y hundreds, nay perhaps thousands, lost their lives
during two centuries on such charges and such evidence as proved the
death of those persons in the trial of the Irvine witches. One case,
however, is so much distinguished by fame among the numerous instances
which occurred in Scottish history, that we are under the necessity of
bestowing a few words upon those celebrated persons, Major Weir and his
sister.

The case of this notorious wizard was remarkable chiefly from his being
a man of some condition (the son of a gentleman, and his mother a lady
of family in Clydesdale), which was seldom the case with those that fell
under similar accusations. It was also remarkable in his case that he
had been a Covenanter, and peculiarly attached to that cause. In the
years of the Commonwealth this man was trusted and employed by those who
were then at the head of affairs, and was in 1649 commander of the
City-Guard of Edinburgh, which procured him his title of Major. In this
capacity he was understood, as was indeed implied in the duties of that
officer at the period, to be very strict in executing severity upon such
Royalists as fell under his military charge. It appears that the Major,
with a maiden sister who had kept his house, was subject to fits of
melancholic lunacy, an infirmity easily reconcilable with the formal
pretences which he made to a high show of religious zeal. He was
peculiar in his gift of prayer, and, as was the custom of the period,
was often called to exercise his talent by the bedside of sick persons,
until it came to be observed that, by some association, which it is more
easy to conceive than to explain, he could not pray with the same warmth
and fluency of expression unless when he had in his hand a stick of
peculiar shape and appearance, which he generally walked with. It was
noticed, in short, that when this stick was taken from him, his wit and
talent appeared to forsake him. This Major Weir was seized by the
magistrates on a strange whisper that became current respecting vile
practices, which he seems to have admitted without either shame or
contrition. The disgusting profligacies which he confessed were of such
a character that it may be charitably hoped most of them were the fruits
of a depraved imagination, though he appears to have been in many
respects a wicked and criminal hypocrite. When he had completed his
confession, he avowed solemnly that he had not confessed the hundredth
part of the cr