on the other hand, from the
persecution of the inquisitors of the Church, whose accusation against
this celebrated man was, that he denied the existence of spirits, a
charge very inconsistent with that of sorcery, which consists in
corresponding with them. Wierus, after taking his degree as a doctor of
medicine, became physician to the Duke of Cleves, at whose court he
practised for thirty years with the highest reputation. This learned
man, disregarding the scandal which, by so doing, he was likely to bring
upon himself, was one of the first who attacked the vulgar belief, and
boldly assailed, both by serious arguments and by ridicule, the vulgar
credulity on the subject of wizards and witches.

Gabriel Naude, or Naudaeus, as he termed himself, was a perfect scholar
and man of letters, busied during his whole life with assembling books
together, and enjoying the office of librarian to several persons of
high rank, amongst others, to Queen Christina of Sweden. He was,
besides, a beneficed clergyman, leading a most unblemished life, and so
temperate as never to taste any liquor stronger than water; yet did he
not escape the scandal which is usually flung by their prejudiced
contemporaries upon those disputants whom it is found more easy to
defame than to answer. He wrote an interesting work, entitled "Apologie
pour les Grands Homines Accuses de Magie;" and as he exhibited a good
deal of vivacity of talent, and an earnestness in pleading his cause,
which did not always spare some of the superstitions of Rome herself, he
was charged by his contemporaries as guilty of heresy and scepticism,
when justice could only accuse him of an incautious eagerness to make
good his argument.

Among persons who, upon this subject, purged their eyes with rue and
euphrasie, besides the Rev. Dr. Harsnet and many others (who wrote
rather on special cases of Demonology than on the general question),
Reginald Scot ought to be distinguished. Webster assures us that he was
a "person of competent learning, pious, and of a good family." He seems
to have been a zealous Protestant, and much of his book, as well as that
of Harsnet, is designed to throw upon the Papists in particular those
tricks in which, by confederacy and imposture, the popular ideas
concerning witchcraft, possession, and other supernatural fancies, were
maintained and kept in exercise; but he also writes on the general
question with some force and talent, considering that his sub