Nor were speculations wanting with regard to the common nature of these demons. Psellus conceived that their bodies did not consist merely of one element, although he was far from denying that this might have been the case before the fall of Lucifer. It was his opinion, that devils possessed corporeal frames capable of sensation; that they could both feel and be felt; they could injure and be hurt; that they lamented when they were beaten, and that if struck into the fire, they even left behind them ashes,—a fact which was demonstrated in a very satisfactory experiment made by some philosophers upon the borders of Italy; that they were nourished with food peculiar to themselves, not receiving the aliment through the gullet, but absorbing it from the exterior surface of their bodies, after the manner of a sponge; that they did not hurt cattle from malevolence, but from mere love of the natural and temperate heat and moisture of these animals; that they disliked the heat of the sun, because it dried too fast; and, lastly, that they attained a great age. Thus, Cardan had a fiend bound to him twenty-eight years, who was forty-two years old, and yet considered very young. He was informed, from this very authentic source of intelligence, that devils lived from two to three hundred years, and that their souls died with their bodies. The very philosophical statement was, nevertheless, combated by other observers. “Manie,” says Scot, “affirmed that spirits were of aier, because they had been cut in sunder and closed presentlie againe, and also because they vanished away so suddenlie.” “_The_ NARRATIVE _of the_ DEMON OF TEDWORTH, _or the disturbances at_ MR. MONPESSON’S _house, caused by_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ VILLAINY OF THE DRUMMER.” “In winter’s tedious nights, sit by the fire With good old folks; and let them tell the tales Of woeful ages long ago betid.”