Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/421

Rh "Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace, have left instances of incantations conducted by figures in wax. In the beginning of the last century, many witches were executed for attempting the lives of persons, by fabricating representations of them in wax and clay. King James the First, in his, speaks of the practice as very common; the efficacy of which he peremptorily ascribes to the power of the devil . His majesty's arguments, intended to prove how the magician's image operated on the person represented, are drawn from the depths of moral, theological, physical, and metaphysical knowledge. The Arabian magic abounded with these infatuations, which were partly founded on the doctrine of sympathy.

"But to return to the . In this story one of the magicians is styled magister peritus, and sometimes simply magister. That is, a cunning man. The title magister in our universities has its origin from the use of this word in the middle ages. With what propriety it is now continued I will not say. Mystery, anciently used for a particular art, or skill in general is a specious and easy corruption of maistery or mastery, the English