confined to the under and less polite part of the world; it has spread from the cottage to the farm, from the farm to the squire's hall; and, like the imaginary tortures it represents, though it most frequents the scenes of ruin and spots of darkness, yet it sometimes glares in open day, and haunts the better breasts of learning and education. It is matter for our wonder that people of sense should indulge the garrulity of nurses and servants, which are the vessels this spirit resides most powerfully in, and suffer them to convey these ridiculous horrors to their children, which often take such firm possession of their younger heads, that no future powers of reason and religion are able to banish them; but, like some hereditary distempers in the blood, they may be indeed abated by wholesome prescriptions, but can never be eradicated; and will certainly break forth anew, when they are most dangerous, at the decline of age.

I fancy every man may find a bigot of this kind within the circle of his acquaintance; and, for my own part, I know too many, to be unconcerned at the growth of a folly, which creates so much uneasiness in the soul, and fills it with legions of foreign fears which have no foundation in nature or reason. Should a stran

ger of sound sense, or one who had no notion of the prevalence of this evil, be presented with a faithful catalogue of all the believers in spirits and incantations, within the kingdom of Great Britain, he might be inclined to suspect that the greater part of the nation were yet unconverted to Christianity, and under the tyranny of a pagan priesthood. To give only a few instances of what has fallen within the compass of my own observation.

I have frequently had twenty vouchers at one time for the real cause of the fairies' ring in a country meadow, who have actually seen those diminutive beings tripping in their cir cular dance, and would for my conviction have taken their oaths of it before a justice of the peace. I own, that I could not allow myself to accept of this way of proof; but they, good people, interpreted that only as if I had been ashamed to recant.

I remember a poor country girl at my friend 'Squire Gosling's, who suffered under the perse cution of these little demons for not cleaning her dairy, as much as Sir John Falstaff did by their substitutes in Windsor Park. The marks were so visible, and the truth so undisputed, that I had like to have affronted the whole family,

only by saying that I thought the impression a little too large for the hand of a fairy.

There is a very grave gentleman of my ac quaintance who has seen some hundreds of spirits; the man seems to be in his right senses, and, like the madman mentioned by Horace, performs every office of life with decency; but when you touch upon this subject, he runs riot, and cannot bear the least contradiction. He is naturally phlegmatic; and when I once asked him with a grave face, after much attention to his stories, at what time they generally appeared to him, his reply was, "I see them most commonly after the drinking of brandy." This was enough for me, and I beg my reader not to think it a pun, for it is really a fact.

The worthy Acasto, who has the true spirit of religion and good sense, has often related to me his successes in attacking this superstitious humour among his neighbours in the country. There was, it seems, a devil, or at least a spirit or two, who had taken possession of some of his tenants' houses for many years; where they took the privilege of disturbing the family with all manner of noises, rattling of chains, clattering of pewter; and, in short, flinging the house out of window, as we say, whenever they

pleased. They sometimes made excursions into the adjacent common, and kept their revels by a ditch side, or under an old oak; and were demons of such considerable figure and standing, that they were thought too hard for either minister or conjuror. However, my friend, pitying the miserable credulity of his neighbours, first dispossessed them of the houses, then pursued them to the common, and at last beat them quite out of the parish: though the people will not be persuaded but that they are lodged in a great wood, about a mile and half distance from Acasto's seat; and that they will begin their incursions as soon as he leaves the country. However, my friend intends to begin his attack upon the old wood the first favourable moonshine night, and does not question but he shall complete his triumph before the summer is over. His method was, to take the pains to convince them by watching himself at the pretended seasons of disturbance; and his presence so effectually awed their imaginations, that they started no Mormos while he was with them; and, by often repeating the trial, and reasoning kindly with them upon the subject, he worked to the bottom of the delusion, and delivered them from all the monsters of their own formation.

I was led into these reflections, by reading a very ridiculous book lately published: the title of it is, Mr. Lilly's History of his Life and Times; where that notorious impostor has put together all the idle fancies of whimsical or cunning people, under the notion of an art or science.

The fellow relates the cheats of his profession with the formality of truth; and I don't question but that they will pass for such upon the vulgar, since they fall in with their natural prejudices. And therefore when he says, that Sarah, Skelborn, the Speculatrix, had the best eyes for second sight that ever he saw, he will certainly be believed; because it is a received maxim with the ignorant, that every one has not the faculty of discerning spirits and future contingencies. I should not have taken notice of this silly book, had not I found that the tricks of judicial astrology are practised with great ad vantage to their professors; that many ladies have as high an opinion of the Dumb Doctor as of the great Meade; and that Partridge is daily preferred to the immortal Sir Isaac New

ton.

CENSOR, No. 11, May 4, 1715.

The superstitions alluded to in this paper, and which had previously attracted the notice of Addison, are now seldom