Discovery of Witches | Page 4

deserving of an extended
biography, a desideratum which, in an age characterised by its want of
literary research, is not likely to be soon supplied, than Thomas Erastus,
whose theological, philosophical, and medical celebrity entitle him to
rank with the greatest men of his century. At present we have to collect
all that is known of his life from various scattered and contradictory
sources. John Webster, in his _Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft_,
contrary to the usual candour and fairness of his judgments, speaks
slightingly of Erastus. There was, however, a sufficient reason for this.
Erastus had shown up the empiricism of Webster's idol Paracelsus, and
was in great disfavour with the writers of the Anti-Galenic school.]
[Footnote 13: I cannot concur with Mr. Hallam in the extremely low
estimate he forms of the literary merit of Bodin's Demomanie, which he
does not seem to have examined with the care and impartiality which
he seldom is deficient in. Like all Bodin's works, it has a spirit
peculiarly his own, and is, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining
books to be found in the circle of Demonology.]
In his treatise De Lamiis, published in 1577, 8vo., he defends nearly all
the absurdities of the system with a blind zealotry which in such a man
is very remarkable. His book has accordingly taken its place on the
same shelf with Sprenger, Remigius, Delrio, and De Lancre, and
deserves insertion only in a list which has yet to be made out, and
which if accurately compiled would be a literary curiosity, of the
singularly illogical books of singularly able reasoners. What was left
unaccomplished by the centurions of literature came ultimately from
the strangest of all possible quarters; from the study of an humble pupil
of the transmuter of metals and prince of mountebanks and quacks--the
expounder of Reuchlin _de verbo mirifico_, and lecturer in the
unknown tongues--the follower of Trismegistus--cursed with bell, book
and candle, by every decorous Church in Christendom--the redoubted

Cornelius Agrippa; who, if he left not to his pupil Wierus the secret of
the philosopher's stone or grand elixir, seems to have communicated a
treasure perhaps equally rare and not less precious, the faculty of seeing
a truth which should open the eyes of bigotry and dispel the mists of
superstition, which should stop the persecution of the helpless and stay
the call for blood. If, in working out this virgin ore from the mine, he
has produced it mixed up with the scoria of his master's _Occult
Philosophy_; if he gives us catalogues of devils and spirits, with whose
acquaintance we could have dispensed; if he pleads the great truth
faintly, inconsistently, imperfectly, and is evidently unaware of the
strength of the weapons he wields; these deductions do not the less
entitle Wierus to take his place in the first rank of Humanity's honoured
professors, the true philanthropists and noble benefactors of mankind.
In our own country, it may be curious and edifying to observe to whom
we mainly owe those enlightened views on this subject, which might
have been expected to proceed in their natural channel, but for which
we look in vain, from the "triumphant heirs of universal praise," the
recognized guides of public opinion, whose fame sheds such a lustre on
our annals,--the Bacons, the Raleighs, the Seldens, the Cudworths, and
the Boyles.
The strangely assorted and rather grotesque band to whom we are
principally indebted for a vindication of outraged common sense and
insulted humanity in this instance, and whose vigorous exposition of
the absurdities of the prevailing system, in combination with other
lights and sources of intelligence, led at last to its being universally
abandoned, consists of four individuals--on any of whom a literary
Pharisee would look down with supercilious scorn:--a country
gentleman, devoted to husbandry, and deep in platforms of hop
gardens,[14]--a baronet, whose name for upwards of a century has been
used as a synonyme for incurable political bigotry,[15]--a little,
crooked, and now forgotten man, who died, as his biographer tells us,
"distracted, occasioned by a deep conceit of his own parts, and by a
continual bibbing of strong and high tasted liquors,"[16]--and last, but
not least assuredly, of one who was by turns a fanatical preacher and an
obscure practitioner of physic, and who passed his old age at Clitheroe

in Lancashire in attempting to transmute metals and discover the
philosopher's stone.[17] So strange a band of Apostles of reason may
occasion a smile; it deserves, at all events, a little more particular
consideration before we address ourselves to the short narration which
may be deemed necessary as an introduction to the republication which
follows.
Of the first of the number, Reginald or Reynold Scot, it is to be
regretted that more particulars are not known. Nearly the whole are
contained