[5216] That whereas was wont to walk and Elf,
        There now walks the Limiter himself,
        In every bush and under every tree,
        There needs no other Incubus but he.

[5217]In the mountains between Dauphine and Savoy, the friars persuaded the good wives to counterfeit themselves possessed, that their husbands might give them free access, and were so familiar in those days with some of them, that, as one [5218]observes, “wenches could not sleep in their beds for necromantic friars:”  and the good abbess in Boccaccio may in some sort witness, that rising betimes, mistook and put on the friar’s breeches instead of her veil or hat.  You have heard the story, I presume, of [5219] Paulina, a chaste matron in Aegesippus, whom one of Isis’s priests did prostitute to Mundus, a young knight, and made her believe it was their god Anubis.  Many such pranks are played by our Jesuits, sometimes in their own habits, sometimes in others, like soldiers, courtiers, citizens, scholars, gallants, and women themselves.  Proteus-like, in all forms and disguises, that go abroad in the night, to inescate and beguile young women, or to have their pleasure of other men’s wives; and, if we may believe [5220] some relations, they have wardrobes of several suits in the colleges for that purpose.  Howsoever in public they pretend much zeal, seem to be very holy men, and bitterly preach against adultery, fornication, there are no verier bawds or whoremasters in a country; [5221]"whose soul they should gain to God, they sacrifice to the devil.”  But I spare these men for the present.

The last battering engines are philters, amulets, spells, charms, images, and such unlawful means:  if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of bawds, panders, and their adherents, they will fly for succour to the devil himself.  I know there be those that deny the devil can do any such thing (Crato epist. 2. lib. med.), and many divines, there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes, of which I have formerly spoken, and if you desire to be better informed, read Camerarius, oper subcis. cent. 2. c. 5. It was given out of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to dote upon her, and by philters enforced his love; but when Olympia, the Queen, saw the maid of an excellent beauty, well brought up, and qualified—­these, quoth she, were the philters which inveigled King Philip; those the true charms, as Henry to Rosamond,

[5222] “One accent from thy lips the blood more warms,
        Than all their philters, exorcisms, and charms.”