Scot, REGINALD, a writer ever to be held in honour as an early disbeliever in the reality of witchcraft, was a younger son of Sir John Scot of Scotshall near Smeeth in Kent, and was born about 1538. He studied at Hart Hall, Oxford, married in 1568, a second time after 1584, gave himself up to study and to gardening, and perhaps acted as steward to his cousin, Sir Thomas. But little more is known of his life save that he was collector of subsidies for the lathe of Shepway in 1586-87, that he himself had property and bore arms, and that he died 9th October 1599. Dr Nicholson finds traces of legal education in his writing. He published The Hoppe-Garden in 1574 (3d ed. 1578), and is credited with the introduction of hop-growing into England. His famous work, The
Discoverie of Witchcraft, appeared in 1584, its deliberate aim to check the persecution of witches. The work is marked by humanity and strong sense, great boldness and power of logic, and is an admirable exposure of the childish absurdities which formed the basis of the witchcraft cases, and of the absurd manner in which the evidence was collected by the inquisitors and witch-finders. The healthy rationalism and openness of mind of the writer were more than two centuries before their time in England, and naturally excited the antipathy of a self-conceited fool like King James, who wrote his Damonology (1597) 'chiefly against the damnable opinions of Wierus and Scot, the latter of whom is not ashamed in public print to deny there can be such a thing as witchcraft.' The king's answer was pitiful, but he had the advantage of being able to burn Scot's book by the hands of the common hangman. Scot's work should have been complete as an antidote to 'Sprenger's fables and Bodin's bables, which reach not so far to the extolling of witches' omnipotence as to the derogating of God's glorie;' but, besides the feeble effort of the royal Solomon, answers and refutations continued to be written by Gifford, Perkins, Meric Casaubon, Cotta, and many eminent divines, and, with such few exceptions as the writers Webster, Wagstaffe, Ady, and others, witchcraft kept its hold upon the minds even of great men down to and beyond Glanvill, Sir Thomas Browne, Richard Baxter, and even John Wesley. One great merit of Scot's book to the modern student is its richness as a collection of forms of incantations and the processes of sorcery, for its rational and liberal-minded author had the fairness to quote his antagonists honestly before pulverising them with his logic. The full title of the book best explains its scope and aim: 'The discoverie of witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notable detected, the knaverie of conjurors, the impietie of inchantors, the follie of soothsayers, the impudent falsehood of counsors, the infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practices of Pythonists, the curiositie of figure-casters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggarlie art of Alcumystrie, the abhominacion of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of naturall magike, and all the conceivances of Legier-demaine and juggling are deciphered: and many other things opened, which have long lien hidden, howbeit verie necessarie to be knowne'—'for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of poor, aged, deformed, ignorant people; frequently taken, arraigned, condemned, and executed for Witches, when according to a right understanding, and a good conscience, Physick, Food, and necessaries should be administered to them' was added in the 1651 title-page, besides other changes. This second edition was in quarto; the third, in 1665, was in folio, and contained, from an unknown and less rational pen, nine fresh chapters, commencing the fifteenth book, and a second book of the 'Discourse on Devils and Spirits' appended to the first and second issues. The next edition in time was the limited reprint of 1886, admirably edited, with an Introduction, by Brinsley Nicholson, M.D. See also CONJURING.