Of the Personal Simiitude of the Agents or Members of
the Craft.
IT is well known, that no sooner do men or women enter
on this profession, than there is a striking change in their personal
appearance. Their countenances are no longer the emblems of human nature,
but the sign-posts of malice and bad luck. "Looking like a witch" is a
proverb that has been always descriptive of the most exquisite ugliness;
and whoever has seen the frontispiece of a Highland witch will be
satisfied with its force and propriety.
The face is so wrinkled, that it commonly resembles the
channels of dried waters, and the colour of it resembles nothing so much
as a piece of rough tanned leather. The eyes are small and piercing, sunk
into the forehead, like the expiring remains of a candle in a socket. The
nose is large, prominent, and sharp, forming a bridge to the contacting
chin. These are represented as the amiable features of a witch. The
wizard’s appearance differs very little from that of his amiable sister
the witch, only that his face is covered over with a preternatural
redundance of hair, and that he wears beneath his chin a bunch of hair in
the manner of a goat.
It has been long a subject of tough controversy to what
cause this striking deformity is justly to be ascribed. Some logicians
rationally enough maintain, that the characteristic deformity of the order
arises from their frequent interviews with Satan. That the tremor of the
limbs, the horror of the aspect, and stare of the eyes, with which
they are always seized during the season of their noviciation, is rendered
habitual to them by the force of custom, which is justly called a second
nature. And, in support of this doctrine, we are told it is a fact,
that, whenever we behold a ghost, or any other uncanny being, our
features become contracted exactly the same way. But, be this as it may,
it is an acknowledged fact, that ugliness was, from the beginning of their
cast, their distinguishing characteristic.
