the raging madness has given place
to a milder folly; and that we may now count by units the votaries of a
superstition which in former ages numbered its victims by tens of
thousands, and its votaries by millions.

[Illustration: FLOATING A WITCH.]

[Illustration: PLACE DE GREVE.]

THE SLOW POISONERS.

_Pescara._ The like was never read of.

_Stephano._ In my judgment,
To all that shall but hear it, 'twill appear
A most impossible fable.

_Pescara._ Troth, I'll tell you,
And briefly as I can, by what degrees
They fell into this madness.--_Duke of Milan_.

The atrocious system of poisoning by poisons so slow in their operation as
to make the victim appear, to ordinary observers, as if dying from a
gradual decay of nature, has been practised in all ages. Those who are
curious in the matter may refer to Beckmann on secret poisons, in his
_History of Inventions_, in which he has collected several instances of it
from the Greek and Roman writers. Early in the sixteenth century the crime
seems to have gradually increased, till in the seventeenth it spread over
Europe like a pestilence. It was often exercised by pretended witches and
sorcerers, and finally became a branch of education amongst all who laid
any claim to magical and supernatural arts. In the twenty-first year of
Henry VIII. an act was passed rendering it high treason. Those found
guilty of it were to be boiled to death.

One of the first in point of date, and hardly second to any in point of
atrocity, is the murder by this means of Sir Thomas Overbury; which
disgraced the court of James I. in the year 1613. A slight sketch of it
will be a fitting introduction to the history of the poisoning mania,
which was so prevalent in France and Italy fifty years later.

Robert Kerr, a Scottish youth, was early taken notice of by James I., and
loaded with honours, for no other reason that the world could ever
discover than the beauty of his person. James, even in his own day, was
suspected of being addicted to the most abominable of all offences; and
the more we examine his history now, the stronger the suspicion becomes.
However that may be, the handsome Kerr, lending his smooth cheek even in
public to the disgusting kisses of his royal master, rose rapidly in
favour. In the year 1613, he was made Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and
created an English peer by the style and title of Viscount Rochester.
Still further honours