these divided by pathless mountains, we found it impracticable, in such unseasonable weather, to proceed to Glen-Elig on foot as we at first proposed; and it was necessary, either to hire a boat to carry us to Slate, in Sky, than traverse that country to Dunvegan; and there again take chance of a passage from that to Rowdal in Harris; or else hire a boat in this place to carry us there, wait our return, and bring us back again. We very soon agreed that the latter was most expeditious, as well as the most convenient and genteel way of travelling. We accordingly hired a tight schooner, named the Hawk of Oban, and embarked next day about noon. Our bargain with the owners was, that they were to set us down on any part of Harris we chose, where they were to wait our return and bring us back to Arisaig. Our crew consisted of two brothers, stout young lads, who were the owners of the vessel, and another man whom they hired.

We left Arisaig, as I said, about noon, giving them directions to steer for Ensay in the sound of Harries, or else for Island-Glass in Loch-Tarbet, distant from this place about an hundred miles. We found our way out of Loch-Arisaig, or Loch-Nakeane, by a long intricate passage, stretching southward, leaving an innumerable range of insulated rocks on our starboard side; and, by the bye, this is certainly as dangerous a bay as is on these coasts, if the mariners are not The minutely acquainted with it. Hawk, though a fine sailer, and easily managed, drew very little water, and was uncommonly light and ticklish; therefore, when the sea was heavy or rough, she wrought and rolled most violently; and as soon as we were got into the open channel, the airy motion began to affect the stomachs of my two friends; but as the breeze was gentle, instead of sickening them, on the contrary, it only created the most

voracious appetite for food. We had some victuals on board, but none ready cooked; and as there was no appearance of kindling a fire, Mr John soon grew quite desperate, and began to look first over the one shoulder and then over the other, as not knowing what to do. Our sailors having very little English, I thought I should have perished with laughing, when I saw him, with a famished look, go and implore them for a piece of bread in the most correct English he was master of, that they might by no means misunderstand him. I will send you our voyage in my next.

I

I am yours, &c.

Query respecting a Coin.

SIR,'

Send

To the Editor.

J. H.

you an account of a Coin, or Medal, which I have never seen described. Some of your readers may probably be able to inform me by whom, in what year, or on what occasion it was struck. On one side, a dolphin swimming; above its head a hand issuing from a cloud, with a crown, and this inscription, A DELPHINO INCOLUMITAS. On the reverse, a figure of Peace carrying a cornucopia in her left hand; in her right she holds a torch, with which she is setting fire to a trophy of military arms, with this inscription, EX PACE UBERTAS. Below are the words WOLF LAVE. It is

of copper. I am, Sir,

Your constant reader,

T. B.

Witchcraft, Murder, and Credulity. (From Leeds Mercury, Oct. 22. 1808.) ΑΝ N artful and villanous plot, ac2 companied by the most unprece dented instances of credulity that ever

en

engaged public attention, was yesterday developed before the Magistrates, at the Rotation-office, in this town.The parties were Mary Bateman, of Campfield, near this town, and Wm. Perigo and his wife, of Bramley; she, the witch, and they the dupes. It appeared, that in August 1806, an application was made to this woman by Perigo, to cure his wife of a complaint, which was not stated on the examination, but which we suppose to be what is called amongst people of her rank, 66 nervous,' " and amongst their betters, "the hip.”—Mary, with becoming modesty, declined to undertake the cure herself; but said, that she had a friend at Scarbro', a Miss Blyth, who could "read the stars," and collect from them the knowledge requisite to remove all corporeal and mental maladies; and, as a preliminary step, required that Perigo's wife should send her flannel petticoat to Miss Blyth, in order that she might, from that article of dress, collect a knowledge of her disorder. The petticoat was sent, and a propitious answer returned, wherein it was required, that the medium, Mary Bateman, thro' which all communication betwixt the astrologer and the patient was to be made, should have four gainea notes presented to her, and she was, in return, to give Perigo four other guinea notes, inclosed in a small bag, into which, if either his own curiosity, or the still stronger curiosity of his wife, should induce them to look, the charm would be broken, and sudden death would be the consequence. Strange as it may appear, the wife of Perigo never looked into the inchanted bag to the day of her death. Soon after the four guineas had been given to Mary Bateman, a letter arrived from Scarbro', directing that another guinea should be paid into her hands. Similar requests were repeated, and complied with, till forty guineas had been thus extorted from these infatuated people,

under a promise, however, that they should, by-and-by, be allowed to open the bags, and these bags, they were told, would be found to contain all the money they had advanced.

About six months had now expired, and the business of fraud and de lusion still went on. Miss Blyth could not, while certain planets ruled, sleep in her own bed; and, in order to promote the comfort of the "wise woman," Perigo was to buy her a new bed, with all the necessary appendages, and send it to Mary Bateman, thro' whose hands it was to be transmitted to the nymph of Scarbro'. The bed, &c. which cost eight pounds, were bought, and notes, to the amount of thirty pounds more, paid at various times, into the hands of the impestor. Unbounded in her extortions, she next demanded a set of china; this was also furnished to her; but she complained that the tea cannister was not sufficiently handsome to set before the genteel company kept by a lady of her distinction, and demanded a tea caddy in its stead, which demand was also complied with.

Perigo and his wife, thus drained of all the money they had in the world, and all the sums their former good credit had enabled them to raise, and the wife's health still growing worse, rather than better, they became impatient to look into the mysterious bags, and extract from them the wealth they contained. Their clamorous impatience probably became troublesome, when, as it should seem, to silence their importunity, Mrs Bateman received, as she said, a packet from Scarborough; this packet contained a powerful charm, which was to be mixed up in a pudding, to be prepared for the purpose, and of which Perigo and his wife were to eat, but on no account to allow any person to partake with them. They did eat, and there is but too much reason to suppose, that this vile woman had said within herself," in the day you eat thereof

you

should be sewed up in the bed by Mary Bateman; next, money, to the amount of twelve guineas, was demanded, and obtained in a manner a good deal similar to the way in which it was extorted from Perigo: this was also to be sewed up in the bed. By and bye, it became necessary, Miss Blyth said, in order to prevent their son being drowned, and their daughter becoming abandoned, that Snowden's family should leave Leeds, and go to Bowling, in the neighbourhood of Bradford, taking the bed, with the watch, and money in it, with them, but leaving a considerable portion of their property in their house at Leeds, and giving Mary Bateman the key. At length they expressed their wish to Mary, to be allowed to look into the bed, and take out the watch and money, but the time had not yet arrived; and before this inspection was to be made, the family of Snowden were to take a dose, which was at that time in preparation for them, and was to have been administered during the Dresent week-happily this dose was never taken. Saturday last, James Snowden was passing part of his evening in a public house at Bradford, and The Leeds Mercury being produced, one of the company undertook to read the article which had produced so much conversation during the day, under the head-Witchcraft, Murder, Credulity."-Snowden heard the narrative with violent emotion; when it was finished he started from his chair, and made the best of his way home. His first care was to open the folds of the bed, when, lo! instead of his watch and money, he found a coal! He next came over to Leeds, and found his house, which he had left in the care of Mary Bateman, plundered, and on a search warrant being procured, part of the property was found in Bateman's house; John Bateman was, in consequence, apprehended, and committed to York Castle, to take his trial.

ACCOUNT of Books committed to the Flames, suppressed, or censured.

66

66

(Concluded from p. 825.)

ISCOURSE on Government, by Algernon Sidney." This work, when still only in manuscript, afforded a pretext for the condemnation of Sidney to the most infamous punishment. A jury, corrupted by their President Jeffreys, a personal enemy of the author, condemned him to be hanged and quartered, but he was merely beheaded. Sidney was an ardent republican: he made war against Charles I., and leagued with the monsters who put that prince to death.— His character, impatient of any species of restraint, made him leave England when Cromwell usurped the supreme power. After the death of the protector, he was so imprudent as to return into his country; and though Charles II. had granted him a particular pardon, he was not the less attacked by his personal enemies, as having entered into a conspiracy against the King's person: proofs were wanting; but the writings found in his possession caused him to be denounced as a mover of sedition These writings are the Discourses in question; they contain bold truths mingled with paradox.

"De Lege, Rege, et Grege. (By "Eric Sparre in Sweden) fol." This work is excessively rare, being carefully suppressed in Sweden, and among the books most strictly prohibited in that kingdom. The author there unfolded his ideas respecting the law of nature and nations, which he had deeply studied. He was a baron, and a senator of Sweden in the sixteenth century; he distinguished himself in the different employments with which that government entrusted him.

In the sixteenth century, the Swedes and Poles fought to decide which should be master. At the end of this bloody quarrel, Sigismond, who occu

pied at once the thrones of Poland and of Sweden, was constrained to yield the last to his uncle Charles IX.Charles required that five senators, attached to Sigismond, should be given up to him, and the ungrateful Sigismond gave them up. Of this number was Eric Sparre, baron of Sund. by, chancellor of Sweden, whose virtues and talents have never been disputed. On the 20 March 1600, with three others, he was beheaded at Lincoping, and died with dignity, the victim of the baseness of one king, and the ferocity of another.

"Grounds of Venetian liberty. In "which are also adduced the claims "of the Roman empire upon the city "and signiory of Venice." (Mirandola, 1612. 4to.) A rare and seditious work. It was burned by order of the senate of Venice. The author is not precisely known; some ascribe it to Alphonso de la Cueva, known under the name of the Marquis of Bedmar, the chief mover in the conspiracy of the Spaniards against the republic of Venice; others to Marc Welser. In this work, the author attempts to shew that the Venetian state is not naturally free, that it is an ancient domain of the empire, and that consequently the emperor and the empire retain the same rights, and the same pretensions as ever, to the sovereignty of the republic. This author seems to have foreseen the fate of Venice. Certain it is, his book gave occasion to Father Paul to write the history of the Council of Trent; the latter thought that the "Grounds" came from the court of Rome, and as he could not answer it directly, he composed his Council of Trent, in the view of mortifying that

court.

"Strada de Bello Belgico." This work, says M. Debure, should have had three volumes; but it was not completed, because the impression of the last volume was stopt by order of the king of Spain, who caused the mauscript to be withdrawn, on learning

that the author had inserted several bold passages, little favourable to the memory of Philip II.

"

"Defence of the Catholic faith a"gainst the errors of the English sect. "By Francis Suarez. (Latin.) Coin"bra, 1613, fol." This work was burned in England and France by the hand of the executioner. It was undertaken by order of Pope Paul V., who seeing that a great number of English Catholics took the oath required by James I. (See Reboul) proposed to Suarez, a Spanish Jesuit, thro' the medium of Cardinal Caraffa, his legate in Spain, to undertake the defense of this religion. The Jesuit obeyed. The Pope, satisfied with his performance, thanked him by a brief of 9th September 1613. The author dedicated his treatise to the Christian princes: it is divided into six books; in the sixth he discusses the form of the oath which offended Rome, and the greatest part of the Catholics. James I., enraged, caused his book to be burned at London before the church of St Paul, and forbade his subjects to read it under grievous penalties; he complained bitterly to the king of Spain that he should suffer in his states a writer so rash as to declare himself openly the enemy of the throne and of the majesty of kings. Philip III. caused the book of Suarez to be examined by bishops and doctors, and on their report wrote a long letter to James I, in which, after defending the conduct of the Jesuit, he exhorts that prince to return to the way of truth, which his predecessors had followed during so many ages. The work of Suarez was not viewed in France with the same eye as in Spain; the parliament of Paris, by a decree of 26 June 1614, condemned it to be burned by the hand of the executioner, as containing seditious maxims, and many propositions contrary to the sovereign power of kings. Francis Suarez, born at Granada in 1548, died at Lisbon in 1617..

"Lan