Or putting tricks upon the moon,
Which by confed'racy are done.
Your ancient conjurers were wont
To make her from her sphere dismount,[1] 600
And to their incantations stoop!
They scorn'd to pore thro' telescope,
Or idly play at bo-peep with her,
To find out cloudy or fair weather,
Which every almanack can tell, 605
Perhaps as learnedly and well
As you yourself—Then, friend I doubt
You go the furthest way about:
Your modest Indian Magician
Makes but a hole in th' earth to piss in,[2] 610
And straight resolves all questions by't,
And seldom fails to be i' th' right.
The Rosy-crucian way's more sure
To bring the Devil to the lure;
Each of 'em has a sev'ral gin, 615
To catch intelligences in.[3]
Some by the nose, with fumes, trepan 'em,
As Dunstan did the Devil's grannam.[4]
- ↑ So the witch Canidia, in Horace, Ep. XVII. line 78, boasts of her power to snatch the moon from heaven by her incantations. The ancients frequently introduced this fiction. See Virgil, Eclogue viii. 69; Ovid's Metamorphoses, vii. 207; Propertins, book i. elegy i. 19; and Tibullus, book i. elegy ii. 44.
- ↑ "The king presently called to his Bongi to clear the air; the conjurer immediately made a hole in the ground, wherein he urined." Le Blanc's Travels, p. 98. The ancient Zabii used to dig a hole in the earth, and fill it with blood, as the means of forming a correspondence with demons, and obtaining their favour.
- ↑ To secure demons or spirits.
- ↑ The chemists and alchemists. In Butler's Remains, vol. ii. p. 235, we read: "these spirits they use to catch by the noses with fumigations, as St Dunstan did the devil, by a pair of tongs." St Dunstan lived in the tenth century, and became successively abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of London and Worcester, and archbishop of Canterbury. He was a man of great learning, a student of the occult sciences, and proficient in the polite arts, particularly painting and sculpture. The legend runs, that as he was very attentively engraving a gold cup in his cell, the Devil tempted him in the shape of a beautiful woman. The saint, perceiving who it was, took
tion from him, To show what may be done in this way, he recounts the great achievements of sorcerers.
