Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	begin_v	young_a	youth_n	19	3	7.6006	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A05303	A treatise of specters or straunge sights, visions and apparitions appearing sensibly vnto men Wherein is delivered, the nature of spirites, angels, and divels: their power and properties: as also of witches, sorcerers, enchanters, and such like. With a table of the contents of the several chapters annexed in the end of the booke. Newly done out of French into English.; Discours des spectres, ou visions et apparitions d'esprits, comme anges, demons, at ames, se monstrans visibles aux hommes. English	Loyer, Pierre le, 1550-1634.; Jones, Zachary.	1605 (1605)	STC 15448; ESTC S108473	230,994	324

adventurous beganne to rush vpon Monsieur the spirite saying vnto him Sir if you be the Divell I am his damme And therewithall he curried him so lustily with sound blowes of his cudgell that the spirite which was of no other substance than flesh and bone did so well feele his Bastanadoes as hee cryed out for pardon and saide hee was Maister Iohn At this worde his neece leapt out of hir bed and stayed herfriend from dealing with him any further And this shall suffice to speake of artificiall devises which doe in a sorte seeme very cunning and subtile and do passe withall so cunningly as the most crafty are overtaken and abvsed by them Wee will now proceede to speake of other artificiall prankes more grosse and not so fine and such as are played and vsed vpon sottish and simple witted persons Of iests wher by simple persons are deceved and deluded lib. 2. of the Courtier It is a thing very ordinary and vsuall with common Iesters to be alwayes deluding of simple and credulous folkes And you may well thinke how easie a matter it was to make that man beleeve any thing whatsoever of whome Balthasar Castilion speaketh who was easily perswaded and drawne to beleeve that hee was starke blinde The history is thus Two Bouffons or pleasant companions after they had long played and jested with a poore simple fellow made him in the end to lay him downe And within a while after they having put out the candle made a shew as if they had beene still playing at the cardes and did perswade him who was layde that there was light still burning in the chamber and that they did still holde on play Insomuch as at last this poore man began to cry out vnto them saying Oh sirs I am blinds The others replying vnto him and making shew as if they did come neere him with the candle said that he was deceived and that it was nothing but a fantasie that was come into his head for that his eyes were still very faire and goodly to looke vnto Ayme quoth he this is no fantasie nor I see no more than as if I never had had eyes in my head This poore sotte say I woulde have easely beene made beleeve all manner of false visions that any man could have presented vnto his sight And if his companions had withall made a noyse and rumbling in the Chamber it had beene enough to have scared and frayed him as if the Fairies and Spirites had already taken him by the shinnes Besides it is a common tricke of vnhappy boyes to make especiall choice of Churchyardes there to terrifie others Churchyards places most suspected for spirits to walk in because those are helde to be places most suspected for Ghostes and Spirites to haunt in and inhabite In those places they will sometimes set Crevises alive or Tortoyses and putte a burning candle on their backes and after will let them to go to the intent those that shall see them slowly marching or creeping neere about the sepulchres may suppose them to be the soules of dead men In himno Mercurii And truely Homer saith That the Tortoise is armed with deceipt and imposture or that I may vse his owne worde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meaning in my conceit That by her simple persons are deceived in the night season More than that there be of those Streete-walkers and idle companions which wil apparel themselves like warre-woolves and take vnto them the habite of some supposed spirite or Divell and so keeping neere vnto the sepulchres of the dead they will counterfeit themselves all the night to be ghosts and spirites Lavater recounteth how it happened one day in a Towne of Switzerland named Zurich Libr. 1. de Spectris that certaine yoong lusty Gallants and carelesse youths having changed their apparell did daunce all night long and within a certaine churchyard and it happened that one of them more pleasantly disposed than she rest taking vp the bone of a dead man did play therewithall vpon a beere of wood that was neere by and was vsed for the carriage of the dead corpes and hee made it to sound as if he had beene playing on a Tabor Some there were that happened to perceive it who as it seemeth being none of the wisest did presently spreade abroade throughout all the towne and reported that they had seene a daunce of dead men and that it was greatly to be doubted that some plague and mortalitie would follow after it Certaine it is that it is much the worse when as such fooles doe finde others as very fooles as themselves For else it might happen that their trumperies and deceiptfull illusions which they prepare to abuse others would fall vpon their owne heades and they might chaunce at some time or other to be so well marked for their labour as they would remember it all their lives after But if these maister fooles doe gaine little or nothing in playing the divelles towardes such as are more divelles than themselves So doe they as little advantage themselves when they thinke to terrifie and make afraide such men as are wise and of a minde settled and assured and who doe not easely or without good proofe and triall beleeve all things to be Spirites which doe appeere hideous and strange vnto them To this purpose there is a very notable Historic recited by Lucian of Democritus an excellent Philosopher in his time In Dialogo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus being willing to withdrawe himselfe into a solitary place that hee might the more at his ease intend the study of Philosophy without being troubled by any body made choice of a sepulchre that was large and deepe in the ground and seated without the citie of Abdera within the which enclosing and shutting himselfe vp hee beganne to write and compose many things containing matter of notable and great learning The young youths of Abdera who esteemed him little better than a foole being advertised heereof apparelled themselves in the habite and shew of spirites and taking vnto them blackeroabes and certaine hideous visardes made like in shape vnto dead men having their sculles bare and naked they did environ the sepulchre round about dācing leaping fetching their gambolds in a round never ceasing still to intermingle straunge cries and voyces in their dauncing Democritus for all this mummery would not so much as lift vppe his eyes from his Booke but continued still writing of somthing all that time But in the end being weary of their cries and noyse he sayde vnto them Cease cease my friends to play the fooles thus as you doe and vse your fooleries to some others for I knowe you well enough Neverthelesse Guido Cavalcanti did in another forte aunswere certaine yoong Gentlemen of Florence that came to feare and terrifie him within a Churchyard where hee was verie busie and intentive in coutemplating certaine auntiént Toombes and Sepulchres For as Boccace affirmeth having

more therefore may it stand with reason that the Sorceresses even in the company of their husbands may be ravished and grow into an extasie and see in their imagination such divelish visions even as they be laid by the sides of their hushauds Now of these kindes of ravishment by way of extasie I can alleadge vnto you an infinite number of histories but it shall suffice that I recire two or three onely which I have read in Caietan named de Vio an interpreter vpon S. Thomas of Aquine and in Nider from whom both Silvester Prieras Spranger Henry Institoris and others having made that booke intituled Mullens maleficarum and Ghirlandus also have collected the better part of their Treatise Now De Vie sheweth how himselfe did knowe a certaine woman a Sorceresse In quast 106. secunda secunda arti 3. which was exceedingly enamored of a young man and whom the divell did annoint all naked with a certaine oyntment perswading her that he would bring her into the house of her beloved This woman having beene of a long time in an extasie and comming againe to her selfe affirmed that she had bin and laine with her friend and no man could perswade her to the contrarie notwithstanding that in very deede she was found laid all naked in her bed and there had beene so exceedingly wearied and toyled that being taken with an hoarsenesse by reason of the extreame colde which she had endured she was driven to keepe her bed till she was throughly eased and refreshed And Caiet●● had not afterwardes shewed and made it manifest vnto her that this which she had seene was nothing else but an imagination she would never have conceived the truth thereof so greatly was she deceived and abused by the divell And hee telleth farther how he knew an olde woman who had reported and given out that she would not faile to bee at the Sabbaoth and that she should be transported thither from her chamber howbeit for all this shee was found starke naked in the same chamber altogether sencelesse and in an extasie insomuch as the illusion and deceit of the divell being made manifest and apparant vnto her she was converted and brought to be of another minde And Nider alleadgeth also an example of another old woman who being by no meanes to be converted or perswaded by her Inquisitour shee did in the end betake her selfe to enter into her chamber at such time as she vaunted that she would goe to her Sabboth and there was she seene how at the first she beganne to sleepe sitting and then to grow into a great sweate holding a bason in her hand the which falling downe shee also fell vpon the ground all at her length and there discovering her secret parts she was afterwards awakened not without being greatly ashamed and confounded That Witches and Sorcerers have sometimes carnall copulation with the divell and bee in outward appearances changed into the shapes of beasts But that wee may not fall away too soone from our purpose touching Sorcerers and others who have sworn allyance and confederacie with the divell Besides that they be ravished in an extasie they have sometime also carnall copulation with him and may be changed in the forme and shape of divers beasts And albeit the Phisitians will come vpon vs with their disease called Ephialte or the Falling-sicknesse the which we have formerly described and with their Licantropie with which diseases they that be taken and surprized do imagine themselves to have carnall companie with spirites or doe thinke themselves to bee changed into Woolves yet in very truth so it is that there be some men and women which in very deede have had copulation as Incubi or Sutcubi with the divells and have beene changed into Woolves so farre forth as the outward sight and sense was able to discerne and have had the same affection as Woolves have and which is more have beene coupled with the females of Woolves This is a thing in some fort very difficult and hard to be beleeved esperially of such as 〈◊〉 naturallists and doe attribute most thinges to the worke power of nature and I know that Plinie doth make a mocke and ieast at it and especially at that which is called Lycantropi● which he accompteth but a meere fable And yet neverthelesse himselfe alleadgeth Evanthes a Greeke Author who saith that there is in Arcadia a certaine linage of men Lib. 8. cap. 22 who passing over a certaine flood or river doe become woolves and repassing the same do returne into their humane shape againe So that he is doubtfull of that which he ought to beleeve in that point And being ignorant of the power of divells hee r●steth himselfe vpon the power of nature which is in some sort excusable in him being but a Pagan But it is a question worthie the handling to knowe whether the divells have the power to change in verie deede Question whether the divell can change the bodies of men indeed or not the substance of mans bodie or whether it be in 07 shew and apparance onely deceiving not onely the fantasie of the Sorcerer or of the partie which shall bee bewitched or enchanted but also the externall senses of those that shall behold them The truth is this question hath beene handled by Saint Augustine who holdeth Aunsvver Lid. 18. de civi dei that the true bodies of men cannot in any sort be changed by the Art of the divell but that he may well bee in such a body as is fantasticall and which either in dreaming or in imagination doth diversly alter and change it selfe by many sorts and kindes of things that doe present themselves vnto the minde And albeit the same be not indeede a true body yet may it take the forms and shape of a body suppressing and keeping as it were asleepe the outward senses of men in such sort as their true bodies may in the meane while repose themselves and be at rest in some other place surprised and overcome with a deepe and profound sleepe And the same Saint Angustine goeth yet further and saith how himselfe knew the father of one named Presta●●tius who was changed into a Muse and being thus metamorphosed did carrie vpon his backe certaine cariages and baggage of souldiers And this learned Doctour doth set down his resolution That this was nothing else but a meere illusion of the divell and that the father of Prostantius was not changed into a Mule and much lesse did hee carrie any bagge or baggage but that these were the divells which did charme and enchant the eyes of the beholders making them beleeve that the father of Prostantius was a Mole and carried those burdens baggage notwithstanding that it was they themselves which carryed them And agreeable to this resolution of Saint Augustine Gulielmus Parisiensis doth recount a certaine history which is worthy the marking Vltima parte de vnivers because in things of like