HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE, - Horntip

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hired by others to do it, by ftoutly flogging with a
knotted whip, as Apuleius defcribes them in the
VIIIth book of his Metamorphofis. Circe's rod was
of another kind, that transformed the human minds of
Ulyffes's companions into beafts, particularly hogs,
according to Homer in the Xth Odyffe. But this is
all magical fluff—yet the moral of it proves that fome
return to their fenfes by blows, and others lofe them.
The metamorphofis is certain, but the form is different,
tho' neither the one nor the other can be done by en-
chantment. I myfelf have feen feveral correaled with
rods by the priefts at Padua, who were thought to be
poffeffed with an evil fpirit but who, as the phyficians
rightly obferve from the fimilitude of their fymptoms,
had really epileptical fits, and to fuch perfons flogging
could do no harm, becaufe it railed the natural heat of
their bodies. The man poffeffed with the unclean
Spirit in St. Mark, Chap. V., cut himfelf with ftones ;
and St. Paul complains, in the fecond epiftle to the
Corinthians, that he was buffetted with lifts, or joints
of the fingers, as Martinius in his etymologies explains
the word from Varinus, tho' Hayman, Bifhop of
Halberftad, thinks this buffetting fhould rather be ex-
pounded by the fire of luft, kindled by the Devil, than
any