y,
the evil was; but justice compels us to add that the remedy of
relentless and ruthless persecution with which it was sought to
remove the pest was a reign of abhorrent and atrocious cruelty. Into
the question itself we dare not enter, lest we should be ourselves
bewitched. We know that divination by supposed supernatural
agency existed among the Hebrews, that magical incantations were
practised among the Greeks and Romans, and that more modern
witchcraft has been contemporaneous with the progress of
Christianity. But we must dismiss the subject in one borrowed
sentence. "The main source from which we derived this superstition
is the East, and traditions and facts incorporated in our religion.
There were only wanted the ferment of thought of the fifteenth
century, the energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days,
and the papal denunciation of witchcraft by the bull of Innocent the
Eighth, in 1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time, for
three centuries, the flames at which more than a hundred thousand
victims perished cast a lurid light over Europe." [283] The singular
notion, which we wish to present, is the ancient belief that witches
could control the moon. In the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes,
Strepsiades tells Socrates that he has "a notion calculated to deprive
of interest"; which is as follows:--

"_Str_. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and draw down the
moon by night, then shut her up in a round helmet-case, like a
mirror, and then keep watching her--"

"_Soc_. What good would that do you, then?"

"_Str_. What? If the moon were not to rise any more anywhere, I
should not pay the interest."

"_Soc_. Because what?"

"_Str_. Because the money is lent by the month." [284]

Shakespeare alludes to this, where Prospero says, "His mother was a
witch, and one so strong that could control the moon" (_Tempest_,
Act v.).

If the witch's broom, on whose stick she rode to the moon, be a type
of the wind, we may guess how the fancy grew up that the airy
creation could control those atmospheric vapours on which the light
and humidity of the night were supposed to depend. [285]

III. LUNAR ECLIPSES.

All round the globe, from time immemorial, those periodic
phenomena known as solar and lunar eclipses have been occasions
of mental disquietude and superstitious alarm. Though now
regarded as perfectly natural and regular, they have see