That this superstitious dread led to the persecution of many innocent beings, who were supposed to be guilty of witchcraft, there can be no question; our own statute books are loaded with penalties against sorcery; and, as already cited, at no very distant period, our courts of law have been disgraced by criminal trials of that nature, and judges, who are still quoted as models of legal knowledge and discernment, not only permitted such cases to go to a jury, but allowed sentences to be recorded which consigned reputed wizards to capital punishment. In Poland, even so late as the year 1739, a juggler was exposed to the torture, until a confession was extracted from him that he was a sorcerer; upon which, without further proof, he was hanged; and instances in other countries might be multiplied without end. But this, although it exceeds in atrocity, does not equal in absurdity the sanguinary and bigoted infatuation of the Inquisition in Portugal, which actually condemned to the flames, as being possessed of the devil, a horse belonging to an Englishman who had taught it perform some uncommon tricks; and the poor animal is confidently said to have been publicly burned at Lisbon, in conformity with his sentence, in the year 1601. The only part of Europe in which the acts of sorcery obtain any great credit, where, in fact, supposed wizards will practice incantations, by which they pretend to obtain the knowledge of future events, and in which the credulity of the people induced them to place the most implicit confidence. On such occasions a magical drum is usually employed. This instrument is formed of a piece of wood of a semi-oval form, hollow on the flat side, and there covered with a skin, on which various uncouth figures are depicted; among which, since the introduction of Christianity into that country, an attempt is usually made to represent the acts of our Saviour and the apostles. On this covering several brass rings of different sizes are laid, while the attendants dispose themselves in many antic postures, in order to facilitate the charm; the drum is then beat with the horn of a rein-deer, which occasioning the skin to vibrate, puts the rings in motion round the figures, and, according to the position which they occupy, the officiating seer pronounces his prediction[46]. “The remedy,” says a late writer[47], “specifically appropriated for these maladies of the mind, is the cultivation of natural knowledge; and it is equally curious and gratifying to observe, that though the lights of science are attained by only a small proportion of the community, the benefits of it diffuse themselves universally; for the belief of ghosts and witches, and judicial astrology, hardly exists, in these days, even amongst the lowest vulgar. This effect of knowledge, in banishing the vain fears of superstition, is finely alluded to in the last words of the following admirable lines quoted from Virgil, _e. g._—