To a woman it shows justification of innocence, though not deserved; if black, malignity, and it represents every evil.

A mole on any part of the lip, signifies a great eater, or a glutton, much beloved, and very amorous.

A mole on the chin signifies riches.

A mole on the ear signifies riches and respect.

A mole on the neck promises riches.

A mole on the right breast threatens poverty.

A mole near the bottom of the nostrils is lucky.

A mole on the left side of the belly denotes affliction.

A mole on the right foot denotes wisdom.

A mole on the left foot denotes dangerous rash actions.

A mole on the eyebrow means speedy marriage and a good husband. A mole on the wrist, or between that and the fingers' ends, shows an ingenious mind.

If many moles happen between the elbow and the wrist, they foretell many crosses towards the middle of life, which will end in prosperity and comfort.

A mole near the side of the chin, shows an amiable disposition, industrious, and successful in all your transactions."]

CHARMS.

THE following notice of charms occurs in Barnaby Googe's translation of Naogeorgus's Popish Kingdom, f. 57 :

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Besides, for charmes and sorceries, in all things they excell,

Both Dardan and the witches foule, that by Mæotis dwell.
The reason is, that yet to trust in God they have no skill,
Nor will commit themselves unto th' Almightie father's will.
If any woman brought abed, amongst them haps to lie,
Then every place, enchaunter lyke, they clense and purifie,
For feare of sprightes, least harme she take, or caried cleane away,
Be stolne from thence, as though she than in greatest daunger lay ;
When as hir travailes overpast, and ended well hir paine,
With rest and sleepe she seekes to get her strength decayde againe.
The like in travailes hard they use, and mariages as well,
And eke in all things that they buy, and every thing they sell.
About these Catholikes necks and hands are always hanging charm
That serve against all miseries, and all unhappie harmes ;
Amongst the which the threatning writ of Michael maketh one,
And also the beginning of the Gospell of Saint John :

But these alone they do not trust, but with the same they have

Theyr barbrous wordes and crosses drawne, with bloud, or painted brave

They swordes enchaunt, and horses strong, and flesh of men they make
So harde and tough, that they ne care what blowes or cuttes they take;
And, using necromancie thus, themselves they safely keepe

From bowes or guns, and from the wolves their cattel, lambes, and sheepe:
No journey also they doe take, but charmes they with them beare;
Besides, in glistering glasses fayre, or else in christall cleare,
They sprightes enclose; and as to prophets true, so to the same
They go, if any thing be stolne, or any taken lame,

And when theyr kine doe give no milke, or hurt, or bitten sore,
Or any other harme that to these wretches happens more."

In Bale's Interlude concerning Nature, Moses, and Christ 1562, Idolatry is described with the following qualities:

"Mennes fortunes she can tell;

She can by sayinge her Ave Marye,
And by other charmes of sorcerye,
Ease men of the toth ake by and bye;

Yea, and fatche the Devyll from Hell."

Aud ibid. Sig. C 2, the same personage says:

"With holy oyle and water

I can so cloyne and clatter,
That I can at the latter

Many sutelties contryve:
I can worke wyles in battell,
If I but ones do spattle

I can make corne and cattle

That they shall never thryve.

When ale is in the fat,
If the bruar please me nat,

The cast shall fall down flat,

And never have any strength:

No man shall tonne nor bake,
Nor meate in season make,

If I agaynst him take,

But lose his labour at length.

Theyr wells I can up drye,
Cause trees and herbes to dye,

And slee all pulterye,

Whereas men doth me move :

I can make stoles to daunce
And earthen pottes to praunce,
That none shall them enhaunce,
And do but cast my glove.

I have charmes for the ploughe,
And also for the cowghe;
She shall gyve mylke ynowghe
So long as I am pleased.

Apace the myll shall go,

So shall the credle do,

And the musterde querne also,

No man therwyth dyseased."

Dr. Henry, in his History of Great Britain, i. 286, says: "When the minds of men are haunted with dreams of charms and enchantments, they are apt to fancy that the most common occurrences in nature are the effects of magical arts." Camden, in his Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish, tells us : 66 They think women have charms divided and distributed among them; and to them persons apply according to their several disorders, and they constantly begin and end the charm with Pater Noster and Ave Maria." See Gough's edition of the Britannia, 1789, iii. 668.

Mason, in the Anatomie of Sorcerie, 4to. Lond. 1612, p. 62, says: "The word charm is derived of the Latin word carmen, the letter h being put in."

Avicen, to prove that there are charms, affirms that all material substances are subject to the human soul, properly disposed and exalted above matter. Dict. Cur. p. 144.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xvi. 122, parish of Killearn, co. Stirling, we read: "A certain quantity of cowdung is forced into the mouth of a calf immediately after it is calved, or at least before it receives any meat; owing to this, the vulgar believe that witches and fairies can have no power ever after to injure the calf. But these and suchlike superstitious customs are every day more and more losing their influence."

Sir Thomas Browne tells us, that to sit crosslegged, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together, is accounted bad and friends will persuade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from Pliny: "Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim ;" and also from Athenæus that it was an old venificious practice; and Juno is made in this posture to hinder the delivery of Alcmæna. See Bourne and Brand's Popular Antiquities, p. 95. Mr. Park, in his copy of that work, has inserted the following note: "To sit crosslegged I have always understood was in

III.

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tended to produce good or fortunate consequences. Hence it was employed as a charm at school by one boy who wished well for another, in order to deprecate some punishment which both might tremble to have incurred the infliction of. At a card-table I have also caught some superstitious players sitting crosslegged with a view of bringing good luck."

a

In the Athenian Oracle, ii. 424, a charm is defined to be " form of words or letters, repeated or written, whereby strange things are pretended to be done, beyond the ordinary power of Nature.'

Andrews, in his continuation of Dr. Henry's History of Great Britain, p. 383, quoting Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, says: "The stories which our facetious author relates of ridi culous charms, which by help of credulity operated wonders, are extremely laughable. In one of them a poor woman is commemorated who cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of words over the party afflicted; for which service she always received one penny and a loaf of bread. At length, terrified by menaces of flames both in this world and the next, she owned that her whole conjuration consisted in these potent lines, which she always repeated in a low voice near the head of her patient :

"Thy loaf in my hand,

And thy penny in my purse,
Thou art never the better-

And I-am never the worse."

In the Works of John Heiwood, newlie imprinted, 1598, I find the following charm:

"I claw'd her by the backe in way of a charme,

To do me not the more good, but the lesse harme."

[The following is extracted from Henslowe's Diary, in the library of Dulwich College, temp. Elizabeth :

"To know wher a thinge is that is stolen: - Take vergine waxe and write upon yt 'Jasper + Melchisor + Balthasar +,' and put yt under his head to whome the good partayneth, and he shall knowe in his sleape wher the thinge is become." See a curious collection of rural charms in Halliwell's Popular Rhymes, pp. 206-14.

SALIVA, OR SPITTING.

SPITTLE, among the ancients, was esteemed a charm again-t all kinds of fascination: so Theocritus

Τοιάδε μυθιζοίσα, τρὶς εἰς ἐὸν ἔπτυσε κόλπον—

"Thrice on my breast I spit to guard me safe
From fascinating charms."

"See how old beldams expiations make :

To atone the gods the bantling up they take;
His lips are wet with lustral spittle; thus
They think to make the gods propitious."

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"This custom of nurses lustrating the children by spittle," says Seward, in his Conformity between Popery and Paganism, p. 54, was one of the ceremonies used on the Dies Nominalis, the day the child was named; so that there can be no doubt of the Papists deriving this custom from the heathen nurses and grandmothers. They have indeed christened it, as it were, by flinging in some scriptural expressions; but then they have carried it to a more filthy extravagance, by daubing it on the nostrils of adults as well as of children." Plutarch and Macrobius make the days of lustration of

So Potter, in his Greek Antiquities, i. 346, tells us that among the Greeks "it was customary to spit three times into their bosoms at the sight of a madman, or one troubled with an epilepsy." He refers to this passage of Theocritus, Idyll. xx. v. 11, for illustration. This, he adds, they did in defiance, as it were, of the omen; for spitting was a sign of the greatest contempt and aversion: whence, πтνɛ, i. e. to spit, is put for karapрovεiv, év oúdevì λoyížev, i. e. to contemn, as the scholiast of Sophocles observes upon these words, in Antigone, v. 666.

̓Αλλὰ πτυσας ώσει δυσμενῆ.

Spit on him as an enemy.

See also Potter, i. 358. Delrio, in his Disquisit. Magic. p. 391, men. tions that some think the following passage in Albius Tibullus, lib. i Eleg. 2. is to be referred to this:

"Hunc puer, hunc juvenis, tuba circumstetit arcta,

Despuit in molles, et sibi quisque sinus."

And thus Persius upon the custom of nurses spitting upon children:

"Ecce avia, aut metuens divûm matertera, cunis,

Exemit puerum, frontemque atque uda labella

Infami digito, et lustralibus ante salivis

Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita."

Sat. ii. 1. 31.