Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/663

Rh W I T W I T 623 Charles V. (the Carolina). 1 The number of victims perhaps ex ceeded that in any other country. It was in Germany too that the last execution for witchcraft in Europe took place, at Posen in 1793. In France prosecutions for vaudcrie occurred in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century Joan of Arc was con demned on a charge of witchcraft. 2 Henry III., like Edward IV. of England, was accused by his enemies of practising sorcery. The most numerous prosecutions were set on foot in the 17th century, and as in other countries they met with the firmest support from some literary men, among whom P. de 1 Ancre is conspicuous for his orthodoxy. 3 A royal edict of 1682 revived all previous ordin ances against the practice of sorcery and divination, and punished with corporal punishment any persons consulting sorcerers, with death those who exercised magic themselves. The &quot;Chambre Ardente&quot; tried some cases, and the last case ever brought before such a tribunal resulted in the condemnation in 1680 of a woman named Voisin for sorcery and poisoning in connexion with the Marquise de Brinvilliers. The law against sorcery held its place in French legal works till at least the middle of the last century. It was treated at length both by the Sicur de Lamarre 4 and by Muyart de Vouglans. 5 The latter distinguishes white from black magic, the black only being criminal as a part of the larger offence of lese-majest^ divine, which included also heresy, blasphemy, and perjury. Burning was the usual punishment. Among the more remarkable of the indicia upon which torture might be inflicted was the finding on the premises of the accused instruments of magic, as wax figures transfixed with needles, feathers in the form of a circle, or a written pact with the devil. Pretended exercise of magic is now punished by the Code Penal. A very curious case of slander is mentioned by Merlin. 6 It was tried in 1811 in the de partment of Yonue. The slander consisted in an allegation by the defendant that the complainants had danced around the devil, who was seated on a gilded arm-chair as president of the dance. The tribunal of police thought the matter more a subject of ridicule than of injury and dismissed it, but this judgment was quashed by the court of cassation on the ground that the charge was one which might trouble the public peace. In Spain and Italy there is a considerable body of legislation on the subject of witchcraft. For instance, the code of the Side Partidas 7 in Spain punished with death those who acted as diviners or witches, especially in love matters. A distinction was drawn between divination by astronomy, which was legitimate, and that by augury from birds or by incan tation over water or a mirror. On the Continent, as in England, there was during two centuries a steady flow of literary attack on the reasonableness of belief in witchcraft. The earliest attack was made in Germany, the country which had distinguished itself by the vigour of its prosecutions of the crime. Cornelius Agrippa, in his De Occulta Philosojriia, was not entirely orthodox on the subject ; and it was more directly treated in the De Prsestigiis DtBmonum of Johann AVier or Weier in 1563, twenty-one years earlier than Reginald Scot s work. AVier was followed in the next century by Father Frederick Spec 8 in Germany, and by B. BEKKEH (q.v.) in the Netherlands. The work of Spee, originally pub lished anonymously, appears to have caused a great sensation at the time and to have caused a relaxation of prosecutions in order to give opportunity for further inquiry. The work takes the form of fifty-two doubts, the first of which is &quot;An Saga; Striges sou Malefici revera existant ? &quot; The general conclusion is that, although witches exist in general, the question of their operation in particular cases is open to so much doubt that it would be well to suspend proceedings for a time. The writer did not profess entire disbelief, as did Bekker. The main idea of De Bctooverde Wcrelil of the latter is that good and evil spirits could have no effect or influence on earthly affairs, for spirit could not act on matter. All prosecu tions for witchcraft were therefore unjust, and against the honour of God and the advantage of man. During the same period other writers both lay and legal treated the question incidentally. Montaigne was sceptical; Montesquieu, while not actually intimat ing disbelief, enjoined the greatest care in trying accusations. As in England, the current of literary feeling was not uniformly op- 1 Art. 44 gives the indicia which suffice to put to the torture. Art 52 gives the questions which are to be asked by the judge. - The numerous allusions to Joan of Arc s witchcraft in the First Part of Shakespeare s Henry VI. will be familiar. 3 L Incredulite et Mcscreance du Sortilege Plainement Convaincue, Paris, 1622. 4 Traile sur la Mayie, Sortilege, Possessions, Obsessions, et Malefices, Paris, 1737. 5 Institutes au Droit Criminel, Paris, 1757. 6 Repertoire de Jurisprudence^ s. v, &quot;Sortilege.&quot; 7 Partida vii. tit. 23. 8 Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus Contra Sagas, the first edition (Frankfort, 1632) being anonymous, &quot;auctore incerto theologo Romano,&quot; while later ones bear the name of the author. A full account of an ordinary trial for witchcraft will be found in the work. One of the most shameful parts of it, the stripping and shaving of an alleged witch, meets with the author s strongest reprobation. posed to popular belief, for Wier was answered by Bodin, and Luther and other eminent writers no doubt had full faith in the existence of witchcraft. See Lecky, Hist, of Rationalitm in Europe, vol. i. ch. i., where an immense number of authorities are cited ; works on magic, such as those by Delrio and Garinet ; Schcltema, Geschiedenis der J/eksenprocessen, Haarlem, 1828 ; Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprocesse, Stuttgart, 1843; and various reports of particular trials, e.y., the proceedings against fifty-three magicians at Logvofio in Castile in 1610, by P. de 1 Ancre (Vans, 1612), the trials in Sweden in 1609 and 1670, by I)r Anthony Horncck (London, 1700), the proceedings against G. Robbing at Coesfeld In 163-2. by Niesert (Coesfeld, 1827), and Les Procedures de Sorcellene a Neurh&tel, by Lardy (Xeuchatel. I860). (J. Wf.) WITENAGEMOT. See ENGLAND, vol. viii. p. 276. WITHER, GEORGE (1588-1667), appears in the Dunciad as &quot;sleeping among the dull of ancient days, safe where no critics damn.&quot; The once ardent poet s slumbers were disturbed towards the close of the 18th century by George Ellis, who in his Specimens resuscitated some of Wither s poetry, not to condemn but to praise. Thereafter he was speedily released from Pope s limbo. Wordsworth pre fixed a dozen of Wither s most exquisite lines to his own poem To the Daisy ; Southey quoted him eulogistically ; Brydges republished a selection of his poems, and searched out the facts of his life ; Park made a list of his voluminous writings, over 100 in number, for The British Bibliographer] and, most fortunate stroke of all for Wither s memory, Charles Lamb wrote upon him one of his most delightful essays, re-creating and immortalizing the old poet s poetic spirit. 9 Wither s life was full of adventure. Born June 11, 1588, the son of a Hampshire gentleman, educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he entered at Lincoln s Inn, conceived an ardent passion for poetry, put forward as a satirist in 1613 with Almses Stript and Whipt, and was promptly lodged in the Marshalsea. It was the year of the Essex divorce case, when so plain a satirist, though he whipt abuses in the abstract, might easily have given offence. In prison he wrote The Shepherd s Hunting, the fourth eclogue of which contains his memorable praise of poetry. Wither s Motto was published in 1618; Fair Virtue, or The Mistress of Pkilarete, the longest, freshest, and most captivating lover s panegyric in the language, in 1622. When the civil war broke out, Wither took the side of the Parliament, sold his estate in Hampshire and raised a troop of horse, was taken prisoner and saved from death at the intercession of Denham, backed by a timely jest, was promoted and enriched by Cromwell, was stript of his possessions at the Restoration and thrown into prison, but released under bond for good behaviour. Besides the poems above mentioned, which are the basis of Lamb s admiration, and his curious Emllems, published in 1635, Wither, a man of most radiant energy and eloquence, wrote a host of satirical and polemical tracts, for which readers may be referred to the Bibliographer. The famous song &quot; Shall I, wasting in despair,&quot; occurs in The Mistress of Philarete. He died in London May 2, 1667. WITHINGTON, a township of Lancashire, England, 4 miles south of Manchester, of which it is practically a suburb. It is chiefly occupied by better-class mansions and villas. The township is within the old parish of Man chester, but was formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1854. The urban sanitary district includes part of the parish of Withington and three other parishes (area 5728 acres), the population being 10,099 in 1871 and 17,109 in 1881. The population of the Withington p ortion (area 2229 acres) in 1871 was 4863, and in 1881 it was 9328. WITNESS, in law, is a person who gives or might give evidence in a court of justice. The law of witnesses is on the one hand a branch of the law of EVIDENCE (q.v.), and on the other is closely connected with the JURY (q.v.), for the jurors were originally chosen for their knowledge or presumed knowledge of the facts in dispute. The part of the Scotch juror s oath &quot; and no truth conceal &quot; is an 9 The marginal notes forming the original MS. of this essay have recently been reproduced by Mr Swinburne, Miscellanies, p. 157.