termed, unmasked, of which a fuller and more detailed account will be given than has hitherto appeared. The author, the late Mr. John James Bräuner, Dr. of Philosophy and Medicine, treats especially herein of the manifold cunning frauds and sorceries of the wicked Devil, whereby, for the most part, thoughtless men find an inviting opportunity to turn aside from God and His holy word. The venerable author has, moreover, compiled this profitable and praiseworthy book with great care from a vast variety of authors hitherto only partially known, and published it for the benefit of his friends and neighbours.*

*The passages marked by inverted commas, are translated from the original Preface of 1747, which was written by his Editor many years afterwards.

CHAPTER II.

"The King doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant hath,
A lovely boy stolen from an Indian King;
She never had so sweet a changeling."

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM,
Act ii., Scene 2.

OF CHANGELINGS.

Our author in this Chapter treats of the malignity of Satan, as displayed especially to women in childbed, according to the current superstitions of the age in which he lived, and which, indeed, were prevalent even amongst the higher orders for a very considerable period afterwards.

He attributes the peculiar malignity supposed to be displayed by Satan towards infants to the dread with which he was imbued, lest, amongst these infants, there should haply be one who, on attaining to man's estate, would make serious inroads upon his kingdom and power. Consequently, he was wont to take advantage of the weakness, both mental and bodily, to which the woman was reduced by the sufferings she had recently endured, and snatch away the new-born infant, substituting an imp in its place. This exchange he was supposed to effect by the instrumentality of his covenanted wizards and witches, who were endued by him with the power of rendering themselves invisible, so that they could enter at pleasure into the chamber of the lying-in-woman, and effect their purpose. In cases, however, where the woman had led a godless and prayerless life, these said necromancers did not hesitate to appear to her in a bodily and visible shape, and plague and terrify her grievously. He therefore laments that the thoughts of women run usually more on how they may dress up their children and trick them out gaudily, than on leading a life of prayer and holy meditation.

He then adduces the following anecdote from E. Franciscus, who himself quotes from a Tract

upon Spirits by Schererzins. In the room, in which lay a woman, who had recently been delivered, slept a very old woman, who, by reason of age and infirmities, was drawing near to the grave. The old woman was sorely harassed in her mind by spirits, as well as assaulted by external temptations. To such an extent did this proceed that Schererzins was obliged daily to encourage and console her. Occasionally when these distressing fits attacked her, she was wont to solemnly warn her kinswoman, the lying-inwoman, that she should never sleep at the witching hour of midnight, but at that period hold a vigilant watch lest any evil power should come and carry off her child. The warning appears not to have been duly attended to; for, one night at that hour, a spirit fell upon her with a tremendous weight, and would have carried away the infant, had she not tightly clasped it in her arms; although she suffered greatly in the upper part of her body, and from the fright which she had undergone.

The author gravely asserts that a suppositious child would doubtless have been laid by her side, had she not awoke, and that this assault of the Devil was owing to her having neglected prayer. The modern reader will see in it nothing but an attack of nightmare.

He then refers to an instance, which occurred within his own knowledge at Padua, in 1673, when he was pursuing his studies there. A poor farmer's wife there was sleeping at midnight with her infant at her breast, when an old hag, in visible shape, entered the room, snatched up the child, and was about to whisk out of the door with it, when the woman's brother, a priest, happened to be passing the bed-room door, and heard the child cry. The woman, finding that she was discovered, placed the child on the floor, and appears to have vanished, although this is not stated. The poor priest, in a terrible fright, took up the infant, and carried it to his sister in bed. But what was his surprise, when, by the light of the moon, he beheld a counterpart of the child lying along side of her, and sucking away with forty-horse power. He awoke up his sister, struck a light, and discovered that the two children were precisely alike, even to the swaddling clothes; at which the priest, the parents, and attendants, greatly marvelled, as well they might; and kept watching in great anxiety until the day broke. The parents then begged the priest to discover which was the child and which the changeling. He set to, to blessing and sprinkling them both with holy but the young imp was not to be

water;