they have seen to others, who are at that time not more knowing than themselves, but may become at last very adequate witnesses, by comparing the narrative with its verification.

"To collect sufficient testimonies for the satisfaction of the publick or ourselves, would have required more time than we could bestow. There is against it, the seeming analogy of things confusedly seen and little understood, and for it, the indistinct cry of national persuasion, which may perhaps be resolved at last into prejudice and tradition." He concludes with the observation: "I never could advance my curiosity to conviction; but came away, at last, only willing to believe."

:

"The Magick of the Druids, or one part of it," writes Rowlands in his Mona Antiqua Restaurata, seems to have remained among the Britains even after their conversion to Christianity, and is called Taish in Scotland; which is a way of predicting by a sort of Vision they call Second Sight and I take it to be a relick of Druidism, particularly from a noted Story related by Vopiscus of the Emperor Dioclesian, who when a private soldier in Gallia, on his removing thence, reckoning with his Hostess, who was a Druid woman, she told him he was too penurious, and did not bear in him the noble soul of a Soldier. On his reply that his pay was small, she, looking stedfastly on him, said that he needed not be so sparing of his money, for after he should kill a Boar, she confidently pronounced he would be Emperor of Rome, which he took as a compliment from her; but, seeing her serious in her affirmation, the words she spoke stuck upon him, and was after much delighted in hunting and killing of Boars, often saying when he saw many made Emperors and his own Fortune not much mending, I kill the Boars, but 'tis others that eat the Flesh.' Yet it happen'd that, many years after, one Arrius Aper, father-in-law of the Emperor Numerianus, grasping for the Empire, traiterously slew him, for which fact being apprehended by the Soldiers and brought before Dioclesian, who being then become a prime Commander in the Army, they left the Traytor to his disposal, who, asking his name, and being told that he was called Aper, i.e., a Boar, without further pause, he sheathed his sword in his bowels, saying, Et hunc Aprum cum cæteris, i.e., Even this Boar also to the rest;' which done, the soldiers, commending it as a quick, extraordinary act of justice, without further deliberation saluted him by the name of Emperor. I bring this story here in view, as not improper on this hint, nor unuseful to be observed, because it gives fair evidence of the antiquity of the Second Sight, and withal shews that it descended from the antient Druids, as being one part of the diabolical magick they are charg'd with and, upon their dispersion into the territories of Denmark and Swedeland, continued there, in the most heathenish parts to this day, as is set forth in the story of the late Duncan Campbel."

In Collins' Ode on the popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland are the following lines on this subject

"How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,

With their own vision oft astonish'd droop,

When, o'er the watry strath, or quaggy moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.

Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,

Their destin'd glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,

And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.

The Seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay!"

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1792) the minister of Appie cross, in the county of Ross, writes of his parishioners: "With them the belief of the Second Sight is general, and the power of an evil eye is commonly credited: and though the faith in witchcraft be much er feebled, the virtue of abstracting the substance from one milk, and adding it to another, is rarely questioned."

The natives of the Isle of Man, according to Waldron, tell you that before a person dies the funeral procession is acted by a sort of beings who for that purpose render themselves invisible. Several offered to make oath that, as they were passing the road, one of these funeral parties came behind them, and even laid the bier on their shoulders, as though inviting assistance; while one, who assured Waldron that he had been so served, said the flesh of his shoulder was greatly bruised, and continued black for many weeks after. So widespread is the conviction that there were few or none who did not pretend to have seen or heard these imaginary obsequies (for it is to be observed that psalms are sung thereat after the manner of those attending the corpses of their deceased friends); and so little do these differ from the real ones that they are not to be distinguished till both coffin and mourners are seen to vanish at the church doors. They are taken to be a sort of friendly demons, whose office it is to warn people of what is to befall them; accordingly they give notice of the approach of strangers by the trampling of horses at the gates of the houses where they are to arrive. Difficult as it was to credit this, Waldron frequently was much surprised, on visiting a friend, to find the table spread and everything ready for his reception; the explanation given by the host being that he had been apprised of the arrival of a guest by these good-natured intelligencers. Indeed, Waldron affirms that, when he was obliged to be absent some time from home, his own servants assured him they were thus informed of his coming back, and expected him at the very hour of his arrival, though perhaps it was some days before he had himself hoped to return. That this is fact," he writes emphatically, "I am positively convinced by many proofs." May not this be regarded as equivalent to Second Sight?

SPILLING OF salt and WINE.

The spilling of salt towards a person was formerly considered a very unlucky omen. It was held to indicate that something either had already happened to one of the family, or was shortly to befall the persons spilling it, and also to denote the rupture of friendship.

Of the Superstitious Man writes Bishop Hall in his Characters of Virtues and Vices: "If the Salt fall towards him he looks pale and red, and is not quiet till one of the Waiters have poured Wine on his lappe."

We have ourselves been at table when the consequences of this accident were supposed to have been averted by throwing over the shoulder a little of the salt that had so fallen; and similarly Pennant,

in his Journey from Chester to London, records it as a notorious superstition among ourselves and the Germans; it being reckoned a presage of calamity, and particularly of domestic feuds, to "avert which it was customary to fling some Salt over the shoulder into the Fire." So also both the Greeks and the Romans mixed salt with their sacrificial cakes; and in their lustrations they made use of salt-and-water, which gave rise in after-times to the superstition of holy water.

The references to this subject are numerous in old writers. Thus Home's Dæmonologie enumerates, among bad omens, "the falling of salt towards them at the table, or the spilling of wine on their clothes;" adding, "How common is it for people to account it a signe of ill-luck to have the salt-cellar to be overturned, the salt falling towards them!" Among Vain Observations and Superstitious Ominations thereupon, Gaule, in his Mag-Astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, reckons "the spilling of the wine, the overturning of the salt;" with the supplementary information: "I have read it in an orthodox divine that he knew a young gentleman who by chance spilling the salt of the table, some that sate with him said merrily to him that it was an ill omen, and wish't him take heed to himselfe that day of which the young man was so superstitiously credulous that it would not go out of his mind; and, going abroad that day, got a wound of which he died not long after." Again, in Melton's Astrologaster, "that it is ill-lucke to have the salt-cellar fall towards you," is one of the items in a catalogue of many superstitious ceremonies; while Grose writes: "To scatter salt by overturning the vessel in which it is contained is very unlucky, and portends quarrelling with a friend or fracture of a bone, sprain, or other bodily misfortune. Indeed, this may in some measure be averted by throwing a small quantity of it over one's head. It is also unlucky to help another person to salt. To whom the ill-luck is to happen does not seem to be settled."

According to Pennant, a tune called Gosteg yr Halen, or the Prelude of the Salt, was invariably played when the salt-cellar was placed before the knights at King Arthur's Round Table; and from the Convivial Antiquities of Stuckius we learn that the Muscovites held that a prince could not bestow a greater mark of affection upon a guest than sending him salt from his own table.

Salt, notes Selden on the Polyolbion, was used in all sacrifices by express command of the true God; it is denominated in Holy Writ the Salt of the Covenant, the Religion of the Salt, set first and removed last, as a symbol of perpetual friendship; and in the epithet of eoio (divine) bestowed upon it by Homer, and Lycophron's reference to it as ayurns (the cleanser), "you shall see apparent and apt testimonie of its having had a most respected and divinely-honoured name."

Bailey observes that the superstition as to the spilling of salt is connected with the ancient opinion that salt was incorruptible. Accordantly therewith, it had been made the symbol of friendship; and the occurrence of an accident therefore was interpreted to signify that the harmonious intercourse of those between whom it happened would not be of long duration. Thus in the British Apollo (1708) we read

"Wee'l tell you the reason
Why spilling of Salt

Is esteem'd such a Fault,

Because it doth ev'ry thing season.

Th' antiques did opine

'Twas of Friendship a sign,

So serv'd it to guests in decorum:

And thought Love decay'd

When the negligent Maid

Let the Salt-Cellar tumble before them."

The ordinary sentiment as to helping to or being helped with the saline commodity is adverted to in a volume (translated from the French) entitled The Rules of Civility (1685). "Some are so exact," says the writer, "they think it uncivil to help anybody that sits by them, either with Salt or with Brains; but in my judgement that is but a ridiculous scruple, and if your neighbour desires you to furnish him, you must either take some out with your Knife, and lay it upon his plate; or, if they be more than one, present them with the Salt, that they may furnish themselves."

Salt, it is explained in Seward's Conformity between Popery and Paganism, was employed in their sacrificial rites equally by Jews and pagans; but the use of it in baptism was derived from gentile idolatry. As an emblem of preservation, it was ordered by the law of Moses to be strewn on all flesh offered in sacrifice; but the pagans, not content with using it as an adjunct or necessary concomitant of the sacrifice, offered it up as a propitiation. Thus, in the Ferialia, or offerings to the Dii Manes, at which no animal was slain

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Parva petunt Manes, Pietas pro divite grata est
Munere; non avidos Styx habet una Deos.
Tegula porrectis satis est velata Coronis,
Et parcæ fruges, parvaque Mica Salis."
"The Manes' rights expences small supply;
The richest Sacrifice is Piety.

With vernal Garlands a small Tile exalt
A little flour and little grain of Salt."

That the flour and salt, proceeds Seward, were both designed as propitiatory offerings to avert the vengeance of the Stygian or Infernal gods, may be proved from a like custom in the Lemuria, another festival to the same Dii Manes, in which beans were flung instead of flour and salt; the person flinging them exclaiming

"His redimo meque meosque fabis."

"With these beans I me and mine redeem."

It is plain therefore, adds Seward, that "the salt in the former cere mony was offered as a redemption, which property the Papists impiously ascribe to it still; and the 'parva mica '(little grain) is the very thing put into the child's mouth at present." The reference here is to the rite of baptism, of which Seward supplies a formula: "Then he, the priest, exorcises and expells the impure spirits from the Salt,

which stands by him in a little silver box; and, putting a bit of it into the mouth of the person to be baptized, he says, 'Receive the Salt of Wisdom; and may it be a propitiation to thee for Eternal Life !'"

A passage in Dekker's Honest Whore (1635) favours the impression that bread and salt used to be taken by way of oath or strong asseveration: "He tooke bread and salt by this light, that he would never open his lips."

In the Isle of Man no one, writes Waldron, will go out on any business of importance without taking some salt in his pocket; much less remove from one house to another, or marry, or put out or take in a child to nurse, without a mutual interchange of the saline commodity. Nay, though a poor creature be almost famished in the streets, he will not accept proffered food unless salt be added to the benevolence. The natives, it would seem, found their superstitious veneration of it upon a pilgrim's story of the dissolution of an enchanted palace on the island, effected by salt spilt on the ground.

In the parish of Killearn in Stirlingshire, we learn from the Statistical Account of Scotland under the date of 1795, superstition continued to operate so strongly that it was the practice to put a small quantity of salt into the first milk of a cow after calving that is given any one to drink; avowedly for the prevention of "skaith" (harm) in the event of the person not being "canny."

Of the Irish we are informed by Camden that, when officials in a town entered upon public offices, women in the streets and girls from the windows sprinkled them and their attendants with wheat and salt; also that, before the seed was put into the ground, the mistress of the family sent salt into the field.

Among the Secrets of Nature revealed by Willsford in his treatise thereon, we find that salt extracted out of the earth, water, or any mineral, has certain weather-indicating properties. If well kept, in fair weather it will be dry, and against wet it will be apt to dissolve. Similarly, on boards that it has lain on, getting into the pores of the wood, it will be dry in fair and serene weather; but the air inclining to be wet, it will dissolve; "and that you shall see by the board venting his brackish tears: and salt-cellars will have a dew hang upon them; and those made of metal look dim against rainy weather."

One or two items of social interest may here be added. "For the Chamber let the best fashioned and apparell'd Servants attend above the Salt; the rest below"-occurs in the list of orders issued for the regulation of Lord Fairfax's household at Denton; and Mungo Park notes that the scarcity of salt in Africa determined the status of the inhabitants. It would be a singular spectacle, he says, to see a European child sucking a piece of rock-salt as if it were sugar; but it is frequent in Africa; the fact being that the poorer classes are so rarely indulged with this precious article that to say of a man "He eats salt with his victuals," is equivalent to pronouncing him to be a rich man.

As to the second division of our subject, Scot observes in his Dis covery of Witchcraft that "to account it good or bad luck when Salt or Wine falleth on the Table, or is shed, is altogether Vanity and Superstition." Mason's Anatomy of Sorcery (1612) has a similar obser