Chapter III: Part 3

[1] That the New Englanders brought their views on
demonology and witchcraft with them from the Mother Country
is a self-evident proposition, but it may be worth while
to refer to a striking instance of the kind. The Rev. John
Higginson, writing from Salem to Increase Mather in 1683,
sends him two cases for his Illustrious Providences,--both
of which he “believes to be certain.” The first is an
account of how a mysterious stranger, thought to be the
devil, once lent a conjuring book to “godly Mr. [Samuel]
Sharp, who was Ruling Elder of the Church of Salem allmost
30 years.” The incident took place when Sharp was a
young man in London. The second narrative Mr. Higginson
“heard at Gilford from a godly old man yet living. He
came from Essex, and hath been in N. E. about 50 years.”
It is a powerfully interesting legend of the Faust type,
localised in Essex. In a postscript Mr. Higginson adds,
“I had credible information of one in Leicestershire, in
the time of the Long Parliament, that gave his soul to
the Divel, upon condition to be a Famous Preacher, which
he was for a time, &c., but I am imperfect in the story.”
(Mather Papers, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series,
VIII, 285-287). See also the cases of witchcraft before
1692 collected in S. G. Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in
New England. Dr. Poole is far nearer the truth in saying
that “the New-England colonists had no views concerning
witchcraft and diabolical agency which they did not bring
with them from the Old World” (Witchcraft in Boston, in
Winsor, Memorial History of Boston, II, 131) than President
White is when he remarks that “the life of the early
colonists in New England was such as to give rapid growth
to the germs of the doctrine of possession brought from the
mother country” (Warfare of Science with Theology, II, 145).

[2] A masterly short account of the various elements
which made up the fully developed doctrine of witchcraft
as it was held during the three centuries of especial
prosecution (1400-1700), and of the sources from which
these elements were derived, may be found in the first
chapter of Joseph Hansen’s Zauberwahn, Inquisition und
Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (Munich and Leipzig, 1900).
A learned and able essay by Professor George L. Burr,
The Literature of Witchcraft, reprinted from the Papers
of the American Historical Association, New York, 1890,
should also be consulted. Professor Burr emphasises the
sound and necessary distinction between witchcraft and
magic. But he seems to go too far in his insistence on
this distinction as vital in the history of witchcraft:
“Magic itself is actual and universal. But witchcraft never
was. It was but a shadow, a nightmare: the nightmare of a
religion, the shadow of a dogma. Less than five centuries
saw its birth, its vigor, its decay” (p. 238; p. 38 of
reprint). This statement is true if by witchcraft is meant
(and this is Professor Burr’s sense) the fully developed
and highly complicated system set forth in the Malleus
Maleficarum and in Del Rio’s Disquisitiones Magicae--what
Hansen (p. 35) calls “der verhängnisvolle Sammelbegriff des
Hexenwesens,”--which was not possible until scholasticism
had schematised the diversified elements of belief in
magic and demonology and sorcery and devil-worship which
Christian theology and Christian superstition had derived
from the most various sources--from Judaism, classical
antiquity, Neo-Platonism, and the thousand-and-one beliefs
of pagan converts. But, important as this fully developed
system was--and true though it may be that without the
schematising influence of scholastic philosophy the
witch-prosecution which was epidemic in Europe from
1400 to 1700 could hardly have taken place--we should
never forget that the essential element in witchcraft is
_maleficium_--the working of harm to the bodies and goods
of one’s fellow-men by means of evil spirits or of strange
powers derived from intercourse with such spirits. This
belief in _maleficium_ was once universal; it was rooted
and grounded in the minds of the people before they became
Christians; it is still the creed of most savages and
of millions of so-called civilised men. Throughout the
history of witchcraft (in whatever sense we understand
that word), it remained the ineradicable thing,--the
solid foundation, unshakably established in popular
belief, for whatever superstructure might be reared by the
ingenuity of jurisconsults, philosophers, theologians, or
inquisitors. Without this popular belief in _maleficium_,
the initial suspicions and complaints which form the basis
and starting-point of all prosecutions would have been
impossible and inconceivable. _With_ this popular belief,
the rest was easy. The error into which Professor Burr
has fallen is due, no doubt, to his keeping his eye too
exclusively on the Continent, where the prosecutions were
most extensive, where, in truth, the fully developed system
was most prevalent, and where the inquisitorial methods
of procedure give to the witch-trials a peculiar air of
uniformity and theological schematism. Thus he has been
led, like many other historians, to over-emphasise the
learned or literary side of the question. For us, however,
as the descendants of Englishmen and as students of the
history of English colonies in America, it is necessary to
fix our attention primarily on the Mother Country. And, if
we do this, we cannot fail to perceive that the obstinate
belief of the common people in _maleficium_--a belief
which, it cannot be too often repeated, is not the work of
theologians but the universal and quasi-primitive creed
of the human race--is the root of the whole matter. (On
savage witchcraft see the anthropologists _passim_. Good
examples may be found in Karl von den Steinen, Unter den
Naturvölkern Brasiliens, 1894, pp. 339 ff.)

On _maleficium_ see especially Hansen, pp. 9 ff. Nothing
could be truer than his words:--“Wie viel auch immer im
Laufe der Zeit in den Begriff der Zauberei und Hexerei
hineingetragen worden ist, so ist doch sein Kern stets
das Maleficium geblieben. Aus dieser Vorstellung erwächst
die angstvolle Furcht der Menschen und das Verlangen nach
gesetzlichem Schutze und blutig strenger Strafe; von ihr
hat die strafrechtliche Behandlung dieses Wahns ihren
Ausgang genommen” (p. 9). “Das Maleficium, mit Ausnahme
des Wettermachens, ist ohne alle Unterbrechung von der
kirchlichen und bis in das 17. Jahrhundert auch von der
staatlichen Autorität als Realität angenommen, seine Kraft
ist nie ernstlich in Abrede gestellt worden; es bildet den
roten Faden auch durch die Geschichte der strafrechtlichen
Verfolgung” (p. 13). Everybody knows that the most
convincing evidence of witchcraft--short of confession
or of denunciation by a confederate--was held to be the
_damnum minatum_ and the _malum secutum_.

The difference between England and the Continent in the
development of the witchcraft idea and in the history
of prosecution is recognised by Hansen (p. 34, note 1).
President White, like Professor Burr, has his eye primarily
on the Continent (Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896,
I, 350 ff.). His treatment of demoniacal possession,
however, is much to our purpose (II, 97 ff., 135 ff.).

[3] King James’s connection with the history of
witchcraft almost deserves a monograph for it has never
been adequately discussed, and various misconceptions
on the subject are afloat. Thus Mr. H. M. Doughty, in
an interesting but one-sided essay on Witchcraft and
Christianity (Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1898, CLXIII,
388), remarks that “the new King James had long lived in
abject fear of witches”--an assertion that he would find it
impossible to prove, even if it were true, as it seems not
to be.

[4] The act of 5 Eliz. c. 16 (after reciting that 33
Henr. VIII. c. 8 had been repealed by 1 Edw. VI. c. 12)
prescribes the penalty of death for witchcraft which
destroys life, imprisonment for that which causes bodily
injury (death for the second offence); in certain harmless
kinds of sorcery (such as accompanied the search for
treasure or stolen goods) the second offence is punished
by imprisonment for life. 1 Jac. I. c. 12 follows 5 Eliz.
c. 16 in the main. Its chief differences are,--greater
detail in defining witchcraft; the insertion of a passage
about digging up dead bodies for purposes of sorcery;
death for the first offence in cases of witchcraft which
causes bodily injury; death for the second offence
in treasure-seeking sorcery and the like. Before one
pronounces the new statute much severer than the old, it
would be well to examine the practical operation of the
two. In particular, one ought to determine how many witches
were executed under the law of James I. who would not
have been subject to the death penalty under the law of
Elizabeth. This is not the place for such an examination.
On treasure-seeking sorcery see the learned and
entertaining essay of Dr. Augustus Jessopp, Hill-Digging
and Magic (in his Random Roaming and Other Papers, 1893).

[5] See p. 64 below. Strictly speaking, the Commonwealth
did not begin until 1649, but this point need not be
pressed.

[6] See F. Legge, Witchcraft in Scotland (Scottish Review,
XVIII, 267); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and
Witchcraft, Chap. xxv. Whitelocke, under date of Oct. 4,
1652, notes “Letters that sixty Persons Men and Women were
accused before the Commissioners for Administration of
Justice in _Scotland_ at the last Circuit for Witches; but
they found so much Malice and so little Proof against them
that none were condemned” (Memorials, 1732, p. 545). Cf.
also his very important entry on the same subject under
Oct. 29, 1652 (pp. 547-548).

[7] Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, Familiar Letters, edited by Joseph
Jacobs, 1890, book ii, letter 76, p. 506: “To my Honourable
Friend, Mr. E. P., at Paris” (cf. Jacobs’s notes pp.
783-784). The letter is dated “Fleet, 3 Feb. 1646.” This
is certainly Old Style. Howell is a queer dater, but a
reference in this letter to the departure of the Scottish
army (p. 505) proves that the letter was written after Dec.
21, 1646. There is a similar passage about witches in book
iii, letter 2, p. 515 (also to Porter), dated “Fleet, 20
Feb. 1646.”

[8] Letters, as above, book iii, no. 23, pp. 547 ff., dated
“Fleet, 20 Feb. 1647,” i. e. doubtless 1648.

[9] See Jacobs’s Introduction, pp. xlii-xliii. The question
whether Howell’s letters were actually sent to the persons
to whom they are addressed or whether they are to be
regarded merely as literary exercises composed during his
imprisonment (see Jacobs, pp. lxxi ff.) does not affect,
for our purposes, the value of the quotations here made,
since the letters to which we now refer actually purport to
have been written in the Fleet, and since they were first
published in the second edition (1650) in the additional
third volume and from the nature of things could not have
appeared in the first edition (1645). They must, at all
events, have been composed before 1650, and are doubtless
dated correctly enough.

[10] See p. 64, below.

[11] Sermon xvii (Whole Works, ed. Heber and Eden, 1861,
IV, 546).

[12] Whole Works, III, 57; cf. Sermon vii (Works, IV. 412).

[13] See p. 7, above, note 4.

[14] A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St.
Edmonds ... 1664 (London, 1682), pp. 55-56. This report is
reprinted in Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647 ff., and (in
part) in H. L. Stephen’s State Trials Political and Social
(1899), I, 209 ff. See also Hutchinson, An Historical
Essay concerning Witchcraft, chap. viii. (1718, pp. 109
ff.; 2d ed., 1720, pp. 139 ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives
of Sorcery and Witchcraft, II., 261 ff. Hale’s opinion
was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure.
It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the
Informations against Three Witches ... Assizes holden
for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon, Aug. 14,
1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger
North’s comments on the Exeter case, see p. 192, below.
A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact,
concerning Witches & Witchcraft, Part I (London, 1693),
contains “A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in
preserving us from the Power and Malice of _Evil Angels_.
_Written by Sir_ Matt. Hale _at Cambridge_ 26 Mar. 1661.
_Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him
the Week before at St._ Edmund’s Bury.” The date is wrong
(1661 should be 1664), but the trial is identified with
that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of
the Collection in the following words: “There is a Relation
of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose
is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so
compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he
related to me at his return from that Circuit.” The date of
the trial is given as “the Tenth day of March, 1664” on the
title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page
1 as “the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the
Reign of ... Charles II.” On page 57 the year is misprinted
“1662.” Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665,
but 16 Charles II. corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664--Jan. 29,
1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just
mentioned must not be confused with Hale’s Motives to
Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels,
which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine,
London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), Part II, pp. 67 ff.

[15] Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, ed.
1826, I, 121.

[16] Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1693), p.
55. Mather also reproduces the substance of the report
above referred to (note 14) in the same work. Bragge,
too, reproduces it, in the main, in his tract, Witchcraft
Farther Display’d, 1712, in support of the accusation
against Jane Wenham.

[17] Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849, I, 561 ff., Chapter
xvii. See also the criticism of Hale in a letter of
George Onslow’s, 1770, 14th Report of the Historical MSS.
Commission, Appendix, Part IX, p. 480.

[18] Published in 1682.

[19] Edition of 1826, I, 117 ff.

[20] State Papers (Domestic), 1682, Aug. 19, bundle 427,
no. 67, as quoted by Pike. History of Crime in England, II,
238.

[21] A Tryal of Witches, as above, p. 41.

[22] That is, _hysteria_.

[23] A Tryal, as above, p. 42. Cf. the Supplementary
Memoir, in Simon Wilkin’s edition of Browne’s Works, 1852,
I, liv-lvi.

[24] Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, Part 1, section 2, member
1, subsection 3. I quote from the edition of 1624.

[25] The following short character of Glanvill, by Bishop
Kennet, may be quoted, not because it is just, but because
it might conceivably be brought forward by somebody in
rebuttal of this proposition:--“Mr. _Joseph Glanvill_ of
_Lincoln_ College, _Oxon_. Taking the Degree of M. A. in
the beginning of 1658, was about that Time made Chaplain to
old _Francis Rous_; one of _Oliver_’s Lords, and Provost
of _Eaton_ College.--He became a great Admirer of Mr.
_Richard Baxter_, and a zealous Person for a Commonwealth.
After his Majesty’s Restauration he turn’d about, became
a Latitudinarian,--Rector of _Bath_, Prebendary of
_Worcester_, and Chaplain to the King” (White Kennet, An
Historical Register, 1744, p. 931).

[26] See Dr. Ferris Greenslet’s Joseph Glanvill, A Study
in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century,
New York, 1900, especially Chap. vi. For a bibliography of
Glanvill, see Emanuel Green, Bibliotheca Somersetensis,
Taunton (Eng.), 1902, I, 206 ff.

[27] More’s theories on the subject of apparitions, demons,
and witches may also be read, at considerable length,
in his Antidote against Atheism, Book iii, Chaps. 2-13
(Philosophical Writings, 2d ed., 1662, pp. 89 ff.); cf. the
Appendix to the Antidote, Chaps. 12-13 (pp. 181 ff.) and
The Immortality of the Soul, Chap. 16 (pp. 129 ff.).

[28] A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft,
Boston, 1702.

[29] Dated 1697-8.

[30] P. 12.

[31] Meric Casaubon was born in 1599 and died in 1671. His
learned, lively, and vastly entertaining work, A Treatise
concerning Enthusiasme, as it is an Effect of Nature: but
is mistaken by many for either Divine Inspiration, or
Diabolicall Possession, appeared in 1655, and in a “Second
edition: revised, and enlarged” in 1656. It shows an open
mind and a temper rather skeptical than credulous. Passages
of interest in our present discussion may be found on
pp. 37-41, 44, 49, 94-95, 100, 118, 174 (Quakers), 286,
of the second edition. Of particular significance is the
Doctor’s account of his visit to a man who was thought to
be possessed but whom he believed to be suffering from some
bodily distemper (pp. 97 ff.). Casaubon’s treatise (in two
parts) Of Credulity and Incredulity, in Things Natural,
Civil, and Divine, came out in 1668, and was reissued, with
a new title-page (as above), in 1672. A third part, Of
Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual,
appeared in 1670. Webster’s assault upon Casaubon in his
Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft was made in apparent
ignorance of the fact that the venerable scholar had been
dead for some years (see p. 24, below).

[32] Compare Reginald Scot’s chapter “Of Theurgie, with a
Confutation thereof” (Discoverie of Witchcraft, book xv,
chap. 42, 1584, p. 466, ed. 1665, p. 280). See also Henry
Hallywell, Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity
and Kingdom of Darkness. Together with a Solution of the
Chiefest Objections brought against the Being of Witches,
1681, pp. 50-51.

[33] Cap. iv, §15, ed. Mosheim, 1773, I, 395-396.

[34] Sadducismus Triumphatus, ed. 1726, p. 336; see James
Crossley’s Introduction to Potts, Discovery of Witches in
the County of Lancaster, reprinted from the Edition of 1613
(Chetham Society, 1845), p. vi, note 2. This experiment
was twice tried as late as 1712, in the case of Jane
Wenham, by the Rev. Mr. Strutt, once in the presence of Sir
Henry Chauncy, and again in the presence of the Rev. Mr.
Gardiner. Its ill success is recorded by a third Anglican
clergyman,--Mr. Francis Bragge (A Full and Impartial
Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft,
Practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712, pp. 11, 15).

[35] Letter to Glanvill, Sept. 18, 1677, Works, ed. Birch,
V, 244. Compare Dr. Samuel Collins’s letter to Boyle, Sept.
1, 1663 (Boyle’s Works, V, 633-634).

[36] In a letter to Glanvill (Works, V, 245).

[37] See Demonologie ou Traitte des Demons et Sorciers
... Par Fr. Perreaud. Ensemble l’Antidemon de Mascon, ou
Histoire Veritable de ce qu’un Demon a fait & dit, il y a
quelques années, en la maison dudit Sʳ. Perreaud à Mascon.
Geneva, 1653.

[38] Theological Works, ed. 1830, IV, 480-482.

[39] In his Ravillae Redivivus, reprinted in the Somers
Tracts, 2d ed., VIII, 510 ff. (see especially pp. 546 ff.).
Weir, who was unquestionably insane, was executed in 1670.

[40] Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, London,
1885, IV, 275. On elf-arrows cf. Pitcairn, Criminal Trials
in Scotland, I, ii, 192, 198; III, 607, 609, 615; W.
Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,
1879, pp. 185 ff.

[41] Evelyn may have derived his information from Sir
William Phips’s letter to the home government (Oct.
14, 1692), as Dr. G. H. Moore suggests (Final Notes on
Witchcraft in Massachusetts, N. Y., 1885, p. 66). For the
letter see Goodell, Essex Institute Collections, 2d Series,
I, ii, 86 ff. Phips’s second letter (Feb. 21, 1692-3, to
the Earl of Nottingham) is printed by Moore, pp. 90 ff.

[42] The remark, sometimes heard, that Calvinism was
especially responsible for witch trials is a loose
assertion which has to reckon with the fact that the last
burning for witchcraft at Geneva took place in 1652 (see
Paul Ladame, Procès criminel de la dernière Sorcière brulée
à Genève, Paris, 1888).

[43] Compare Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I,
section 2, member 1, subsection 3:--“Many deny Witches at
all, or if there be any, they can doe no harme: of this
opinion is _Wierus, lib. 3. cap. 53, de præstig. dæm_.
Austin Lerchemer, a Dutch writer, _Biarmanus_, _Ewichius_,
_Euwaldus_, our countryman _Scot_ ... but on the contrary
are most Lawyers, Diuines, Physitians, Philosophers.”

[44] Wier’s great work, De Praestigiis Dæmonum, was
published in 1563, and was afterwards much enlarged. It
went through many editions.

[45] See the extraordinary list in William Drage,
Daimonomageia. A Small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases
from Witchcraft, and Supernatural Causes, 1665. Webster
considers this subject at length in Chap. xii of his
Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 1677, with a full
discussion of van Helmont’s views. Cf. Henry More, Antidote
against Atheism, Chaps. 4-5 (Philosophical Writings, 2d
ed., 1662, pp. 97 ff.).

[46] “Ea dæmonis subtilitate uelocitateque imperceptibili,
ori ingesta, nostris ad hæc oculis uel celeritate eius
uictis, uel fascino delusis, uel interiecto corpore aereo
aut aliter motis eo intus uel foris uel utrinque humoribus
aut spiritu caligantibus.” De Præstigiis Dæmonum (Basileæ,
1568), iv, 2, pp. 352-353.

[47] Even Bekker (see p. 35, below), who approaches the
subject from the philosophical direction, and whose logical
process is different from Wier’s, is greatly indebted to
him.

[48] Compare the fate of Bekker in 1692 (p. 39).

[49] A Treatise proving Spirits, Witches and Supernatural
Operations, 1672, p. 35.

[50] The same, p. 46.

[51] Dæmonologie, Workes, 1616, p. 92. On Wier in general,
see Carl Binz, Doctor Johann Weyer, ein rheinischer Arst,
der erste Bekämpfer des Hexenwahns, Berlin, 1896.

[52] He expressly asserts his belief in their existence (A
Discourse upon Divels and Spirits, chap. 32, p. 540; cf.
chap. 16, p. 514).

[53] Discoverie of Witchcraft, xiii, 22-34, ed. 1584, pp.
321 ff., ed. 1665, pp. 181-201 (with cuts). Most of the
tricks which Scot describes are identical with feats of
legerdemain that are the stock in trade of every modern
juggler:--“To throwe a peece of monie awaie, and to find
it againe where you list” (p. 326); “To make a groat or
a testor to sinke through a table, and to vanish out of
a handkercher very strangelie” (p. 327); “How to deliver
out foure aces, and to convert them into foure knaves”
(p. 333); “To tell one without confederacie what card he
thinketh” (p. 334); “To burne a thred, and to make it whole
againe with the ashes thereof” (p. 341); “To cut off ones
head, and to laie it in a platter, &c.: which the jugglers
call the decollation of John Baptist” (p. 349). The picture
of the apparatus required for the last-mentioned trick
is very curious indeed (p. 353). The references to Scot,
unless the contrary is stated, are to all the pages of
the first (1584) edition, as reprinted by Dr. Brinsley
Nicholson (London, 1886).

[54] King James remarks, in the Preface to his Dæmonologie,
that Scot “is not ashamed in publike Print to deny, that
there can be such a thing as Witch-craft: and so maintaines
the old errour of the Sadduces in denying of spirits”
(Workes, 1616, pp. 91-92).

[55] In what an orderly way one may proceed from an
admission of the doctrine of fallen angels to the final
results of the witch dogma may be seen, for instance, in
Henry Hallywell’s Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the
Polity and Kingdom of Darkness, 1681. Hallywell had been a
Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

[56] See p. 9, above.

[57] P. 39. See Nicholson’s reprint of the 1584 edition, p.
xlii.

[58] Page 46.

[59] Introduction to the Chetham Society reprint of Potts’s
Discoverie of Witches, pp. xxxviii-xxxix.

[60] Pages 202-215.

[61] P. 228. Perhaps Webster is merely “putting a case”
here; but he certainly seems to be making an admission, at
least in theory.

[62] Page 230.

[63] Pages 294 ff.

[64] Page 294.

[65] Pages 297-298.

[66] Pages 302-310.

[67] P. 308. On the astral spirit, see also pp. 312 ff.

[68] Page 310.

[69] Pages 10-11.

[70] See also pp. 267 ff.

[71] Page 73.

[72] Page 231.

[73] Pages 242-243.

[74] Page 244.

[75] Pages 245-246.

[76] Page 247.

[77] Page 260.

[78] Page 267.

[79] Note, however, that the upholders of the current
beliefs on witchcraft are also many times emphatic enough
in similar cautionary remarks. A first-rate example is the
following characteristic passage from Dr. Casaubon, whom
Webster calls a “witchmonger”:--

“And indeed, that the denying of _Witches_, to them
that content themselves in the search of truth with a
superficial view, is a very plausible cause; it cannot be
denied. For if any thing in the world, (as we know all
things in the world are) be liable to fraud, and imposture,
and innocent mistake, through weakness and simplicity; this
subject of Witches and Spirits is.... How ordinary is it to
mistake natural melancholy (not to speak of other diseases)
for a Devil? And how much, too frequently, is both the
disease increased, or made incurable; and the mistake
confirmed, by many ignorant Ministers, who take every wild
motion, or phansie, for a suggestion of the Devil? Whereas,
in such a case, it should be the care of wise friends, to
apply themselves to the Physician of the body, and not to
entertain the other, (I speak it of _natural_ melancholy)
who probably may do more hurt, than good; but as the
learned Naturalist doth allow, and advise? Excellent is the
advice and counsel in this kind, of the Author of the book
_de morbo Sacro_ attributed to _Hippocrates_, which I could
wish all men were bound to read, before they take upon them
to visit sick folks, that are troubled with melancholy
diseases” (A Treatise proving Spirits, etc., 1672, pp.
29-30: cf. p. 14, note 31, above).

[80] Pages 219, 220, 224.

[81] Saducismus Triumphatus, Part II, ed. 1682, p. 4. (ed.
1726, pp. 225-226). Glanvill is here replying to Webster,
whose book, it will be remembered, appeared in 1677.

[82] Increase Mather’s copy is in the Harvard College
Library.

[83] Lowell, New England Two Centuries Ago, Writings,
Riverside edition, II, 73.

[84] Leviathan, i, 2 (English Works, ed. Molesworth, III,
9). Compare Hobbes’s Dialogue between a Philosopher and
a Student of the Common Law of England (English Works,
VI, 96):--“L. I know not. Besides these crimes, there is
conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery and enchantment; which are
capital by the statute I James, c. 12.--P. But I desire
not to discourse of that subject. For though without doubt
there is some great wickedness signified by those crimes;
yet I have ever found myself too dull to conceive the
nature of them, or how the devil hath power to do so many
things which witches have been accused of.” Wier is far
more humane, as well as more reasonable. If one holds, he
writes, that witches are to be severely punished for their
evil intent, let it be remembered that there is a great
difference between sane and insane will. “Quod si quis
contentiose uoluntatem seuerius puniendam defendat, is
primum distinguat inter uoluntatem hominis sani perfectam,
quae in actum uere dirigi coeperit: et inter uitiatae
mentis sensum, uel (si uoles) corruptam amentis uoluntatem:
cui suo opere, quasi alterius esset, colludit diabolus, nec
alius insulse uolentem subsequitur effectus.” De Præstigiis
Dæmonum, vi, 21, ed. 1568, pp. 641-642.

[85] Table-Talk, 1689, p. 59 (the first edition). Selden
died in 1654.

[86] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, II,
243.

[87] A Candle in the Dark: or, A Treatise concerning the
Nature of Witches & Witchcraft, 1656, p. 41.

[88] Sir Robert Filmer’s brief tract, An Advertisement to
the Jury-men of England, touching Witches, was occasioned,
according to the Preface, by “the late Execution of Witches
at the Summer Assizes in Kent.” It was first published in
1652, and may be found annexed to the Free-holders Grand
Inquest, 1679. The case which elicited Sir Robert’s little
book is reported in A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the
Arraignment, Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of six
Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes there held
in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652 (London, 1652,
reprinted 1837).

[89] A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology, 1896, I, 362.

[90] Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, III, 1114.

[91] Dr. Hutchinson’s admirable work, An Historical Essay
concerning Witchcraft, which still remains one of the
most valuable treatises on this subject that we have, was
published in 1718. It appeared in a second edition in 1720,
in which year he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor.

[92] I have used a copy of the French translation,--Le
Monde Enchanté, Amsterdam, 1694. This was made by Bekker’s
direction and revised by him. Each of the four volumes has
a separate dedication, and each dedication (in the Harvard
College copy) is authenticated by Bekker’s autograph
signature.

[93] This concludes Bekker’s First Book.

[94] What precedes is, in substance, Bekker’s Book II.

[95] This is the substance of Bekker’s Third Book.

[96] “De Christelijke Synodus ... heeft, ... met
eenparigheyd van stemmen, den selven Dr. Bekker verklaart
intolerabel als Leeraar in de Gereformeerde Kerke; en
vervolgens hem van sijn Predik-dienst geremoveert” (decree
in W. P. C. Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker de Bestrijder van het
Bijgeloof, the Hague, 1906, p. 315).

[97] Knuttel, p. 319.

[98] Knuttel, p. 357. Strictly speaking, it was not for his
denial of modern witchcraft that Bekker was punished, for
it is in the last two books of his treatise that he deals
particularly with this subject, and these did not appear
until after he had been unfrocked. Still, his Second Book,
which got him into trouble, contains all the essentials.
It denies the power of the devil and wicked spirits to
afflict men, and holds that the demoniacs of the New
Testament were neither possessed nor obsessed, but merely
sufferers from disease. For a full analysis of Bekker’s
work and an account of the opposition which it roused,
see Knuttel, chap. v, pp. 188 ff.; for the ecclesiastical
proceedings against Bekker, see chap. vi, pp. 270 ff. The
various editions and translations of De Betoverde Weereld
are enumerated by van der Linde in his Balthasar Bekker,
Bibliographie (the Hague, 1869), where may also be found a
long list of the books and pamphlets which the work called
forth. There is a good account of Bekker’s argument in
Soldan’s Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, neu bearbeitet von
Dr. Heinrich Heppe (Stuttgart, 1880), II, 233 ff. See also
Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869, II, 445 ff.

[99] Theologians took infinite pains to distinguish between
miracles (_miracula_), which could be wrought by divine
power only, and the kind of wonders (_mira_) which Satan
worked. See, for example, William Perkins, A Discourse of
the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 1608, pp. 12 ff., 18 ff.;
Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicæ, lib. ii, quæstio 7, ed.
1616, pp. 103 ff. Sir Robert Filmer, in An Advertisement
to the Jurymen of England, Touching Witches (appended to
The Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679; cf. p. 34, note 88,
above), makes merry with such fine-spun distinctions. “Both
[Perkins and Del Rio],” he says, “seem to agree in this,
that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher,
that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle; it
would pose _Aristotle_ himself, to tell us every thing that
can be done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot;
for there be daily many things found out, and daily more
may be, which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible
in Nature” (pp. 322-323). Cf. Calef, More Wonders of the
Invisible World, 1700, p. 35.

[100] Cf. Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed.
Heppe, II, 243:--“Zu derjenigen freieren Kritik der
biblischen Schriften selbst sich zu erheben, welche
das Vorhandensein gewisser, aus den Begriffen der Zeit
geschöpfter dämonologischen Vorstellungen in der Bibel
anerkennt, ohne daraus eine bindende Norm für den Glauben
herzuleiten,--diese war freilich erst einem späteren
Zeitalter vorbehalten. Bekker kannte, um seine sich ihm
aufdringende philosophische Ueberzeugung mit der Bibel
zu versöhnen, keinen andern Weg, als den der Üblichen
Exegese, und daher kommt es, dass diese nicht überall eine
ungezwungene ist.” It is instructive to note the pains
which Sir Walter Scott takes, in his Second Letter on
Demonology and Witchcraft, to harmonise the Bible with his
views on these subjects.

[101] To avoid all possibility of misapprehension I shall
venture to express my own feelings. The two men who appeal
to me most in the whole affair of witchcraft are Friedrich
Spee, the Jesuit, and Balthasar Bekker, the “intolerable”
pastor of Amsterdam. But what I _feel_, and what all of
us feel, is not to the purpose. There has been too much
feeling in modern discussions of witchcraft already.

[102] Sigmund Riezler, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in
Bayern, Stuttgart, 1896, p. 143.

[103] Ibid.

[104] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, revised by
Heppe, II, 37; cf. G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade,
1891 (reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical
Association, V).

[105] Jean d’Espaignet and Pierre de Lancre, the special
commissioners, are said to have condemned more than 600
in four months (Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 162; cf. Baissac,
Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890, p. 401). I have
no certain evidence of the accuracy of these figures,
for I have seen only one of de Lancre’s two books, and I
find in it no distinct statement of the number of witches
convicted. He makes various remarks, however, which seem
to show that 600 is no exaggeration. Thus he says that the
Parliament of Bordeaux, under whose authority he acted,
condemned “an infinity” of sorcerers to death in 1609
(Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons,
Paris, 1613, p. 100). “On fait estat qu’il y a trente mille
ames en ce pays de Labourt, contant ceux qui sont en voyage
sur mer, & que parmy tout ce peuple, il y a bien peu de
familles qui ne touchent au Sortilege par quelque bout” (p.
38). The commission lasted from July to November (pp. 66,
456, 470); besides those that the two commissioners tried
during this period, they left behind them so many witches
and wizards that the prisons of Bordeaux were crowded and
it became necessary to lodge the defendants in the ruined
château du Hâ (pp. 144, 560). Cf. pp. 35 ff., 64, 92, 114,
546. The panic fear that witchcraft excites is described
by de Lancre in a striking passage:--“Qu’il n’y ayt qu’vne
seule sorciere dans vn grand village, dans peu de temps
vous voyez tant d’enfans perdus, tant de femmes enceintes
perdãs leur fruit, tant de haut mal donné à des pauures
creatures, tant d’animaux perdus, tant de fruicts gastes,
que le foudre ni autre fleau du ciel ne sont rien en
comparaison” (pp. 543-544).

[106] An Account of what Happened in the Kingdom of Sweden,
in the Years 1669, 1670 and Upwards, translated from the
German by Anthony Horneck, and included in Glanvill’s
Saducismus Triumphatus, ed. 1682 (ed. 1726, pp. 474 ff.).
Horneck’s version is from a tract entitled, Translation ...
Der Königl. Herren Commissarien gehaltenes Protocol uber
die entdeckte Zauberey in dem Dorff Mohra und umbliegenden
Orten, the Hague, 1670. Cf. Thomas Wright, Narratives of
Sorcery and Magic, II, 244 ff.; Soldan, ed. Heppe, II,
175 ff.; Vilhelm Bang, Hexevæsen og Hexeforfølgelser især
i Danmark, Copenhagen, 1896, pp. 48 ff. This is what Mr.
Upham calls Cotton Mather’s “favorite Swedish case” (Salem
Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, Morrisania, 1869, p. 20). It
was, in a manner, “Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s
Hero” toward the end of the seventeenth century, since
it was one of the most recent instances of witchcraft on
a large scale. The good angel in white who is one of the
features of the Mohra case appears much earlier in England:
see Potts, Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613, Chetham
Society reprint, sig. L (a reference which may serve as a
note to Mr. Upham’s essay, just cited, p. 34).

[107] Frans Volk, Hexen in der Landvogtei Ortenau und
Reichsstadt Offenburg, Lahr, 1882, pp. 24-25, 58 ff.

[108] Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 543; F.
Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 2d ed., p. 38; W. W., A True
and Just Recorde, of the Information [etc.] of all the
Witches, taken at S. Oses (London, 1582). For extracts from
W. W.’s book I am indebted to Mr. Wallace Notestein, of
Yale University.

[109] F. Legge, The Scottish Review, XVIII, 261 ff.

[110] Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in
the Countie of Lancaster (London, 1613), reprinted by the
Chetham Society, 1845; Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery
and Magic, Chap. xxiii.

[111] Whalley Lancashire, by Whitaker, pp. 213 ff.; Chetham
Society reprint of Potts, as above, pp. lix ff.; Wright,
as above. Chap. xxiii; Heywood and Brome’s play, The
Late Lancashire Witches, 1634; Calendar of State Papers,
Domestic Series, 1634-1635, pp. 77-79, 98, 129-130, 141,
152; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 10th Report,
Appendix, Part IV, p. 433; 12th Report, Appendix, Part II,
p. 53, cf. p. 77; Notes and Queries, 3d Series, V, 259, 385.

[112] Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of
Leicester, II, 471.

[113] See pp. 7 and 58.

[114] Whitelocke’s Memorials, Dec. 13, 1649, ed. 1732, p.
434; Brand, Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, III, 80;
Ralph Gardner, England’s Grievance Discovered, in Relation
to the Coal-Trade, 1655 (reprinted, North Shields, 1849,
Chap. 53, pp. 168 ff.).

[115] A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment
[etc.] of Six Witches at Maidstone.... Digested by H. F.
Gent, 1652 (reprinted in an Account, etc., London, 1837).

[116] A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations
against Three Witches, 1682.

[117] Sir J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and
Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, II, 601
ff.

[118] A Full and True Relation of the Tryal (etc.) of Ann
Foster, London, 1674 (Northampton, reprinted by Taylor
& Son, 1878). Cf. W. Ruland, Steirische Hexenprozesse,
in Steinhausen’s Zeitschrift für Kulturgeschichte, 2.
Ergänzungsheft, Weimar, 1898, pp. 46 ff.

[119] N. E. Hist. Gen. Register. XXIV, 382.

[120] Letter of Oct. 8, 1692, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections,
V, 65. Compare, on the whole question, the remarks of
Professor Wendell in his interesting paper, Were the Salem
Witches Guiltless? (Historical Collections of the Essex
Institute, XXIX, republished in his Stelligeri and Other
Essays concerning America, New York, 1893) and in his
Cotton Mather, pp. 93 ff.

[121] A long and curious list of cases of defamation may be
seen in a volume of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical
Proceedings from the County of Durham, extending from
1311 to the Reign of Elisabeth, edited by James Raine for
the Surtees Society in 1845 (Publications, XXI). Thus, in
1566-67, Margaret Lambert accuses John Lawson of saying
“that she was a chermer” (p. 84); about 1569 Margaret
Reed is charged with calling Margaret Howhett “a horse
goodmother water wych” (p. 91); in 1572, Thomas Fewler
deposed that he “hard Elisabeth Anderson caull ... Anne
Burden ‘crowket handyd wytch.’ He saith the words was
spoken audiently there; ther might many have herd them,
beinge spoken so neigh the cross and in the towne gait as
they were” (p. 247). So in 1691 Alice Bovill complained of
a man who had said to her, “Thou bewitched my stot” (North
Riding Record Society, Publications, IX, 6). See also
Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts
in Various Collections, I, 283; Lefroy, Bermudas or Somers
Islands, II, 629 (no. 15).

[122] See, for example, Mr. Noble’s edition of the Records
of the Court of Assistants, II, 43, 72, 85, 94, 95, 104,
131, 136,--all between 1633 and 1644.

[123] See Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England;
Noble’s Records, as above, 1, 11, 31, 33, 159, 188, 228,
229, 233.

[124] “Quia vulgo creditum, multorum annorum continuatam
sterilitatem à strigibus et maleficis diabolicâ invidiâ
causari; tota patria in extictionem maleficarum
insurrexit” (as quoted from the autograph MS. in the Trier
Stadt-Bibliothek by G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade,
p. 51, Papers of the American Historical Association, V).

[125] “Incredibile vulgi apud Germanos, & maxime (quod
pudet dicere) Catholicos superstitio, invidia, calumniæ,
detractationes, susurrationes & similia, quæ nec
Magistratus punit, nee concionatores arguunt, suspicionem
magiæ primum excitant. Omnes divinaæ punitiones, quas
in sacris literis Deus minatus est, à Sagis sunt. Nihil
jam amplius Deus facit aut natura, sed Sagæ omnia. 2.
Unde impetu omnes clamant ut igitur inquirat Magistratus
in Sagas, quas non nisi ipsi suis linguis tot fecerunt”
(Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus contra Sagas Liber,
2d ed., 1695, pp. 387-388; cf. Dubium xv, pp. 67-68, Dubium
xxxiv, pp. 231-232). Spee’s book came out anonymously in
1631, and, unlike most works on this side of the question,
had immediate results. Spee had no doubt of the existence
of witchcraft (Dubium i, pp. 1 ff., Dubium iii, pp. 7-8);
his experience, however, had taught him that most of those
condemned were innocent.

[126] The case is reported in A True and Impartial Relation
of the Informations against Three Witches [etc.], 1682,
which is reprinted in Howell’s State Trials, VIII, 1017 ff.

[127] Autobiography, chap. x, ed. Jessopp, 1887, pp.
131-132. North gives a similar account of the same trial,
with some general observations of great interest, in his
Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, I, 267-269 (ed. 1826). It
is not clear whether North was present at the trial or not.
It is important to notice that North wrote his biographies
late in life and that his death did not take place until
1736, the year in which the statute against witchcraft was
repealed.

[128] North remarks that Guilford (then Francis North,
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) “had really a concern
upon him at what happened; which was, that his brother
Raymond’s passive behavior should let those poor women die”
(Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, I, 267). Raymond was, to
be sure, the judge who presided at the trial, but Francis
North cannot be allowed to have all the credit which his
brother Roger would give him, for he refused to reprieve
the convicted witches (see his letter, quoted at p. 34,
above).

[129] The following pamphlets (all in the Harvard
College Library) appeared in London in 1712: (1) A Full
and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and
Witchcraft, practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne in
Hertfordshire; (2) The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft
consider’d. Being an Examination of a Book, entitl’d, A
Full and Impartial Account [etc.]; (3) The Impossibility
of Witchcraft ... In which the Depositions against Jane
Wenham ... are Confuted and Expos’d; (4) The Belief of
Witchcraft Vindicated ... in Answer to a late Pamphlet,
Intituled, The Impossibility of Witchcraft. By G. R. A.
M.; (5) A Defense of the Proceedings against Jane Wenham.
By Francis Bragge; (6) Witchcraft Farther Display’d; (7)
A Full Confutation of Witchcraft: more particularly of
the Depositions against Jane Wenham ... In a Letter from
a Physician in Hertfordshire, to his Friend in London.
The first and fifth of these pamphlets are by Bragge, a
Cambridge graduate who gave evidence for the prosecution.
See also Memoirs of Literature, London, 1722, IV, 357;
Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft, II, 319 ff.
Jane Wenham lived nearly twenty years after her trial; she
died in 1730 (Clutterbuck, History and Antiquities of the
County of Hertford, II, 461; W. B. Gerish, A Hertfordshire
Witch, p. 10).

[130] I refer to such remarks as the following:--“As
the devil lost his empire among us in the last age, he
exercised it with greater violence among the Indian
Pawwaws, and our New England colonists” (Richard Gough,
British Topography, 1780, II, 254, note ᵖ); “The colonists
of [Massachusetts] appear to have carried with them, in an
exaggerated form, the superstitious feelings with regard
to witchcraft which then [at the time of the settlement]
prevailed in the mother country” (Introduction to the
reprint of Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World,
in the Library of Old Authors, 1862); “In the dark and
dangerous forests of America the animistic instinct, the
original source of the superstition, operated so powerfully
in Puritan minds that Cotton Mather’s _Wonders of the
Invisible World_ and the Salem persecution surpassed
in credulity and malignity anything the mother country
could show” (Ferris Greenslet, Joseph Glanvill, New York,
1900, pp. 150-151); “The new world, from the time of its
settlement, has been a kind of health resort for the
worn-out delusions of the old.... For years prior to the
Salem excitement, European witchcraft had been prostrate on
its dying bed, under the watchful and apprehensive eyes of
religion and of law; carried over the ocean it arose to its
feet, and threatened to depopulate New England” (George M.
Beard, The Psychology of the Salem Witchcraft Excitement,
New York, 1882, p. 1).

[131] Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 284.

[132] Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, New Series,
V, 267.

[133] F. Legge, Witchcraft in Scotland, in The Scottish
Review, October, 1891, XVIII, 263.

[134] On modern savages as devil worshippers, see, for
example, Henry More, Divine Dialogues, 1668, I, 404 ff.
(Dialogue iii, sections 15-16).

[135] Magnalia, book i, chap. i, §2, ed. 1853, I. 42; book
vi, chap. vi, §3, III, 436; Jesuit Relations, ed. Thwaites,
I, 286; II, 76; VIII, 124, 126. See also Thomas Morton,
New English Canaan, 1637, chap. ix, ed. Adams, (Prince
Society), p. 150, with the references in Mr. Adams’s note.
Cf. Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, chap. vi, ed.
1795, I, 419 ff.; Diary of Ezra Stiles, June 13, 1773, ed.
Dexter, I, 385-386.

[136] Mayhew’s letter of Oct. 22, 1652, in Eliot and
Mayhew’s Tears of Repentance, 1653 (Mass. Hist. Soc.
Collections, 3d Series, IV, 203-206); Gookin, Historical
Collections of the Indians in New England (Mass. Hist.
Soc. Collections, I, 154). See the references in Mr.
Adams’s note to Morton’s New English Canaan, Prince
Society edition, p. 152, and compare the following places
in the Eliot Tracts (as reprinted in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
Collections, 3d Series, IV),--pp. 17, 19-20, 39, 50-51,
55-57, 77, 82, 113-116, 133-134, 156, 186-187. See, for
the impression that Indian ceremonies made on a devout man
in 1745, David Brainerd’s Journal, Mirabilia Dei inter
Indicos, Philadelphia, [1746,] pp. 49-57:--“I sat,” writes
Brainerd, “at a small Distance, not more than Thirty Feet
from them, (tho’ undiscover’d) with my Bible in my Hand,
resolving if possible to spoil their Sport, and prevent
their receiving any Answers from the _infernal_ world” (p.
50).

[137] Gookin, Historical Collections (Mass. Hist. Soc.
Collections, I, 154); Mass. Records, ed. Shurtleff, II,
177; III, 98.

[138] The Most Strange and Admirable Discoverie of the
Three Witches of Warboys, 1593, sig. B2 rᵒ. P vᵒ.

[139] Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches,
1613 (Chetham Society reprint, sig. S); The Arraignment and
Triall of Iennet Preston, of Gisborne in Craven, in the
Countie of York, London, 1612 (in same reprint, sig. Y 2).

[140] Mary Smith’s case, Alexander Roberts, A Treatise of
Witchcraft, 1616, pp. 52, 56, 57; the Husband’s Bosworth
case, Letter of Alderman Robert Heyrick, of Leicester, July
18, 1616, printed in Nichols, History and Antiquities of
the County of Leicester, II, 471*.

[141] Edward Fairfax, Dæmonologia, 1621 (first edited by W.
Grainge, Harrogate, 1882).

[142] Chetham Society Publications, V, lxiv.

[143] A True and Exact Relation of the Severall
Informations, [etc.] of the late Witches, London, 1645, p.
20; T. B. Howell. State Trials, IV. 846.

[144] Depositions from the Castle of York, [edited by James
Raine,] Surtees Society, 1861 (Publications, XL), pp. 28-30.

[145] The same, p. 58.

[146] The same, pp. 64-65, 67.

[147] Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus, ed. 1682,
Relations, pp. 96, 98, 100 (ed. 1726, pp. 286, 288, 289).

[148] York Depositions, p. 82.

[149] The same, pp. 88-89. 92.

[150] The same, pp. 112-114; Glanvill, ed. 1682, pp.
160-161 (ed. 1726, pp. 328-329).

[151] A Tryal of Witches ... at Bury St. Edmonds ... 1664,
London, 1682, pp. 18, 20, 23, 26, 29, 34, 38 (Sir Matthew
Hale’s case); York Depositions, pp. 124-125.

[152] Glanvill, ed. 1682, pp. 103-104, 109 (ed. 1726, p.
291).

[153] Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1667-1668,
p. 4; York Depositions, p. 154.

[154] York Depositions, p. 176.

[155] Ann Tilling’s case, Gentleman’s Magazine for 1832,
Part I, CII, 489 ff.; Inderwick, Side-Lights on the
Stuarts, 2d ed., 1891, pp. 171-172, 191.

[156] York Depositions, pp. 192, 202-203.

[157] The same, p. 247.

[158] Margaret Stothard’s case, The Monthly Chronicle of
North-Country Lore and Legend, [II] 1888, p. 395.

[159] See page 54.

[160] F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 1718, pp. 44-45 (ed.
1720, pp. 61-62). There is a very interesting account of
the second of these trials (that of Elizabeth Horner or
Turner) in a letter to the Bishop of Exeter from Archdeacon
(?) Blackburne, who attended at the bishop’s request.
This letter, dated Sept. 14, 1696, has been printed by
Mr. T. Quiller-Couch in Notes and Queries, 1st Series,
XI, 498-499, and again in Brand’s Popular Antiquities,
ed. Hazlitt, III, 103-104. The spectral evidence comes
out clearly. Of Holt, Blackburne remarks: “My Lord Chief
Justice by his questions and manner of summing up the
Evidence seem’d to me to believe nothing of witchery at
all.”

[161] Chap. 160, sec. 5, p. 384. “The court justified
themselves from books of law, and the authorities of Keble,
Dalton and other lawyers, then of the first character,
who lay down rules of conviction as absurd and dangerous,
as any which were practiced in New England.” Hutchinson,
History of Massachusetts, ed. 1795, II, 27.

[162] James Burvile testified “That hearing the Scratchings
and Noises of Cats, he went out, and saw several of them;
that one of them had a Face like _Jane Wenham_; that he
was present several Times when _Anne Thorn_ said she saw
Cats about her Bed; and more he would have attested, but
this was thought sufficient by the Court” ([F. Bragge,]
A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery
and Witchcraft, practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712,
p. 29). After the conviction of the witch, Ann was still
afflicted: “_Ann Thorn_ continues to be frequently troubl’d
with the Apparition either of _Jane Wenham_ in her own
Shape, or that of a Cat, which speaks to her, and tempts
her to destroy her self with a Knife that it brings along
with it” ([Bragge,] Witchcraft Farther Display’d, 1712,
Introduction). In 1711 spectral evidence was admitted at
the trial of eight witches at Carrickfergus, in Ireland (A
Narrative of some Strange Events that took place in Island
Magee, and Neighbourhood, in 1711, by an Eye Witness,
Belfast, 1822, Appendix, pp. 49-50).

[163] A Tryal of Witches, as above, p. 40.

[164] “The Judge and all the Court were fully satisfied
with the Verdict” (A Tryal, etc., p. 58).

[165] For a learned discussion of spectral evidence see J.
B. Thayer, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1890, LXV, 471 ff.

[166] Dr. Hutchinson, who acknowledges his indebtedness to
Holt, mentions six witches as tried by the Chief Justice
from 1691 to 1696, and adds, “Several others in other
Places, about Eleven in all, have been tried for Witches
before my Lord Chief Justice _Holt_, and have all been
acquitted. The last of them was _Sarah Morduck_, accused
by _Richard Hathaway_, and tried at _Guilford_ Assize,
_Anno_ 1701” (Historical Essay, 2d ed., pp. 58-63). It is
not clear whether the “eleven in all” includes the seven
previously mentioned. On the Morduck-Hathaway case, cf.
Howell, State Trials, XIV, 639 ff.

[167] Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England, pp. 136,
138.

[168] Compare Mr. Goodell’s remarks on the reversal of
attainder, in his Reasons for Concluding that the Act of
1711 became a Law, 1884. I have not considered here the
bearing of this reversal, or of the attempt to pay damages
to the survivors or their heirs, because these things
came somewhat later. It must be noted, however, that all
such measures of reparation, whatever may be thought of
their sufficiency, were unexampled in the history of witch
trials the world over, and that they came before the last
condemnation for witchcraft in England (1712). See the
references appended by Mr. Goodell to the Act of 1703 in
The Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts
Bay, VI, 49-50.

[169] See p. 17, above.

[170] Legge, as above, p. 264.

[171] 2d ed., 1720.

[172] P. 83; 2d ed., p. 108.

[173] See W. F. Poole, in Winsor’s Memorial History of
Boston, II, 133. Dr. Poole finds twelve executions in New
England before 1692. This makes the total for all New
England, from 1620 to the present day, 34 (including two
who died in jail). Cf. C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft,
Boston, 1867, II, 351; S. G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft,
pp. 191 ff. In this part of my paper I have made a few
quotations from a book of my own, The Old Farmer and his
Almanack (Boston, 1904).

[174] “They were the first of all people,” writes Mr.
Goodell, “to escape the thraldom” (Reasons for Concluding
that the Act of 1711 became a Law, 1884, p. 21).

[175] See Francis Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 2d edition,
1720, pp. 45 ff.