I am, etc.
Letter XXVIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776.
Dear Sir,
It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious
prejudices: they are sucked in as it were with our mother's milk;
and growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold
and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven into
our very constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to
disengage ourselves from them. No wonder therefore that the lower
people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are
not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to
make any efforts adequate to the occasion.
Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the
superstitions of this district, lest we should be suspected of
exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened
age.
But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well to
remember, that no longer ago than the year 1751, and within
twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two superannuated
wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a
suspicion of witchcraft; and, by trying experiments, drowned them
in a horse-pond.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316