Demonology -- Early works to 1800; Magic -- Early works to 1800; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800
to the various peculiarities of the letters, words, and sizes of the
punctuation, show that Williams had come into possession of Calvert’s
remainder, or of his set-up type, and had issued these sheets,
prefixing a new title-page of his own, printed by E. Cotes.
There is not the slightest evidence of a copy of the 1584 edition
having been prepared for the press, beyond the new title-page, and on
two occasions the translation of Latin, that Scot had not—as he had
done in similar instances—translated. The Latin-named ingredients on
p. 184 are Englished, and I have thus been enabled to give them in my
notings with the more probability that they are correct. The second
instance is, as stated in my margin, on p. 416. Two or three press
errors are corrected, one of them not a certain emendation, and all
within the competency of an ordinary compositor or reader; but no
others, not even that of “increase” for “incense”, p. 446, while fresh
errors, indicative of a careless “reader”, are made.
What has been thus said as to the character of this second reprint,
goes to prove that it was a publisher’s venture based upon the demand
for the book, and, therefore, for gain, and one which he carried out
spite of its having been burnt, and placed among the “prohibited
books”. In like manner, and for the like purpose, and as before,
without entry in the Stationers’ Registers, there was brought out
the third, and so-called folio edition of 1665, though the sheets
are in sixes. All but the title-page, which, curiously enough, was
again re-written, though still bearing, like the second, the words,
“By Reginald Scot Esquire”; it is a careless reprint of that second,
with all its errors, and new ones superadded. But as a novelty and
inducement to buy, nine chapters, commencing the fifteenth book, and a
second book of the “Discourse on Devils and Spirits”, were added by an
anonymous author. Who this anonymity was, I have uselessly spent some
little time in inquiring, time that might have been better employed,
even had I found him. But it goes to prove that these additions were
merely made for novelty’s sake, and its glamour and gain, in that
the writer was a believer in, and not improbably, from his minute
directions, as well as from his reticence, a practiser of witchcraft,
or of what he thought to be witchcraft. He also, and I give this as one
possible clue, was a strong believer in the perishable Astral spirit
of a man, as well as of Astral spirits in general, and much of his
“Discourse” is taken up with remarks on these.
I may here add, as showing the carelessness with which these second and
third editions were edited, a note of the errata marked in the first
and not corrected in them.
75, 21. “We,” so the second; in the third the (,) is rightly placed
after “years”. A correction that could have been made by the least
intelligent of “readers”.
168, 31. “Earth _read_ firmament.” Not corrected.
247, 29. “Write _add_ it.” Not corrected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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