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We are too hasty whe down our aors in the gloss for fools, for the nstrous insistencies (as they seeto us) inoled in their creed of witchcraft. Iions of this isible world we find theto hae been as rational, and shrewd to dete historialy, as ourseles. But when ohe inisible world was supposed to be opened, and the wless agency of bad spirits assud, what asures of probability, of decy, of fitness, or proportion -- of that which distinguishes the likely frothe palpable absurd -uld they hae to guide thein the reje or adssion of any particur testiny? -- That idens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waen iges ed before a fire -- that was lodged, and cattle d -- that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic reelry the oaks of the forest-or that spits ales only danced a fearful-i agary about so rustics kit when no wind was stirring -- were all equally probable where no w of agency was uood. That the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the floo of the earth, should y preposterous siege to the weak fantasy of i eld -- has her likelihood nor unlikelihood à priori to us, who hae no asure to guess at his policy, or standard to estite what rate those anile souls y fet the deils rket. Nor, when the wicked are epressly syolized by a goat, was it to be wo so ch, that he should e sotis in that body, and assert his taphor. -- That the inturse e all between both worlds erhaps the stake -- but that once assud, I see no reason for disbelieied story of this nature re than another on there of absurdity. There is no w to judge of the wless, or by which a dreay be criticised.
I hae sotis thought that uld not hae eisted in the days of receied witchcraft; that uld not hae slept in a ilge where one of those reputed hags dwe. Our aors were bolder or re obtuse. Adst the uniersal belief that these wretches were in league with the author of all eil, holdiributary to their ttering, no sile Justice of the Peace see to hae scrupled issuing, or silly Headbh sering, a warrant upon the-- as if they should subpoena Satan! -- Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand about hi suffers hielf to be eyed away at the rcy of his eo an unknown isnd. He ght hae raised a storor two, we think, on the passage. His acquiesce is i analogy to the noance of witches to the stituted powers. -- What stops the Fiend in Spenser fr Guyon to pieces -- or who had de it a dition of his prey, that Guyon st take assay of the glorious bait -- we hae no guess. We do not know the ws of that try.
Fro childhood I was etrely inquisitie about witches and witch-stories. My id, and re legendary aunt, supplied with, good store. But I shall ntio which directed curiosity inally into this el. In fathers book-closet, the History of the Bible, by Stackhouse, oupied a distinguished station. The pictures with which it abounds -- one of the ark, in particur, and another of Solons tele, delied with all the fidelity of ocur adasurent, as if the artist had been upon the spot -- attracted childish attention. There icture, too, of the Witch raising up Sael, which I wish that I had neer seen. We shall e to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tos -- and there leasure in reing folios of that gnitude, which, with infiraining, was as ch as uld nage, frothe situation which they oupied upon an upper shelf. I hae not t with the work frothat ti to this, but I reer it sisted of Old Testant stories, orderly set down, with the obje appeo each story, and the solution of the obje regurly tacked to that. The obje was a suary of whateer difficuies had been opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness of a or dern iy, drawn up with an alst plintary ecess of dour. The solution was brief, dest, and satisfactory. The bane and antidote were both before you. To doubts so put, and so quashed, there seed to be an end for eer. The dragon is dead, for the foot of the eriest babe to trale on. But -- like as was rather feared than realised frothat sin nster in Spenser -- frothe wo of those crushed errors young dragos would creep, eceeding the prowess of so tender a Saint Gee as self to anquish. The habit of epeg objes to eery passage, set upon starting re objes, for the glory of finding a solution of own for the I beca staggered and perpleed, a scepti lonats. The pretty Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their purity and siy of iression, aurned into so ny historic or ologic theses to be defended against whateer iugners. I was not to disbeliee the but -- the hing to that -- I was to be quite sure that so one or other would or had disbelieed the o king a child an infidel, is the letting hiknow that there are infidels at all. Credulity is the ns weakness, but the childs strength. 0,;/a how ugly sound scriptural doubts frothe uth of a babe and a sug -- I should hae lost self in these zes, and hae pined away, I think, with sufit sustenance as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of ill-fortune, which about this ti befel . Turnihe picture of the ark with too ch haste, I unhappily de a brea its ingenious fabric-driing ie fingers right through the twer quadrupeds the elephant, and the cal -- that stare (as well they ght) out of the two st windows he steerage in that unique piece of naal architecture. Stackhouse was heh locked up, and be interdicted treasure. With the book, the objes and solution gradually cleared out of head, and hae seldoreturned sin any force to trouble . -- But there was one iression which I had iibed froStackhouse, whio lock or bauld shut out, and which was destio try childish neres rather re seriously. -- That detestable picture!
I was dreadfully alie to nerous terrors. The night-ti solitude, and the dark, were hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature would justify the epression. I neer id head on  illow, I suppose, frothe fourth to the seenth hth year of life -- so far as ry seres in things so long ago -- without an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of seeing shtful spectre. Be old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture of the Witch raising up Sael --(O that old ered with a ntle!) I owe--not dnight terrors, the hell of infancy -- but the shape and nner of their isitation. It was he who dressed up for a hag that nightly sate upon  illow -- a sure bed-fellow, when aunt or id was far fro. All day long, while the book ertted , I dread waking oer his deliion, and at night (if I y use so bold an epression) awoke into sleep, and found the ision true. I durst not, een in the day-light, oer the chaer where I slept, without face turo the window, aersely frothe bed where witch-ridden pillow was. -- Parents do not know what they do when they leae tender babes aloo go to sleep in the dark. The feeling about for a friendly ar-- the hoping for a faliar oice -- when they wake sg -- and find o soothe the-- what a terrible shaking it is to their poor he keeping theup till dnight, through dle-light and the unwholeso hours, as they are called, -- would, I asatisfied, in a dical point of iew, proe the better caution. -- That detestable picture, as I hae said, gae the fashion to drea -- if drea they were -- for the se of thewas inariably the rooin which I y. Had I with the picture, the fears would hae e self-pictured in so shape or other -
Headless bear, b, or ape --
but, as it was, iginations took that for -- It is not book, or picture, or the stories of foolish serants, which create these terrors in children. They at st but gie thea dire. Dear little T.N. who of all children has been brought up with the s;ar;/art scrupulous eclusion of eery taint of superstition -- who was neer allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad n, or to read or hear of any distressing story -- finds all this world of fear, frowhich he has been sidly ecluded ab etra, in his o;quot;thiing fancies;quot; and frohis little dnight pillow, this nurse-child of optiswill start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, is to which the reeries of the cell-daed rderer are tranquillity.
Gons, and Hydras, and Chiras -- dire stories of o and the Harpies y reproduce theeles in the brain of superstition -- but they were there before. They are transcripts, types -- the archetypes are in us, aernal. How else should the recital of that, which we know in a waking seo be false, e to affect us at all? -- or
-- Nas, whose sense we see not,
Fray us with things that be not?
Is it that we naturally ceie terror frosuch objects, sidered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? -- O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body -- or, without the body they would hae been the sa. All the cruel, tornting, defined deils in Dante -- tearing, ngling, choking, stifling, ss -- are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a n, as the sile idea of a spirit uneodied following hi-
Like ohat on a loneso road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And haing ournd round, walks on,
And turns no re his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind hitread*.
[Footnote] * Mr, Ces A Mariner
That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual -- that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upoh -- that it predonates in the period of sinless infancy -- are difficuies, the solution of which ght afford so probable insight into our ante-ion, and a peep at least into the shadow-nd of pre-eistence.
My night-fancies hae long ceased to be afflictie. I fess an oasional nightre; but I do not, as in early youth, keep a stud of the Fiendish faces, with the etinguished taper, will e and look at ; but I know thefor ckeries, een while I ot elude their presence, and I fight and grapple with the For the credit of igination, I aalst ashad to say how ta and prosaibsp; drea are grown. They are neer rontic, seldoeen rural. They are of architecture and of buildings cities abroad, which I hae neer seen, and hardly hae hope to see. I hae traersed, for the seeh of a natural day, Ro, Aterda Paris, Lisbon -- their churches, paces, squares, rket- pces, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an inepressible sense of delight -- a p-like distiness of trace -- and a day-light iidness of ision, that was all but being awake. -- I hae forrly traelled an;rk;/rkg the Westrend fells -- highest Alps, -- but they are objects too ghty for the grasp of roaion; and I hae again and again awoke with iual struggles of the inner eye, to ke out a shape in any way whateer, of Helellyhought I was in that try, but the untains were gohe poerty of drea rtifies . There is Ce, at his will jure up ies, and pleasure-houses for Kub Khan, and Abyssinian ids, and songs of Abara, and s,
Where Alph, the sacred rier, runs,
to soce his night solitudes -- when I uster a fiddle. Barry wall has his tritons and his nereids gaoling before hiin noal isions, and prog sons born to une -- when stret藏书网agiiity hardly, in the night season, raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set failures in sowhat a rtifying light -- it was after reading the noble Dreaof this poet, that fancy ran strong upon these rine spectr and the poor pstic power, such as it is, withi to work, to huur folly in a sort of dreathat ery night. Methought I on the o billows at so sea nuptials, riding and unted high, with the ary train sounding their chs before , (I self, you y be sure, the leading god,) and jollily we went careerihe in, till just where Ihea should hae greeted (I think it was Ino) with a white erace, the billows gradually subsiding, fell froa sea-rougho a sea-cal and theo a rier-tion, and that rier (as happens in the faliarization of drea) was no other than the gehas, whided , in the wafture of a lucid wae or two, alone, safe and inglorious, sowhere at the foot of Laeth pace. The degree of the souls creatieness in sleep ght furnish no whiical criterion of the quantuof poetical facuy resident in the sa soul waking. An old gentlen, a friend of ne, and a hurist, used to carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of his acquaintaious of being a poet, his first question would be, -- quot;Young n, what sort of drea hae you?quot; I hae so ch faith in old friends theory, that when I feel that idle eiurning upon , I presently subside into  roper elent of prose, reering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious innd nding.
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