delivered within the walls of a vast and gloomy cavern. The schoolmen
taught that all knowledge might be obtained from the assistance of the
fallen angels. They were skilled in the abstract sciences, in the
knowledge of precious stones, in alchymy, in the various languages of
mankind and of the lower animals; in the Belles-Lettres, Moral
Philosophy, Pneumatology, Divinity, Magic, History, and Prophecy. They
could controul the winds and waters, and the stellar influences. They
could cause earthquakes, induce diseases or cure them, accomplish all
vast mechanical undertakings, and release souls out of Purgatory. They
could influence the passions of the mind, procure the reconciliation of
friends or of foes, engender mutual discord, induce mania, melancholy,
or direct the force and objects of human affection. Such was the
Demonology taught by its orthodox professors. Yet other systems of it
were devised, which had their origin in the causes attending the
propagation of christianity; for it must have been a work of much time
to eradicate the almost universal belief in the pagan deities, which had
become so numerous as to fill every creek and corner of the universe
with fabulous beings. Many learned men, indeed, were induced to side
with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than
endeavour to unite it with their acknowledged systems of Demonology.
They taught that the objects of heathen reverence were fallen angels in
league with the Prince of Darkness, who, until the appearance of our
Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to
involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion.

According to the various ranks which these spirits held in the vast
kingdom of Lucifer, they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take
up their abode in the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas. But
although the various attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities,
were, by the early teachers of christianity, considered in the humble