“I saie, that there is none which acknowledgeth God to be onlie omnipotent ... but will denie that the elements are obedient to witches, and at their commendement; or that they may at their pleasure send raine, haile, tempests, thunder, lightning.... Such faithlesse people are also persuaded that neither hale nor snowe, thunder nor lightening, raine nor tempestuous winds, come from the heavens at the commandement of God, but are raised by the cunning and power of witches and conjurers; inasmuch as a clap of thunder or a gale of wind is no sooner heard, but wither they run to ring bells, or crie out to burne witches, or else burne consecrated things, hoping by the smoke thereof to drive the devill out of the aire.” Witchcraft and magic were, however, recognised by the Government as real things. It was thought desirable in 1542 to pass an Act against these practices. “It shall be felony to practise, or cause to be practised conjurations, with craft, enchantment or sorcery, to get money: or to consume any person in his body, members, or goods; or to provoke any person to unlawful love; or for the despight of Christ or lucre of money to pull down any cross; or to declare where goods stolen,” etc. This Act of Henry VIII. was repeated or confirmed by Elizabeth twenty years later, and by James I. in 1603. Cranmer, in 1549, ordered the clergy to inquire “whether you know of any that use charms, sorcery, enchantment, witchcrafts, soothsaying, or any like craft invented by the devil.” And in 1558 Bishop Jewel, preaching before the Queen, said, “It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within these last few years are marvellously increased within your Grace’s realm. Your subjects pine away even to the death; their colour fadeth; their flesh rotteth; their speech is benumbed; their senses are bereft.” The precautions used against witchcraft do not belong to London, where the belief in the superstition took a less active form than in the country. A pebble with a natural hole in it, a horseshoe picked up by accident and nailed up over the door, a hare’s foot in the pocket, a bit of witchwood, were simple precautions against the witch. I do not think that these superstitions were much followed in London, though there are examples that the terror of the witch prevailed in the City as well as in the country. It is remarkable that the spread of education and the toleration of fine thoughts in religion did not destroy this horrible superstition. On the contrary it increased, and the seventeenth century, when the greatest amount of religious freedom was practised if not allowed, only made the belief in witchcraft more profound. Who could choose but to believe when Ben Jonson himself could write of witches as follows?