 1839. It is one of the few instances in which a bold spirit opposes himself to the popular belief, and seeks to throw protection over a class of the defenceless. In my opinion, he ought to stand very prominent in any catalogue of Persons who have been public benefactors.”

“To answer his argument was wholly impossible, and though the publication of his book did not put an end to the notion which continued very prevalent for a century afterwards [though we know from Ady that it greatly checked the belief for a time], yet it had, I have no doubt, much to do with the silent and gradual extinction of it.”

So D’Israeli, in his Amenities of Literature, has these words: “A single volume sent forth from the privacy of a retired student, by its silent influence may mark an epoch in the history of the human mind.”

“Such a volume was The Discoverie of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scot, a singular work, which may justly claim the honour in this country of opening that glorious career which is dear to humanity and fatal to imposture.”

Thirdly, Professor W. T. Gairdner, M.D. and LL.D., thus speaks, in his address on “Insanity: Modern Views as to its Nature and Treatment”, read before the Glasgow Medico-Chirurgical Society: “But I cannot leave it [witchcraft] ... without expressing, more strongly than even Mr. Lecky does, the unqualified admiration and surprise which arise in the mind on finding that in 1584 ... there was at least one man in England ... who could scan the whole field of demonology, and all its terrible results in history, with an eye as clear from superstition, and a judgment as sound and unwavering in its opposition to abuses, as that of Mr. Lecky himself. There is only one book, so far as I know, in any language, written in the sixteenth or even the seventeenth century, that merits this praise: and it is a book which, notwithstanding its wide human interest, its great and solid learning, and a charming English style that makes it most readable, even at the present day, has never been reprinted for two hundred years, and is therefore extremely inaccessible to most readers. Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft ... stands brightly out amid the darkness of its own and the succeeding age, as a perfectly unique example of sagacity amounting to genius.” He adds: “Nothing, however, is more evident than that Scot, however indebted to Wier (and both of them, probably, to Cornelius Agrippa ...), was far in advance of either in the clearness of his views and the unwavering steadiness of his leanings to the side of humanity and justice.”