ltar; and to a young woman it promises an honourable husband
and great riches. To the business man, snow seen in a dream foretells
success in his undertakings. It is good to dream of thunder and
lightning, in whatever state one is placed. He who dreams of these may
expect good news from afar, and increase of goods.

LAWS AGAINST AND TRIALS OF WITCHES.

CHAPTER LVI.

Witchcraft treated with great Severity--Cutting out
the Tongue--Laws of AEthelstane--Witchcraft in
England--Royal Writers--Sir Edward Cole's
Opinion--Statute of Elizabeth against Sorcerers--Law
of Mary Queen of Scotland against Witches--Law against
Witches abolished--Sir George Mackenzie on
Witchcraft--William Forbes on the same--Extracts from
Forbes's _Institute of the Law of Scotland_--Sir
Matthew Hale a Believer in Witchcraft--Trial of Rose
Cullender and Ann Duny--General Belief in the
Existence of Witches--Punishment of Witches, by whom
first countenanced--Pope John's Bull--Bishop
Jewell--Lord Bacon and the Law against
Witches--Fearful Slaughter of supposed
Witches--_Malleus Maleficarum_, or Hammer for
Witches--The last Persons executed in Scotland and
England for Witchcraft--First German Printers
condemned to be burned as Sorcerers--Reginald Scot on
the Fables of Witchcraft--Mr. E. Chambers's Views on
Witchcraft.

Witchcraft--the nature and theory of which will appear as we
proceed--was treated with great severity in early times. In 840 a law
was enacted in Scotland, making the punishment of witchcraft no less
than the cutting out of the tongue; and, by the laws of AEthelstane in
928, witchcraft in England was made a capital crime. Witches were
punished in the reign of Edward III.; and it suited the sanguinary
temperament of Henry VIII., as well as the pedantry of other royal
writers, to give written descriptions of this crime. Edicts were
promulgated against prophets, sorcerers, feeders of evil spirits,
charmers, and provokers of unlawful love. Sir Edward Cole thought it
would have been "a great defect in government to have suffered such
devilish abominations to pass with impunity."

By a statute of Elizabeth, passed in 1562, against sorcerers, it was
ordained that for a first offence the punishment was to be restricted
to standing in the pillory; for second and subsequent offences,
severer inflictions were to foll