At no period in the history of Manchester was there a greater disposition to believe in witchcraft, demoniacal possession, and the occult sciences, than at the close of the sixteenth century. The seer, Edward Kelly, was ranging through the country, practising the black art. Dr. Dee, the friend and associate of this impostor, had recently obtained the appointment of warden of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, by favour of his royal patroness, Queen Elizabeth, herself a believer in his astrological calculations; and the fame of the strange doings [the alleged demoniacal possession of seven persons] in the family of Mr. Starkie, had spread far and wide. The new warden was really a learned man, of the most inquisitive mind, addicted to chemical pursuits, not wholly unconnected with those of alchemy, and not altogether detached from the practice of necromancy and magic, notwithstanding his positive asseverations to the contrary, in his petition to King James. His life was full of vicissitudes; though enjoying the patronage of princes, he was always involved in embarrassments, and was at length obliged to relinquish his church preferment at Manchester, owing to the differences that existed between himself and his ecclesiastical brethren. It does not appear that during his residence in Lancashire he encouraged the deceptions of the exorcists. On the contrary he refused to become a party in the pretended attempt to cast out devils at Cleworth, and he strongly rebuked Hartlay, the conjuror, who was afterwards executed at Lancaster for his disgraceful practices. WELLS AND SPRINGS. Water, everywhere a prime necessity of life, is pre-eminently so in the hot and arid plains and stony deserts of Asia and Africa. We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that in all the ancient Eastern cults and mythologies, springs and wells were held in reverence, as holy and sacred gifts to man from the Great Spirit of the universe. The great Indo-European tide of migration, rolling ever westward, bore on its bosom these graceful superstitions, which were eagerly adopted by the old church of Christendom; and there is scarcely an ancient well of any consequence in the United Kingdom which has not been solemnly dedicated to some saint in the Roman Catholic calendar.