or **Magic**; the power which some persons were formerly supposed to possess of commanding the devil and the internal spirits by skill in charms and invocations, and of soothing them by fumigations. Sorcery is therefore to be distinguished from witchcraft; an art which was supposed to be practised, not by commanding evil spirits, but by compact with the devil. As an instance of the power of bad smells over demons or evil spirits, we may mention the flight of the evil spirit mentioned in Tobit into the remote parts of Egypt, produced, it is said, by the smell of the burnt liver of a fish. Lilly informs us, that one Evans having raised a spirit at the request of Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby, and forgetting a fumigation, the spirit, vexed at the disappointment, pulled him without the circle, and carried him from his house in the Minories into a field near Battersea Causeway.

King James, in his *Daemonologia*, has given a very full account of the art of sorcery. "Two principal things (says he) cannot well in that errand be wanted: holy holy water (whereby the devil mocks the papists), and some pretent of a living thing unto him. There are likewise certain daies and houres that they observe in this purpose. These things being all ready and prepared, circles are made, triangular, quadrangular, round, double, or single, according to the form of the apparition they crave. When the conjured spirit appeares, which will not be while after many circumstances, long prayers, and much muttering and murmuring of the conjurors, like a papist priest dispatching a hunting maske—how soone, I say, he appeares, if they have missed one jot of all their rites; or if any of their secte once flyd over the circle, through terror of his fearfull apparition, he paies himself at that time, in his owne hand, of that due debt which they ought him, and otherwise would have delayed longer to have paid him: I mean, he carries them with him, body and soule." How the conjurors made triangular or quadrangular circles, his majesty has not informed us, nor does he seem to imagine there was any difficulty in the matter. We are therefore led to suppose, that he learned his mathematics from the same system as Dr Sacheverell, who, in one of his speeches or sermons, made use of the following simile: "They concur like parallel lines, meeting in one common centre."

Another mode of consulting spirits was by the beryl, by means of a spectator or seer; who, to have a complete sight, ought to be a pure virgin, a youth who had not known woman, or at least a person of irreproachable life and purity of manners. The method of such consultation is this: The conjuror having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations, with the litany or invocation peculiar to the spirits or angels he wishes to call (for every one has his particular form), the seer looks into a crystal or beryl, wherein he will see the answer, represented either by types or figures; and sometimes, though very rarely, will hear the angels or spirits speak articulately. Their pronunciation is, as Lilly says, like the Irish, much in the throat. Lilly describes one of these beryls or crystals. It was, he says, as large as an orange, set in silver, with a cross at the top, and round about engraved the names of the angels Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel. A delineation of another is engraved in the frontispiece to Aubery's Miscellanies.

These sorcerers or magicians do not always employ their art to do mischief; but, on the contrary, frequently exert it to cure diseases inflicted by witches; to discover thieves; recover stolen goods; to foretell future events, and the state of absent friends. On this account they are frequently called white witches. See Magic, Witchcraft, &c.

Our forefathers were strong believers when they enacted, by statute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 8. all witchcraft and forcery to be felony without benefit of clergy; and again, by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 12. that all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, forcery, charm, or enchantment; or killing or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts; should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and suffer death. And if any person should attempt by forcery to discover hidden treasure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, though the same were not effected, he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second. These acts continued in force till lately, to the terror of all ancient females in the kingdom; and many poor wretches were sacrificed thereby to the prejudice of their neighbours and their own illusions, not a few having by some means or other confessed the fact at the gallows. But all executions for this dubious crime are now at an end; our legislature having at length followed the wise example of Louis XIV. in France, who thought proper by an edict to restrain the tribunals of justice from receiving informations of witchcraft. And accordingly it is with us enacted, by statute 9 Geo. II. c. 5. that no prosecution shall for the future be carried on against any person for conjuration, witchcraft, forcery, or enchantment: But the misdemeanor of persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods, by skill in the occult sciences, is still deservedly punished with a year's imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory.