best sense; that is say, good, and wise, as they stand in conjunction; but as to what has happened since that, or, as we may call it, from that queen's funeral to the late revolution, I have little to say; but I will tell you what honest Andrew Marvel said of those times, and by that you may, if you please, make your calculation or let it alone, it is all one:

To see a white staff-maker, a beggar, a lord,

And scarce a wise man at a long council-board.

But I may be told this relates to wise men in another construction, or wise men as they are opposed to fools; whereas we are talking of them now under another class, namely, as wisemen or magicians, southsayers, &c., such as were in former times called by that name.

But to this I answer, that take them in which sense you please, it may be the same; for if I were to ask the Devil the character of the best statesman he had employed among us for many years past, I am apt to think that though oracles are ceased, he would honestly, according to the old ambiguous way, when I asked if they were Christians, answer they were (his) privy-councillors.

It is but a little while ago, that I happened, in conversation, to meet with a long list of the magistrates of that age, in a neighbouring country, that is to say, the men of fame among them; and it was a very diverting thing to see the judgment which was passed upon them among a great deal of good company; it is not for me to tell you how many white staves, golden keys, marshal's batons, cordons blue, gordon rouge and gordon blanc, there were among them, or by what titles, as dukes, counts, marquis, abbot, bishop, or judge, they were to be distinguished; but the marginal notes I found upon most of them were (being marked with an asterisk) as follows:

Such a duke, such eminent offices added to his titles (* in the margin) 'no saint.'

Such an arch

'no

with the title of noble added,

'no

archangel.'

Such an eminent statesman and prime minister,

witch.'

Such a ribbon with a set of great letters added, conjurer.'

• no

It presently occurred to me that though oracles were ceased, and we had now no more double entendre in such a degree as

DEFORMITY OF SATAN'S AGENTS PROVERBIAL.

475

before, yet that ambiguous answers were not at an end; and that whether those negatives were meant so by the writers, or not, it was certain custom led the readers to conclude them to be satires, that they were to be rung backward, like the bells when the town is on fire; though, in short, I durst not read them backward anywhere, but as speaking of foreign people, for fear of raising the devil I am talking of.

But to return to the subject: to such mean things is the Devil now reduced in his ordinary way of carrying on his business in the world, that his oracles are delivered now by the bellmen and the chimney-sweepers, by the meanest of those that speak in the dark, and if he operates by them, you may expect it accordingly; his agents seem to me as if the Devil had singled them out by their deformity, or that there was something particular required in their aspect to qualify them for their employment; whence it is become proverbial, when our looks are very dismal and frightful, to say 'I look like a witch;' or in other cases to say, as ugly as a witch;' in another case, 'to look as envious as a witch.' Now whether there is anything particularly required in the looks of the Devil's modern agents, which is assisting in the discharge of their offices, and which makes their answers appear more solemn, this the Devil has not yet revealed, at least not to me; and, therefore, why it is that he singles out such creatures as are fit only to frighten the people that come to them with their inquiries, I do not take upon me to determine.

6

Perhaps it is necessary they should be thus extraordinary in their aspect, that they might strike an awe into the minds of their votaries, as if they were Satan's true and real representatives, and that the said votaries may think when they speak to the witches they are really talking to the Devil; or perhaps it is necessary to the witches themselves, that they should be so exquisitely ugly, that they might not be surprised at whatever figure the Devil makes when he first appears to them, being certain they can see nothing uglier than themselves.

Some are of the opinion that the communication with the Devil, or between the Devil and those creatures his agents, has something assimilating in it, and that if they were tolerable before, they are, ipso facto, turned into devils by talking with him; I will not say but that a tremor in the

limbs, a horror in the aspect, and a surprising stare in the eyes, may seize upon some of them when they really see the Devil, and that the frequent repetition may make those distortions, which we so constantly see in their faces, become natural to them; by which, if it does not continue always upon the countenance, they can at least, like the posturemasters, cast themselves into such figures and frightful dislocations of the lines and features in their faces, and so assume a devil's face suitable to the occasion, or as may serve the turn for which they take it up, and as often as they have any use for it.

But be it which of these the inquirer pleases, it is all one to the case in hand; this is certain, that such deformed, devil-like creatures, most of those we call hags and witches are in their shapes and aspects, and that they give out their sentences and frightful messages with an air of revenge for some injury received, for witches are famed chiefly for doing mischief.

It seems the Devil has always picked out the most ugly and frightful old women to do his business; mother Shipton, our famous English witch or prophetess, is very much wronged in her picture, if she was not of the most terrible aspect imaginable; and if it be true that Merlin, the famous Welsh fortuneteller, was a frightful figure, it will seem the more rational to believe, if we credit another story, viz., that he was begotten by the Devil himself, of which I shall speak by itself; but to go back to the Devil's instruments being so ugly, it may be observed, I say, that the Devil has always dealt in such sort of cattle; the sibyls, of whom so many strange prophetic things are recorded, whether true or no is not to the question, are (if the Italian painters may have any credit given them) all represented as very old women; and, as if ugliness were a beauty to old age, they seem to paint them out as ugly and frightful as, not they, the painters, but even as the Devil himself could make them; not that I believe there are any original pictures of them really extant; but it is not unlikely that the Italians might have some traditional knowledge of them, or some remaining notions of them, or particularly that ancient sibyl named Anus, who sold the fatal book to Tarquin; it is said of her that Tarquin supposed she doated with age.

I had thoughts, indeed, here to have entered into a learned

IMPORTANCE OF OLD WOMEN AS SATAN'S AGINTS. 471

disquisition of the excellency of old women in all diabolical operations, and particularly of the necessity of having recourse to them for Satan's more exquisite administration, which also may serve to solve the great difficulty in the natural philosophy of hell; namely, why it comes to pass that the Devil is obliged, for want of old women, properly so called, to turn so many ancient fathers, grave counsellors both of law and state, and especially civilians, or doctors of the law, into old women, and how the extraordinary operation is performed; but this, as a thing of great consequence in Satan's management of human affairs, and particularly as it may lead us into the necessary history as well as characters of some of the most eminent of these sects among us, I have purposely reserved for a work by itself, to be published, if Satan hinders not, in fifteen volumes in folio, wherein I shall, in the first place, define in the most exact manner possible, what is to be understood by a male old woman, of what heterogeneous kind they are produced; give you the monstrous anatomy of the parts, and especially those of the head, which being filled with innumerable globules of a sublime nature, and which being of a fine contexture without, but particularly hollow in the cavity, defines most philosophically that ancient paradoxical saying, viz., being full of emptiness, and makes it very consistent with nature and common sense.

I shall likewise spend some time, and it must be labour too, I assure you, when it is done, in determining whether this new species of wonderfuls are not derived from that famous old woman Merlin, which I prove to be very reasonable for us to suppose, because of the many several judicious authors, who affirm the said Merlin, as I hinted before, to have been begotten by the Devil.

As to the deriving his gift of prophecy from the Devil, by that pretended generation, I shall omit that part, because, as I have all along insisted upon it, that Satan himself has no prophetic or predicting powers of his own, it is not very clear to me that he could convey it to his posterity, nil dat quod non habet.

However, in deriving this so much magnified prophet in a right line from the Devil, much may be said in favour of his ugly face, in which it was said he was very remarkable, for it is no new thing for a child to be like the father; but all

these weighty things I adjourn for the present, and proceed to the affair in hand, namely, the several branches of the Devil's management since his quitting his temples and oracles.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE EXTRAORDINARY APPEARANCE OF THE DEVIL, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE CLOVEN FOOT.

SOME people would fain have us treat this tale of the Devil's appearing with a cloven-foot with more solemnity than I believe the Devil himself does; for Satan, who knows how much of a cheat it is, must certainly ridicule it, in his own thoughts, to the last degree; but as he is glad of any way to hoodwink the understandings, and bubble the weak part of the world; so if he sees men willing to take every scarecrow for a devil, it is not his business to undeceive them; on the other hand, he finds it his interest to foster the cheat, and serve himself of the consequence: nor could I doubt but the Devil, if any mirth be allowed him, often laughs at the many frightful shapes and figures we dress him up in, and especially to see how willing we are first to paint him as black, and make him as ugly as we can, and then stare and start at the spectrum of our own making.

The truth is, that among all the horribles that we dress up Satan in, I cannot but think we show the least of invention in this of a goat, or a thing with a goat's foot, of all the rest; for though a goat is a creature made use of by our Saviour in the allegory of the day of judgment, and is said there to represent the wicked rejected party, yet it seems to be only on account of their similitude to the sheep, and so to represent the just fate of hypocrisy and hypocrites, and, in particular, to form the necessary antithesis in the story; for else, our whimsical fancies excepted, a sheep or a lamb has a cloven foot as well as a goat; nay, if the Scripture be of any value in the case, it is to the Devil's advantage, for the dividing the hoof was the distinguishing character or mark of a clean beast, and how the Devil can be brought into that number is pretty hard to say.

One would have thought if we had intended to have given a just figure of the Devil, it would have been more apposite