CONTENTS George Lyman Kittredge, Harvard University. BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN PARALLELS: THE MYTHOLOGICAL J. Estlin Carpenter, Manchester New College, Oxford. THE LIVER AS THE SEAT OF THE SOUL. Morris Jastrow, Jr., University of Pennsylvania. John Punnett Peters, Saint Michael's Church, New York. COMMON fame makes James I. a sinister figure in the history of English witchcraft. The delusion, we are told, was dying out in the later years of Elizabeth, but James fanned the embers into a devouring flame. His coming was the signal for a violent and long-continued outburst of witchhunting, for which he was personally responsible. He procured the repeal of the comparatively mild Elizabethan law and the enactment of a very cruel statute. He encouraged and patronized witchfinders, and was always eager for fresh victims. His reign is a dark and bloody period in the annals of this frightful superstition. Many authorities might be adduced in support of these . views, but I must rest content with quoting three writers who have had some influence in propagating them, — Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mr. Robert Steele, and Mr. G. M. Trevelyan.1 In 1861 Mrs. E. Lynn Linton published a volume of Witch Stories, which was reissued in 1883 and has met with deserved favor. Mrs. Linton has no mercy on James I. His name stands accursed for vice and cruel cowardice and the 66 1 For other pronouncements of a more or less similar nature, see Sir Walter Scott, Introduction to Potts's Discoverie, Somers Tracts, 2d edition, 1810, 3. 95; Mrs. Lucy Aitkin, Memoirs of the Court of King James the First, 1822, 2. 166–167; Retrospective Review, 1822, 5. 90; Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 1830, pp. 227, 246-247; Crossley, Introduction to Potts, Chetham Society, 1845, pp. xix., xiv.; Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, 1851, 1. 284, 2. 143-144; Charles Hardwick, History of Preston, 1857, p. 146; P. Q. Karkeek, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1874, 6. 786; F. A. Inderwick, SideLights on the Stuarts, 2d ed., 1891, pp. 154-155; Horley, History of Sefton, 1893, p. 115, note 1; H. N. Doughty, Blackwood's Magazine, March, 1898, 163, 388; W. R. Roper, Materials for the History of Lancaster, Part i, Chetham Society, 1907, pp. 26-27. 1 |