chiefly for doing Mischief.

It seems the _Devil_ has always pick'd out the most ugly and frightful
old Women to do his Business; _Mother Shipton_, our famous _English_
Witch or Prophetess, is very much wrong'd in her Picture, if she was not
of the most terrible Aspect imaginable; and if it be true that _Merlin_,
the famous _Welch_ Fortune-Teller, 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 it self:
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 _Sybils_, 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 antient _Sybil_ named
_Anus_, who sold the fatal Book to _Tarquin_; 'tis said of her that
_Tarquin_ supposed she doated with Age.

I had Thoughts indeed here to have entred into a learned 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 oblig'd for want of old Women, properly so
call'd, to turn so many antient 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 perform'd; but this, as a
Thing of great Consequence in Satan's Management of humane 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 reserv'd for a Work by it self, 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 _Ma