which Doctor was Register
to the Deuill, that sundrie times preached at North Barricke kirke to a
number of notorious witches; with the true examinations of the said
Doctor and witches as they uttered them in the presence of the Scottish
king: Discouering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestie
in the sea, comming from Denmarke, with such other wonderfull matters,
as the like hath not bin heard at anie time.

"Published according to the Scottish copie.

"Printed for William Wright."]

[Footnote 2: These events are referred to in an existing letter by the
notorious Thos. Phelippes to Thos. Barnes, Cal. State Papers (May 21,
1591), 1591-4, p. 38.]

[Footnote 3: Such as Paddock, Graymalkin, and Harpier.]

[Footnote 4: "Liver of blaspheming Jew," etc.--Macbeth, IV. i. 26.]

[Footnote 5:

"I will drain him dry as hay;
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine."

Macbeth, I. iii. 18-23.]

[Footnote 6: The excitement about the details of the witch trials would
culminate in 1592. Harsnet's book would be read by Shakspere in 1603.]

106. There is one other mode of temptation which was adopted by the evil
spirits, implicated to a great extent with the traditions of witchcraft,
but nevertheless more suitably handled as a separate subject, which is
of so gross and revolting a nature that it should willingly be passed
over in silence, were it not for the fact that the belief in it was, as
Scot says, "so stronglie and universallie received" in the times of
Elizabeth and James.

From the very earliest period of the Christian era the affection of one
sex for the other was considered to be under the special control of the
devil. Marriage was to be tolerated; but celibacy was the state most
conducive to the near intercourse with heaven that was so dearly sought
after. This opinion was doubtless generated by the tendency of the early
Christian leaders to hold up the events of the life rather than the
teachings of the sacred Founder of the sect as the one rule of conduct
to be received by His followers. To have been the recipients of the
stigmata was a far greater evidence of holiness and favour with Heaven
than the quiet and unnoted daily practice of those virtues upon which
Christ pronounced His blessing; and in less improbable matters they did
not scruple, in their e