Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," &c., p. 66, says that witches "take likewise the roots of mandrake, according to some, or, as I rather suppose, the _roots of briony_, which simple folke take for the true mandrake, and make thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they intend to exercise their witchcraft." He tells us, _ibid._, p. 26, "Some plants have roots with a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the form of the face at the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard down to the feet."--_Brand's Antiquities_, vol. iii. p. 9. Ben Johnson has not forgotten this superstition in his learned and fanciful _Masque of Queens_, in which so much of the lore of witchcraft is embodied. There are few finer things in English poetry than his 3rd Charm:-- The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain, The ant and the mole sit both in a hole, And the frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play, The spindle is now a turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled, But all the sky is a burning: The ditch is made, and our nails the spade, _With pictures full, of wax and of wool; Their livers I stick, with needles quick;_ There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood. Quickly, dame, then bring your part in, Spur, spur upon little Martin, Merrily, merrily, make him sail, A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail, Fire above, and fire below, With a whip in your hand, to make him go. _Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford_, vol. vii. p. 121. Meric Casaubon, who is always an amusing writer, and whose works, notwithstanding his appetite for the wonderful, do not merit the total oblivion into which they have fallen, is very angry with Jerome Cardan, an author not generally given to scepticism, for the hesitation he displays on the subject of these waxen images:--