anticipated in consideration of the subject, or to erect any new one of
my own, my purpose is, after a general account of Demonology and
Witchcraft, to confine myself to narratives of remarkable cases, and to
the observations which naturally and easily arise out of them;--in the
confidence that such a plan is, at the present time of day, more likely
to suit the pages of a popular miscellany, than an attempt to reduce the
contents of many hundred tomes, from the largest to the smallest size,
into an abridgement, which, however compressed, must remain greatly too
large for the reader's powers of patience.

A few general remarks on the nature of Demonology, and the original
cause of the almost universal belief in communication betwixt mortals
and beings of a power superior to themselves, and of a nature not to be
comprehended by human organs, are a necessary introduction to the
subject.

The general, or, it may be termed, the universal belief of the
inhabitants of the earth, in the existence of spirits separated from the
encumbrance and incapacities of the body, is grounded on the
consciousness of the divinity that speaks in our bosoms, and
demonstrates to all men, except the few who are hardened to the
celestial voice, that there is within us a portion of the divine
substance, which is not subject to the law of death and dissolution, but
which, when the body is no longer fit for its abode, shall seek its own
place, as a sentinel dismissed from his post. Unaided by revelation, it
cannot be hoped that mere earthly reason should be able to form any
rational or precise conjecture concerning the destination of the soul
when parted from the body; but the conviction that such an
indestructible essence exists, the belief expressed by the poet in a
different sense, _Non omnis moriar_ must infer the existence of many