Charles Wentworth Upham

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Salem Village, 1866.

-pageno" title="[i.336]"> use of mysterious charms. Many plants were considered as possessed of wonderful virtues, and there was scarcely a limit to the supposed power of those persons who knew how to use and apply them skilfully. Virgil, in his eight

In the fourth Æneid, the lovesick Tyrian queen is thus made to describe the magic which was then believed to be practised:—

"Rejoice," she said: "instructed from above,
My lover I shall gain, or lose my love;
Nigh rising Atlas, next the falling sun
Long tracts of Ethiopian climates run:
There a Massylian priestess I have found,
Honored for age, for magic arts renowned:
The Hesperian temple was her trusted care;
'Twas she supplied the wakeful dragon's fare;
She, poppy-seeds in honey taught to steep,
Reclaimed his rage, and soothed him into sleep;
She watched the golden fruit. Her charms unbind
The chains of love, or fix them on the mind;
She stops the torrent, leaves the channel dry,
Repels the stars, and backward bears the sky.
The yawning earth rebellows to her call,
Pale ghosts ascend, and mountain ashes fall."

Tibullus, in the second elegy of his first book, gives the following account of the powers ascribed to a magician:—

"She plucks each star out of his throne,
And turneth back the raging waves;
With charms she makes the earth to cone,
And raiseth souls out of their graves;
She burns men's bones as with a fire,
And pulleth down the lights of Heaven,
And makes it snow at her desire
E'en in the midst of summer season."

These views continued to hold undisturbed dominion over the people during a long succession of centuries. As the twilight of the dark ages began to settle upon Christendom, superstition, that night-blooming plant, extended itself rapidly, and in all directions, over the surface of the world. While every thing else drooped and withered, it struck deeper its roots, spread wider its branches, and brought forth more abundantly its fruit. The unnumbered fables of Greek and Roman mythology, the arts of augury and divination, the visions of oriental romance, the fanciful and attenuated theories of the later philosophy, the abstract and spiritual doctrines of Platonism, and all the grosser and wilder conceptions of the northern conquerors of the Roman Empire, became mingled together in the faith of the inhabitants of the European kingdoms. From this multifarious combination, the infinitely diversified popular superstitions of the modern nations have sprung.

We first begin to trace the clear outlines of the doctrine of witchcraft not far from the commencement of the Christian era. It presupposes the belief of the Devil. I shall not enter upon the question, whether the Scriptures, properly interpreted, require the belief of the existence of such a being. Directing our attention solely to profane sources of information, we discover the heathen origin of the belief of the existence of the Devil in the ancient systems of oriental philosophy. Early observers of nature in the East were led to the conclusion, that the world was a divided empire, ruled by the alternate or simultaneous energy of two great antagonist principles or beings, one perfectly good, and the other perfectly bad. It was for a long time, and perhaps is at this day, a prevalent faith among Christians, that the Bible teaches a similar doctrine; that it presents, to our adoration and obedience, a being of infinite perfections in the Deity; and to our abhorrence and our fears, a being infinitely wicked, and of great power, in the Devil.

It is obvious, that, when the entire enginery of supernaturalism was organized in adaptation to the idea of the Devil, and demonology became synonymous with diabolism, the credulity and superstition of mankind would give a wide extension to that form of belief. It soon occupied a large space in the theories of religion and the fancies of the people, and got to be a leading element in the life of society. It made its impress on the forms of speech, and many of the phrases to which it gave rise still remain in familiar use. It figured in the rituals of religion, in the paraphernalia of public shows, and in fireside tales. It afforded leading characters to the drama in the miracle plays and the moral plays, as they were called, at successive periods. It offered a ready weapon to satire, and also to defamation. Gerbert, a native of France, who was elevated to the pontificate about the close of the tenth century, under the name of Sylvester II., is eulogized by Mosheim as the first great restorer of science and literature. He was a person of an extensive and sublime genius, of wonderful attainments in learning, particularly mathematics, geometry, and arithmetic. He broke the profound sleep of the dark ages, and awakened the torpid intellect of the European nations. His efforts in this direction roused the apprehensions and resentment of the monks; and they circulated, after Gerbert's death, and made the ignorant masses believe the story, that he had obtained his rapid promotion in the Church by the practice of the black art, which he disguised under the show of learning; that he secured the Archbishopric of Ravenna by bribery and corruption; and that, finally, he made a bargain with Satan, promising him his soul after death, on condition that he (Satan) should put forth his great influence over the cardinals in such a manner as would secure his election to the throne of St. Peter. The arrangement was carried into successful operation. Sylvester, the monks averred, consulted the Devil through the medium of a brazen head during his whole reign, and enjoyed his faithful friendship and unwavering patronage. But, when His Holiness came to die, he endeavored to defraud Satan of his rightful claim to his soul, by repenting, and acknowledging his sin. This illustrates the way in which the popular idea of the Devil was used to awaken ridicule and gratify malignity.

The natural and ultimate effect of the diffusion of Christianity was to overthrow, or rather to revolutionize, the whole system of incantation and sorcery.

In heathen countries, as in the East at present and with those among us who profess to hold communications with spirits, no reproach or sentiment of disapprobation, as has already been observed, was necessarily connected with the arts of divination; for the supernatural beings with whom intercourse was alleged to be had were not, with a few exceptions, regarded as evil beings. The persons who were thought to be skilful in their use were, on the contrary, held in great esteem, and looked upon with reverence. Magicians and philosophers were convertible and synonymous terms. Learned and scientific men were induced to encourage, and turn to their own advantage, the popular credulity that ascribed their extraordinary skill to their connection with spiritual and divine beings. At length, however, they found themselves placed in a very uncomfortable predicament by the prevalence of the new theology. It was exceedingly difficult to dispel the delusion, and correct the error they had previously found it for their interest to perpetuate in the minds of the community. They could not convince them that their knowledge was acquired from natural sources, or their operations conducted solely by the aid of natural causes and laws. The people would not surrender the belief, that the results of scientific experiments, and the accuracy of predictions of physical phenomena, were secured by the assistance of supernatural beings.

As the doctrines of the gospel gradually undermined the popular belief in other spiritual beings inferior to the Deity, and were at the same time supposed to teach the existence and extensively diffused energy of an almost infinite and omnipotent agent of evil, it was exceedingly natural, nay, it necessarily followed, that the credulity and superstition which had led to the supposition of an alliance between philosophers and spiritual beings should settle down into a full conviction that the Devil was the being with whom they were thus confederated. The consequence was that they were charged with witchcraft, and many fell victims to the general prejudice and abhorrence occasioned by the imputation. The influence of this state of things was soon seen: it was one of the most effectual causes of the rapid diffusion of knowledge in modern times. Philosophers and men of science became as anxious to explain and publish their discoveries as they had been in former ages to conceal and cover them with mystery. The following instances will be sufficient to illustrate the correctness of these views.

In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon was charged with witchcraft on account of his discoveries in optics, chemistry, and astronomy; and, although he did what he could to circulate and explain his own acquirements, he could not escape a papal denunciation, and two long and painful imprisonments. In 1305, Arnold de Villa Nova, a learned physician and philosopher, was burned at Padua, by order of inquisitors, on the charge of witchcraft. He was eighty years of age. Ten years afterwards, Peter Apon, also of Padua, who had made extraordinary progress in knowledge, was accused of the same crime, and condemned to death, but expired previous to the time appointed for his execution.

I will now present a brief sketch of the most noticeable facts relating to the subject in Europe and Great Britain previous to the close of the seventeenth century. Some writers have computed that thirty thousand persons were executed for this supposed crime, within one hundred and fifty years. It will of course be in my power to mention only a few instances.

In 1484, Pope Innocent the Eighth issued a bull encouraging and requiring the arrest and punishment of persons suspected of witchcraft. From this moment, the prosecutions became frequent and the victims numerous in every country. The very next year, forty-one aged females were consigned to the flames in one nation; and, not long after, a hundred were burned by one inquisition in the devoted valleys of Piedmont; forty-eight were burned in Ravensburg in five years; and, in the year 1515, five hundred were burned at Geneva in three months! One writer declares that "almost an infinite number" were burned for witchcraft in France,—a thousand in a single diocese! These sanguinary and horrible transactions were promoted and sanctioned by theological hatred and rancor. It was soon perceived that there was no kind of difficulty in clearing the Church of heretics by hanging or burning them all as witches! The imputation of witchcraft could be fixed upon any one with the greatest facility. In the earlier part of the fifteenth century, the Earl of Bedford, having taken the celebrated Joan of Arc prisoner, put her to death on this charge. She had been almost adored by the people rescued by her romantic valor, and was universally known among them by the venerable title of "Holy Maid of God;" but no difficulty was experienced in procuring evidence enough to lead her to the stake as a servant and confederate of Satan! Luther was just beginning his attack upon the papal power, and he was instantly accused of being in confederacy with the Devil.

In 1534, Elizabeth Barton, "the Maid of Kent," was executed for witchcraft in England, together with seven men who had been confederate with her. In 1541 the Earl of Hungerford was beheaded for inquiring of a witch how long Henry VIII. would live. In 1549 it was made the duty of bishops, by Archbishop Cranmer's articles of visitation, to inquire of their clergy, whether "they know of any that use charms, sorcery, enchantments, witchcraft, soothsaying, or any like craft invented by the Devil." In 1563 the King of Sweden carried four witches with him, as a part of his armament, to aid him in his wars with the Danes. In 1576, seventeen or eighteen were condemned in Essex, in England. A single judge or inquisitor, Remigius, condemned and burned nine hundred within fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, in the single district of Lorraine; and as many more fled out of the country; whole villages were depopulated, and fifteen persons destroyed themselves rather than submit to the torture which, under the administration of this successor of Draco and rival of Jeffries, was the first step taken in the trial of an accused person. The application of the rack and other instruments of torment, in the examination of prisoners, was recommended by him in a work on witchcraft. He observes that "scarcely any one was known to be brought to repentance and confession but by these means"!

The most eminent persons of the sixteenth century were believers in the popular superstition respecting the existence of compacts between Satan and human beings, and in the notions associated with it. The excellent Melancthon was an interpreter of dreams and caster of nativities. Luther was a strenuous supporter of the doctrine of witchcraft, and seems to have seriously believed that he had had frequent interviews with the arch-enemy himself, and had disputed with him on points of theology, face to face. In his "Table-Talk," he gives the following account of his intimacy with the Devil: speaking of his confinement in the Castle of Wartburg, he says, "Among other things they brought me hazel-nuts, which I put into a box, and sometimes I used to crack and eat of them. In the night-times, my gentleman, the Devil, came and got the nuts out of the box, and cracked them against one of the bedposts, making a very great noise and rumbling about my bed; but I regarded him nothing at all: when afterwards I began to slumber, then he kept such a racket and rumbling upon the chamber stairs, as if many empty barrels and hogsheads had been tumbled down." Kepler, whose name is immortalized by being associated with the laws he discovered that regulate the orbits of the heavenly bodies, was a zealous advocate of astrology; and his great predecessor and master, the Prince of Astronomers, as he is called, Tycho Brahe, kept an idiot in his presence, fed him from his own table, with his own hand, and listened to his incoherent, unmeaning, and fatuous expressions as to a revelation from the spiritual world.

The following is the language addressed to Queen Elizabeth by Bishop Jewell. He was one of the most learned persons of his age, and is to this day regarded as the mighty champion of the Church of England, and of the cause of the Reformation in Great Britain. He was the terrible foe of Roman-Catholic superstition. "It may please Your Grace," says he, "to understand that witches and sorcerers within these four last years are marvellously increased within Your Grace's realm; Your Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God," continues the courtly preacher, "they never practise further than upon the subject." The petition of the polite prelate appears to have been answered. The virgin queen resisted inexorably the arts of all charmers, and is thought never to have been bewitched in her life.

It is probable that Spenser, in his "FaËrie Queen," has described with accuracy the witch of the sixteenth century in the following beautiful lines:—

"There, in a gloomy hollow glen, she found
A little cottage built of sticks and weedes,
In homely wise, and wald with sods around,
In which a witch did dwell in loathly weedes
And wilful want, all careless of her needes;
So choosing solitarie to abide
Far from all neighbors, that her devilish deedes
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off unknowne whomever she envide."

So prone were some to indulge in the contemplation of the agency of the Devil and his myrmidons, that they strained, violated, and perverted the language of Scripture to make it speak of them. Thus they insisted that the word "Philistines" meant confederates and subjects of the Devil, and accordingly interpreted the expression, "I will deliver you into the hands of the Philistines," thus, "I will deliver you into the hands of demons."

I cannot describe the extent to which the superstition we are reviewing was carried about the close of the sixteenth century in stronger language than the following, from a candid and learned French Roman-Catholic historian: "So great folly," says he, "did then oppress the miserable world, that Christians believed greater absurdities than could ever be imposed upon the heathens."

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We have now arrived at the commencement of the seventeenth century, within which the prosecutions for witchcraft took place in Salem. To show the opinions of the clergy of the English Church at this time, I will quote the following curious canon, made by the convocation in 1603:—

"That no minister or ministers, without license and direction of the bishop, under his hand and seal obtained, attempt, upon any pretence whatsoever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry." In the same year, licenses were actually granted, as required above, by the Bishop of Chester; and several ministers were duly authorized by him to cast out devils!

During this whole century, there were trials and executions for witchcraft in all civilized countries. More than two hundred were hanged in England, thousands were burned in Scotland, and still larger numbers in various parts of Europe.

Edward Fairfax, the poet, was one of the most accomplished men in England. He is celebrated as the translator of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," in allusion to which work Collins thus speaks of him:—

"How have I sate, while piped the pensive wind,
To hear thy harp, by British Fairfax strung,
Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders that he sung."

This same Fairfax prosecuted six of his neighbors for bewitching his children. The trials took place about the time the first pilgrims came to America.

In 1634, Urbain Grandier, a very learned and eminent French minister, rendered himself odious to the bigoted nuns of Loudun, by his moderation towards heretics. Secretly instigated, as has been supposed, by Cardinal Richelieu, against whom he had written a satire, they pretended to be bewitched by him, and procured his prosecution: he was tortured upon the rack until he swooned, and then was burned at the stake. In 1640, Dr. Lamb, of London, was murdered in the streets of that city by the mob, on suspicion of witchcraft. Several were hanged in England, only a few years before the proceedings commenced in Salem. Some were tried by water ordeal, and drowned in the process, in Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire, at the very time the executions were going on here; and a considerable number of capital punishments took place in various parts of Great Britain, some years after the prosecution had ceased in America.

The trials and executions in England and Scotland were attended by circumstances as painful, as barbarous, and in all respects as disgraceful, as those occurring in Salem. Every species of torture seems to have been resorted to: the principles of reason, justice, and humanity were set at defiance, and the whole body of the people kept in a state of the most fierce excitement against the sufferers. Indeed, there is nothing more distressing in the contemplation of these sanguinary proceedings than the spirit of deliberate and unmitigated cruelty with which they were conducted. No symptoms of pity, compassion, or sympathy, appear to have been manifested by the judges or the community. The following account of the expenses attending the execution of two persons convicted of witchcraft in Scotland, shows in what a cool, business-like style the affair was managed:—

"For ten loads of coal, to burn them	£3	6	8
For a tar barrel	0	14	0
For towes	0	6	0
For hurden to be jumps for them	3	10	0
For making of them	0	8	0
For one to go to Finmouth for the Laird to sit upon their assize as judge	0	6	0
For the executioner for his pains	8	14	0
For his expenses here	0	16	4"

The brutalizing effects of capital punishments are clearly seen in these, as in all other instances. They gradually impart a feeling of indifference to the value of human life, or to the idea of cutting it off by the hand of violence, to all who become accustomed to the spectacle. In various ways they exercise influences upon the tone and temper of society, which cannot but be regarded with regret by the citizen, the legislator, the moralist, the philanthropist, and the Christian.

Sinclair, in his work called "Satan's Invisible World Discovered," gives the following affecting declaration made by one of the confessing witches, as she was on her way to the stake:—

"Now all you that see me this day know that I am now to die as a witch by my own confession; and I free all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood; I take it wholly upon myself, my blood be upon my own head: and, as I must make answer to the God of heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as any child; but, being delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of my coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit again, through the temptation of the Devil, I made up that confession on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather to die than live."

Sir George Mackenzie says that he went to examine some women who had confessed, and that one of them, who was a silly creature, told him, "under secresie," "that she had not confessed because she was guilty, but, being a poor creature, who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would either give her meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her, and hound dogs at her, and that therefore she desired to be out of the world." Whereupon she wept most bitterly, and, upon her knees, called God to witness to what she said.

A wretch, named Matthew Hopkins, rendered himself infamously conspicuous in the prosecutions for witchcraft that took place in the counties of Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Huntingdon, in England, in the years 1645 and 1646. The title he assumed indicates the part he acted: it was "Witch-finder-general." He travelled from place to place; his expenses were paid; and he required, in addition, regular fees for the discovery of a witch. Besides pricking the body to find the witch-mark, he compelled the wretched and decrepit victims of his cruel practices to sit in a painful posture, on an elevated stool, with their limbs crossed; and, if they persevered in refusing to confess, he would prolong their torture, in some cases, to more than twenty-four hours. He would prevent their going to sleep, and drag them about barefoot over the rough ground, thus overcoming them with extreme weariness and pain: but his favorite method was to tie the thumb of the right hand close to the great toe of the left foot, and draw them through a river or pond; if they floated, as they would be likely to do, while their heavier limbs were thus sustained and upborne by the rope, it was considered as conclusive proof of their guilt. This monster was encouraged and sanctioned by the government; and he procured the death, in one year and in one county, of more than three times as many as suffered in Salem during the whole delusion. He and his exploits are referred to in the following lines, from that storehouse of good sense and keen wit, Butler's "Hudibras:"—

"Hath not this present Parliament
A leiger to the Devil sent,
Fully empowered to treat about
Finding revolted witches out?
And has he not within a year
Hanged threescore of them in one shire?"

The infatuated people looked upon this Hopkins with admiration and astonishment, and could only account for his success by the supposition, which, we are told, was generally entertained, that he had stolen the memorandum-book in which Satan had recorded the names of all the persons in England who were in league with him!

The most melancholy circumstance connected with the history of this creature is, that Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy—names dear and venerable in the estimation of all virtuous and pious men—were deceived and deluded by him: they countenanced his conduct, followed him in his movements, and aided him in his proceedings.

At length, however, some gentlemen, shocked at the cruelty and suspicious of the integrity of Hopkins, seized him, tied his thumbs and toes together, threw him into a pond, and dragged him about to their hearts' content. They were fully satisfied with the result of the experiment. It was found that he did not sink. He stood condemned on his own principles; and thus the country was rescued from the power of the malicious impostor.

Among the persons whose death Hopkins procured, was a venerable, gray-headed clergyman, named Lewis. He was of the Church of England, had been the minister of a congregation for more than half a century, and was over eighty years of age. His infirm frame was subjected to the customary tests, even to the trial by water ordeal: he was compelled to walk almost incessantly for several days and nights, until, in the exhaustion of his nature, he yielded assent to a confession that was adduced against him in Court; which, however, he disowned and denied there and at all times, from the moment of release from the torments, by which it had been extorted, to his last breath. As he was about to die the death of a felon, he knew that the rites of sepulture, according to the forms of his denomination, would be denied to his remains. The aged sufferer, it is related, read his own funeral service while on the scaffold. Solemn, sublime, and affecting as are passages of this portion of the ritual of the Church, surely it was never performed under circumstances so well suited to impress with awe and tenderness as when uttered by the calumniated, oppressed, and dying old man. Baxter had been tried for sedition, on the ground that one of his publications contained a reflection upon Episcopacy, and was imprisoned for two years. It is a striking and melancholy illustration of the moral infirmity of human nature, that the author of the "Saints' Everlasting Rest," and the "Call to the Unconverted," permitted such a vengeful feeling against the Establishment to enter his breast, that he took pleasure, and almost exulted, in relating the fate of this innocent and aged clergyman, whom he denominates, in derision, a "Reading Parson."

Baxter's writings are pervaded by his belief in all sorts of supernatural things. In the "Saints' Everlasting Rest," he declares his conviction of the reality and authenticity of stories of ghosts, apparitions, haunted houses, &c. He placed full faith in a tale, current among the people of his day, of the "dispossession of the Devil out of many persons together in a room in Lancashire, at the prayer of some godly ministers." In his "Dying Thoughts," he says, "I have had many convincing proofs of witches, the contracts they have made with devils, and the power which they have received from them;" and he seems to have credited the most absurd fables ever invented on the subject by ignorance, folly, or fraud.

The case to which he refers, as one of the "dispossession of devils," may be found in a tract published in London in 1697, entitled, "The Surey Demoniac; or, an Account of Satan's strange and dreadful actings, in and about the body of Richard Dugdale, of Surey, near Whalley, in Lancashire. And how he was dispossessed by God's blessing on the Fastings and Prayers of divers Ministers and People. The matter of fact attested by the oaths of several creditable persons, before some of his Majestie's Justices of the Peace in the said county." The "London Monthly Repository" (vol. v., 1810) describes the affair as follows: "These dreadful actings of Satan continued above a year; during which there was a desperate struggle between him and nine ministers of the gospel, who had undertaken to cast him out, and, for that purpose, successively relieved each other in their daily combats with him: while Satan tried all his arts to baffle their attempts, insulting them with scoffs and raillery, puzzling them sometimes with Greek and Latin, and threatening them with the effects of his vengeance, till he was finally vanquished and put to flight by the persevering prayers and fastings of the said ministers."

No name in English history is regarded with more respect and admiration, by wise and virtuous men, than that of Sir Matthew Hale. His character was almost venerated by our ancestors; and it has been thought that it was the influence of his authority, more than any thing else, that prevailed upon them to pursue the course they adopted in the prosecutions at Salem. This great and good man presided, as Lord Chief Baron, at the trial of two females,—Amy Dunny and Rose Cullender,—at Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, in the year 1664. They were convicted and executed.

Baxter relates the following circumstance as having occurred at this trial: "A godly minister, yet living, sitting by to see one of the girls (who appeared as a witness against the prisoners) in her fits, suddenly felt a force pull one of the hooks from his breeches; and, while he looked with wonder at what was become of it, the tormented girl vomited it up out of her mouth."

To give an idea of the nature of the testimony upon which the principal stress was laid by the government, I will extract the following passages from the report of the trial: "Robert Sherringham testified that the axle-tree of his cart, happening, in passing, to break some part of Rose Cullender's house, in her anger at it, she vehemently threatened him his horses should suffer for it; and, within a short time, all his four horses died; after which he sustained many other losses, in the sudden dying of his cattle. He was also taken with a lameness in his limbs, and so far vexed with lice of an extraordinary number and bigness, that no art could hinder the swarming of them, till he burned up two suits of apparel."—"Margaret Arnold testified that Amy Dunny afflicted her children: they (the children), she said, would see mice running round the house, and, when they caught them and threw them into the fire, they would screech out like rats."—"A thing like a bee flew at the face of the younger child; the child fell into a fit, and at last vomited up a two-penny nail, with a broad head, affirming that the bee brought this nail, and forced it into her mouth."—"She one day caught an invisible mouse, and, throwing it into the fire, it flashed like to gunpowder. None besides the child saw the mouse, but every one saw the flash!"

In this instance we perceive the influence of prejudice in perverting evidence. The circumstance that the mouse was invisible to all eyes but those of the child ought to have satisfied the Court and jury that she was either under the power of a delusion or practising an imposture. But, as they were predisposed to find something supernatural in the transaction, their minds seized upon the pretended invisibility of the mouse as conclusive proof of diabolical agency.

Many persons who were present expressed the opinion, that the issue of the trial would have been favorable to the prisoners, had it not been for the following circumstance: Sir Thomas Browne, a physician, philosopher, and scholar of unrivalled celebrity at that time, happened to be upon the spot; and it was the universal wish that he should be called to the stand, and his opinion be obtained on the general subject of witchcraft. An enthusiastic contemporary admirer of Sir Thomas Browne thus describes him: "The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so well, that few that are under them knew so much; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact geographical knowledge as if he had been by Divine Providence ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial globe and its products, minerals, plants, and animals." His memory is stated to have been inferior only to that of Seneca or Scaliger; and he was reputed master of seven languages. Dr. Johnson, who has written his biography, sums up his character in the following terms: "But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity, of which he will not easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men: for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success."

Sir Thomas Browne was considered by those of his own generation to have made great advances beyond the wisdom of his age. He claimed the character of a reformer, and gave to his principal publication the title of an "Enquiry into Vulgar Errors." So bold and free were his speculations, that he was looked upon invidiously by many as a daring innovator, and did not escape the denunciatory imputation of heresy. Nothing could be more unjust, however, than this latter charge. He was a most ardent and zealous believer in the doctrines of the Established Church. He declares "that he assumes the honorable style of a Christian," not because "it is the religion of his country," but because, "having in his riper years and confirmed judgment seen and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the principles of grace and the law of his own reason, to embrace no other name but this." He exults and "blesses himself, that he lived not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him, but enjoys that greater blessing pronounced to all that believed, and saw not:" nay, he goes so far as to say, that they only had the advantage "of a bold and noble faith, who lived before the coming of the Saviour, and, upon obscure prophecies and mystical types, could raise a belief." The fact that such a man was accused of infidelity is an affecting proof of the injustice that is sometimes done by the judgment of contemporaries.

This prodigy of learning and philosophy went into Court, took the stand, and declared his opinion in favor of the reality of witchcraft, entered into a particular discussion of the subject before the jury, threw the whole weight of his great name into the wavering scales of justice, and the poor women were convicted. The authority of Sir Thomas Browne, added to the other evidence, perplexed Sir Matthew Hale. A reporter of the trial says, "that it made this great and good man doubtful; but he was in such fears, and proceeded with such caution, that he would not so much as sum up the evidence, but left it to the jury with prayers, 'that the great God of heaven would direct their hearts in that weighty matter.'"

The result of this important trial established decisively the interpretation of English law; and the printed report of it was used as an authoritative text-book in the Court at Salem.

The celebrated Robert Boyle flourished in the latter half of the seventeenth century. He is allowed by all to have done much towards the introduction of an improved philosophy, and the promotion of experimental science. But he could not entirely shake off the superstition of his age.

A small city in Burgundy, called Mascon, was famous in the annals of witchcraft. In a work called "The Theatre of God's Judgments," published, in London, by Thomas Beard in 1612, there is the following passage: "It was a very lamentable spectacle that chanced to the Governor of Mascon, a magician, whom the Devil snatched up in dinner-while, and hoisted aloft, carrying him three times about the town of Mascon, in the presence of many beholders, to whom he cried in this manner, 'Help, help, my friends!' so that the whole town stood amazed thereat; yea, and the remembrance of this strange accident sticketh at this day fast in the minds of all the inhabitants of this country." A malicious and bigoted monk, who discharged the office of chief legend-maker to the Benedictine Abbey, in the vicinity of Mascon, fabricated this ridiculous story for the purpose of bringing the Governor into disrepute. An account of another diabolical visitation, suggested, it is probable, by the one just described, was issued from the press, under the title of "The Devil of Mascon," during the lifetime of Boyle, who gave his sanction to the work, promoted its version into English, and, as late as 1678, publicly declared his belief of the supernatural transaction it related.

The subject of demonology, in all its forms and phases, embracing witchcraft, held a more commanding place throughout Europe, in the literature of the centuries immediately preceding the eighteenth, than any other. Works of the highest pretension, elaborate, learned, voluminous, and exhausting, were published, by the authority of governments and universities, to expound it. It was regarded as occupying the most eminent department of jurisprudence, as well as of science and theology.

Raphael De La Torre and Adam Tanner published treatises establishing the right and duty of ecclesiastical tribunals to punish all who practised or dealt with the arts of demonology. In 1484, Sprenger came out with his famous book, "Malleus Maleficarum;" or, the "Hammer of Witches." Paul Layman, in 1629, issued an elaborate work on "Judicial Processes against Sorcerers and Witches." The following is the title of a bulky volume of some seven hundred pages: "Demonology, or Natural Magic or demoniacal, lawful and unlawful, also open or secret, by the intervention and invocation of a Demon," published in 1612. It consists of four books, treating of the crime of witchcraft, and its punishment in the ordinary tribunals and the Inquisitorial office. Its author was Don Francisco Torreblanca Villalpando, of Cordova, Advocate Royal in the courts of Grenada. It was republished in 1623, by command of Philip III. of Spain, on the recommendation of the Fiscal General, and with the sanction of the Royal Council and the Holy Inquisition. This work may be considered as establishing and defining the doctrines, in reference to witchcraft, prevailing in all Catholic countries. It was indorsed by royal, judicial, academical, and ecclesiastical approval; is replete with extraordinary erudition, arranged in the most scientific form, embracing in a methodical classification all the minutest details of the subject, and codifying it into a complete system of law. There was no particular in all the proceedings and all the doctrines brought out at the trials in Salem, which did not find ample justification and support in this work of Catholic, imperial, and European authority.

But perhaps the writer of the greatest influence on this subject in England and America, during the whole of the seventeenth century, was William Perkins, "the learned, pious, and painful preacher of God's Word, at St. Andrew's, in Cambridge," where he died, in 1602, aged forty-four years. He was quite a voluminous author; and many of his works were translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish. Fuller, in "The Holy State," selects him as the impersonation of the qualities requisite to "the Faithful Minister." In his glowing eulogium upon his learning and talents, he says:—

"He would pronounce the word damne with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in his auditors' ears a good while after. And, when catechist of Christ's College, in expounding the Commandments, applied them so home,—able almost to make his hearers' hearts fall down, and hairs to stand upright. But, in his older age, he altered his voice, and remitted much of his former rigidness, often professing that to preach mercy was that proper office of the ministers of the gospel."—"Our Perkins brought the schools into the pulpit, and, unshelling their controversies out of their hard school-terms, made thereof plain and wholesome meat for his people; for he had a capacious head, with angles winding, and roomy enough to lodge all controversial intricacies."—"He had a rare felicity in speedy reading of books; so that, as it were, riding post through an author, he took strict notice of all passages. Perusing books so speedily, one would think he read nothing; so accurately, one would think he read all."

An octavo volume, written by this great scholar and divine, was published at Cambridge in England, under the title, "Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft." It went through several editions, and had a wide and permanent circulation.

This work, the character of which is sufficiently indicated in its emphatic title, was the great authority on the subject with our fathers; and Mr. Parris had a copy of it in his possession when the proceedings in reference to witchcraft began at Salem Village.

John Gaule published an octavo volume in London, in 1646, entitled, "Select Cases of Conscience concerning Witches and Witchcraft." He is one of the most exact writers on the subject, and arranges witches in the following classes: "1. The diviner, gypsy, or fortune-telling witch; 2. The astrologian, star-gazing, planetary, prognosticating witch; 3. The chanting, canting, or calculating witch, who works by signs and numbers; 4. The venefical, or poisoning witch; 5. The exorcist, or conjuring witch; 6. The gastronomic witch; 7. The magical, speculative, sciential, or arted witch; 8. The necromancer."

Besides innumerable writers of this class, who spread out the scholastic learning on the subject, and presented it in a logical and theological form, there were others who treated it in a more popular style, and invested it with the charms of elegant literature. Henry Hallywell published an octavo in London, in 1681, in which, while the main doctrines of witchcraft as then almost universally received are enforced, an attempt was made to divest it of some of its most repulsive and terrible features. He gives the following account of the means by which a person may place himself beyond the reach of the power of witchcraft:—

The mind of this beautiful writer found encouragement and security in the midst of the diabolical spirits, with whom he believed the world to be infested, in the following views and speculations:—

Spenser has the same imagery and sentiment:—

While there can be no doubt that the superstitious opinions we have been reviewing were diffused generally among the great body of the people of all ranks and conditions, it would be unjust to truth not to mention that there were some persons who looked upon them as empty fables and vain imaginations. Error has never yet made a complete and universal conquest. In the darkest ages and most benighted regions, it has been found impossible utterly to extinguish the light of reason. There always have been some in whose souls the torch of truth has been kept burning with vestal watchfulness: we can discern its glimmer here and there through the deepest night that has yet settled upon the earth. In the midst of the most extravagant superstition, there have been individuals who have disowned the popular belief, and considered it a mark of wisdom and true philosophy to discard the idle fancies and absurd schemes of faith that possessed the minds of the great mass of their contemporaries. This was the case with Horace, as appears from lines thus quite freely but effectively translated:—

The intellect of Seneca also rose above the reach of the popular credulity with respect to the agency of supernatural beings and the efficacy of mysterious charms.

If we could but obtain access to the secret thoughts of the wisest philosophers and of the men of genius of antiquity, we should probably find that many of them were superior to the superstitions of their times. Even in the thick darkness of the dark ages, there were minds too powerful to be kept in chains by error and delusion.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who was born in the latter part of the fifteenth century, was, perhaps, the greatest philosopher and scholar of his period. In early life, he was very much devoted to the science of magic, and was a strenuous supporter of demonology and witchcraft. In the course of his studies and meditations, he was led to a change of views on these subjects, and did all that he could to warn others from putting confidence in such vain, frivolous, and absurd superstitions as then possessed the world. The consequence was, that he was denounced and prosecuted as a conjurer, and charged with having written against magic and witchcraft, in order the more securely to shelter himself from the suspicion of practising them. As an instance of the calumnies that were heaped upon him, I would mention that Paulus Jovius asserted that "Cornelius Agrippa went always accompanied with an evil spirit in the similitude of a black dog;" and that, when the time of his death drew near, "he took off the enchanted collar from the dog's neck, and sent him away with these terms, 'Get thee hence, thou cursed beast, which hast utterly destroyed me:' neither was the dog ever seen after." Butler, in his "Hudibras," has not neglected to celebrate this remarkable connection between Satan and the man of learning:—

John Wierus wrote an elaborate, learned, and judicious book, in which he treated at large of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft, and did all that scholarship, talent, and philosophy could do to undermine and subvert the whole system of the prevailing popular superstition. But he fared no better than his predecessor, patron, and master, Agrippa; for, like him, he was accused of having attempted to persuade the world that there was no reality in supernatural charms and diabolical confederacies, in order that he might devote himself to them without suspicion or molestation, and was borne down by the bigotry and fanaticism of his times.

King James merely gave utterance to the general sentiment, and pronounced the verdict of popular opinion, in the following extract from the preface to his "Demonologie:" "Wierus, a German physician, sets out a public apologie for all these crafts-folkes, whereby, procuring for them impunitie, he plainly bewrays himself to have been of that profession."

In 1584, a quarto volume was published in London, the work of Reginald Scott, a learned English gentleman, whose title sufficiently indicates its import, "The Discovery of Witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notably detected; the knavery of conjurers, the impiety of inchanters, the folly of soothsayers, the impudent falsehood of cozeners, the infidelity of atheists, the pestilent practices of pythonists, the curiosities of figure-casters, the vanity of dreamers, the beggarly art of alcumstrie, the abomination of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the virtue and power of natural magic, and all the conveniencies of legerdemaine and juggling, are discovered, &c."

In 1599, Samuel Harsnett, Archbishop of York, wrote a work, published in London, to expose certain persons who pretended to have the power of casting out devils, and detecting their "deceitful trade." This writer was among the first to bring the power of bold satire and open denunciation to bear against the superstitions of demonology. He thus describes the motives and the methods of such impostors:—

In 1669, a work was published in London with the following title: "The Question of Witchcraft Debated; or, a Discourse against their Opinions that affirm Witches." It is a work of great merit, and would do honor to a scholar and logician of the present day. The author was John Wagstaffe, of Oxford University: he is described as a crooked, shrivelled, little man, of a most despicable appearance. This circumstance, together with his writings against the popular belief in witchcraft, led his academical associates to accuse him, some of them in sport, but others with grave suspicion, of being a wizard. Wood, the historian of Oxford, says that "he died in a manner distracted, occasioned by a deep conceit of his own parts, and by a continual bibbing of strong and high-tasted liquors." But poor Wagstaffe was assailed by something more than private raillery and slander. His heretical sentiments exposed him to the battery of the host of writers who will always be found ready to advocate a prevailing opinion. But Wagstaffe was not left entirely alone to defend the cause of reason and truth. He had one most zealous advocate and ardent admirer in the author of a work on "The Doctrine of Devils," published in 1676. This writer sums up a panegyric upon Wagstaffe's performance, by pronouncing it "a judicious book, that contains more good reason, true religion, and right Christianity, than all those lumps and cartloads of luggage that hath been fardled up by all the faggeters of demonologistical winter-tales, and witchcraftical legendaries, since they first began to foul clean paper."

Dr. Balthasar Bekker, of Amsterdam, who was equally eminent in astronomy, philosophy, and theology, published in 1691 a learned and powerful work, called "The World Bewitched," in which he openly assailed the doctrines of witchcraft and of the Devil, and anticipated many of the views and arguments presented in Farmer's excellent publications. As a reward for his exertions to enlighten his fellow-creatures, he was turned out of the ministry, and assaulted by nearly all the writers of his age.

Dr. Bekker was one of the ablest and boldest writers of his day, and did much to advance the cause of natural science, scriptural interpretation, and the principles of enlightened Christianity. In 1680 he published an "Inquiry concerning Comets," rescuing them from the realm of superstition, placing them within the natural physical laws, and exploding the then-received opinion, that, in any way, they are the presages or forerunners of evil. His "Exposition on the Prophet Daniel" gives proof of his learning and judgment. His great merits were recognized by John Locke and Richard Bentley. In the preface to his "World Bewitched," he says, that it grieved him to see the great honors, powers, and miracles which are ascribed to the Devil. "It has come to that pass," to use his own language, "that men think it piety and godliness to ascribe a great many wonders to the Devil, and impiety and heresy, if a man will not believe that the Devil can do what a thousand persons say he does. It is now reckoned godliness, if a man who fears God fear also the Devil. If he be not afraid of the Devil, he passes for an atheist, who does not believe in God, because he cannot think that there are two gods, the one good, the other bad. But these, I think, with much more reason, may be called ditheists. For my part, if, on account of my opinion, they will give me a new name, let them call me a monotheist, a believer of but one God." The work struck down the whole system of demonology and witchcraft, by proving that there never was really such a thing as sorcery or possession, and that devils have no influence over human affairs or the persons of men. It is not surprising that it raised a great clamor. The wonder is that it did not cost him his life. It is probable that his protection was the confidence the people had in his character and learning. Attempts were made to diminish that confidence, and bring him into odium, by levelling against him every form of abuse. A medal was struck, and extensively circulated, representing the Devil, clothed like a minister or priest, riding on an ass. The device was so arranged as to excite ridicule and abhorrence, in the vulgar mind, against Bekker. But it was found impossible to turn the popular feeling, which had set in his favor; and his persecutors and defamers were completely baffled. He was followed, soon after, by the learned Thomasius, whose writings against demonology produced a decided effect upon the convictions of the age.

While Bekker, and the other writers of his class, endeavored to overthrow the superstitious practices and fancies then prevalent respecting demonology and communications with spiritual beings, they so far acceded to the popular theology as to maintain the doctrine of the personality of the Devil. They believed in the existence of the arch-fiend, but denied his agency in human affairs. They held that he was kept confined "to bottomless perdition, there to dwell—

Sir Robert Filmer, in 1680, published "An Advertisement to the jurymen of England, touching Witches," in which he criticised and condemned many of the opinions and methods then countenanced on the subject.

But Bekker, Thomasius, and Filmer appeared too late to operate upon the prevalent opinions of Europe or America prior to the witchcraft delusion of 1692. The productions of the other writers, in the same direction, to whom I have referred, probably had a very limited circulation, and made at the time but little impression. Error is seldom overthrown by mere reasoning. It yields only to the logic of events. No power of learning or wit could have rooted the witchcraft superstitions out of the minds of men. Nothing short of a demonstration of their deformities, follies, and horrors, such as here was held up to the view of the world, could have given their death-blow. This was the final cause of Salem Witchcraft, and makes it one of the great landmarks in the world's history.

A full and just view of the position and obligations of the persons who took part in the transactions at Salem requires a previous knowledge of the principles and the state of the law, as it was then in force and understood by the courts, and all concerned in judicial proceedings. Although the ancients did not regard pretended intercourse between magicians and enchanters and spiritual beings as necessarily or always criminal, we find that they enacted laws against the abuse of the power supposed to result from the connection. The old Roman code of the Twelve Tables contained the following prohibition: "That they should not bewitch the fruits of the earth, nor use any charms, to draw their neighbor's corn into their own fields." There were several special edicts on the subject during the existence of the Roman State. In the early Christian councils, sorcery was frequently made the object of denunciation. At Laodicea, for instance, in the year 364, it was voted to excommunicate any clergymen who were magicians, enchanters, astrologers, or mathematicians! The Bull of Pope Innocent VIII., near the close of the fifteenth century, has already been mentioned.

Dr. Turner, in his history of the Anglo-Saxons, says that they had laws against sorcerers and witches, but that they did not punish them with death. There was an English statute against witchcraft, in the reign of Henry VIII., and another in that of Elizabeth.

Up to this time, however, the legislation of parliament on the subject was merciful and judicious: for it did not attach to the guilt of witchcraft the punishment of death, unless it had been used to destroy life; that is, unless it had become murder.

On the demise of Elizabeth, James of Scotland ascended the throne. His pedantic and eccentric character is well known. He had an early and decided inclination towards abstruse or mysterious speculations. Before he had reached his twentieth year, he undertook to accomplish what only the most sanguine and profound theologians have ever dared to attempt: he expounded the Book of Revelation. When he was about twenty-five years of age, he published a work on the "Doctrine of Devils and Witchcraft." Not long after, he succeeded to the British crown. It may easily be imagined that the subject of demonology soon became a fashionable and prevailing topic of conversation in the royal saloons and throughout the nation. It served as a medium through which obsequious courtiers could convey their flattery to the ears of their accomplished and learned sovereign. His Majesty's book was reprinted and extensively circulated. It was of course praised and recommended in all quarters.

The parliament, actuated by a base desire to compliment the vain and superstitious king, enacted a new and much more severe statute against witchcraft, in the very first year of his reign. It was under this law that so many persons here and in England were deprived of their lives. The blood of hundreds of innocent persons was thus unrighteously shed. It was a fearful price which these servile lawgivers paid for the favor of their prince.

But this was not the only mischief brought about by courtly deference to the prejudices of King James. It was under his direction that our present translation of the Scriptures was made. To please His Royal Majesty, and to strengthen the arguments in his work on demonology, the word "witch" was used to represent expressions in the original Hebrew, that conveyed an entirely different idea; and it was freely inserted in the headings of the chapters.[B] A person having "a familiar spirit" was a favorite description of a witch in the king's book. The translators, forgetful of their high and solemn function, endeavored to establish this definition by inserting it into their version. Accordingly, they introduced it in several places; in the eleventh verse of the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, for instance, "a consulter with familiar spirits." There is no word in the Hebrew which corresponds with "familiar." And this is the important, the essential word in the definition. It conveys the idea of alliance, stated connection, confederacy, or compact, which is characteristic and distinctive of a witch. The expression in the original signifies "a consulter with spirits,"—especially, as was the case with the "Witch of Endor," a consulter with departed spirits. It was a shocking perversion of the word of God, for the purpose of flattering a frail and mortal sovereign! King James lived to see and acknowledge the error of his early opinions, and he would gladly have counteracted their bad effect; but it is easier to make laws and translations than it is to alter and amend them.

While the law of the land required the capital punishment of witches, no blame ought to be attached to judges and jurors for discharging their respective duties in carrying it into execution. It will not do for us to assert, that they ought to have refused, let the consequences to themselves have been what they would, to sanction and give effect to such inhuman and unreasonable enactments. We cannot consistently take this ground; for there is nothing more certain than that, with their notions, our ancestors had at least as good reasons to advance in favor of punishing witchcraft with death, as we have for punishing any crime whatsoever in the same awful and summary manner. We appeal, in defence of our capital punishments, to the text of Moses, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The apologist of our fathers, for carrying into effect the law making witchcraft a capital offence, tells us in reply, in the first place, that this passage is not of the nature of a precept, but merely of an admonition; that it does not enjoin any particular method of proceeding, but simply describes the natural consequences of cruel and contentious conduct; and that it amounts only to this: that quarrelsome, violent, and bloodthirsty persons will be apt to meet the same fate they bring upon others; that the duellist will be likely to fall in private combat, the ambitious conqueror to perish, and the warlike nation to be destroyed, on the field of battle. If this is not considered by us a sufficient and satisfactory answer, he advances to our own ground, points to the same text where we place our defence, and puts his finger on the following plain and authoritative precept: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Indeed we must acknowledge, that the capital punishment of witches is as strongly supported and fortified by the Scriptures of the Old Testament—at least, as they appear in our present version—as the capital punishment of any crime whatever.

If we adopt another line of argument, and say that it is necessary to punish some particular crimes with death, in order to maintain the security of society, or hold up an impressive warning to others, here also we find that our opponent has full as much to offer in defence of our fathers as can be offered in our own defence. He describes to us the tremendous and infernal power which was universally believed by them to be possessed by a witch; a power which, as it was not derived from a natural source, could not easily be held in check by natural restraints: neither chains nor dungeons could bind it down or confine it. You might load the witch with irons, you might bury her in the lowest cell of a feudal prison, and still it was believed that she could send forth her imps or her spectre to ravage the fields, and blight the meadows, and throw the elements into confusion, and torture the bodies, and craze the minds, of any who might be the objects of her malice.

Shakspeare, in the description which he puts into the mouth of Macbeth of the supernatural energy of witchcraft, does not surpass, if he does justice to, the prevailing belief on the subject:—

There was indeed an almost infinite power to do mischief associated with a disposition to do it. No human strength could strip the witch of these mighty energies while she lived; nothing but death could destroy them. There was, as our ancestors considered, incontestable evidence, that she had put them forth to the injury, loss, and perhaps death, of others.

Can it be wondered at, that, under such circumstances, the law connecting capital punishment with the guilt of witchcraft was resorted to as the only means to protect society, and warn others from entering into the dark, wicked, and malignant compact?

It is not probable that even King James's Parliament would have been willing to go to the length of Selden in his "Table-Talk," who takes this ground in defence of the capital punishment of witches. "The law against witches does not prove there be any, but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives. If one should profess, that, by turning his hat thrice and crying 'Buzz,' he could take away a man's life (though in truth he could do no such thing), yet this were a just law made by the State, that whoever should turn his hat thrice and cry 'Buzz,' with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death."

There are other considerations that deserve to be weighed before a final judgment should be made up respecting the conduct of our fathers in the witchcraft delusion. Among these is the condition of physical science in their day. But little knowledge of the laws of nature was possessed, and that little was confined to a few. The world was still, to the mass of the people, almost as full of mystery in its physical departments as it was to its first inhabitants. Politics, poetry, rhetoric, ethics, and history had been cultivated to a great extent in previous ages; but the philosophy of the natural and material world was almost unknown. Astronomy, chemistry, optics, pneumatics, and even geography, were involved in the general darkness and error. Some of our most important sciences, such as electricity, date their origin from a later period.

This remarkable tardiness in the progress of physical science for some time after the era of the revival of learning is to be accounted for by referring to the erroneous methods of reasoning and observation then prevalent in the world. A false logic was adopted in the schools of learning and philosophy. The great instrument for the discovery and investigation of truth was the syllogism, the most absurd contrivance of the human mind; an argumentative process whose conclusion is contained in the premises; a method of proof, in the first step of which the matter to be proved is taken for granted.[C] In a word, the whole system of philosophy was made up of hypotheses, and the only foundation of science was laid in conjecture. The imagination, called necessarily into extraordinary action, in the absence of scientific certainty, was still further exercised in vain attempts to discover, unassisted by observation and experiment, the elements and first principles of nature. It had reached a monstrous growth about the time to which we are referring. Indeed it may be said, that all the intellectual productions of modern times, from the seventeenth century back to the dark ages, were works of imagination. The bulkiest and most voluminous writings that proceeded from the cloisters or the universities, even the metaphysical disquisitions of the Nominalists and Realists, and the boundless subtleties of the contending schools of the "Divine Doctors," Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, fall under this description. Dull, dreary, unintelligible, and interminable as they are, they are still in reality works of fancy. They are the offspring, almost exclusively, of the imaginative faculty. It ought not to create surprise, to find that this faculty predominated in the minds and characters of our ancestors, and developed itself to an extent beyond our conception, when we reflect that it was almost the only one called into exercise, and that it was the leading element of every branch of literature and philosophy.

It is true, that, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, Lord Bacon made his sublime discoveries in the department of physical science. By disclosing the true method of investigation and reasoning on such subjects, he may be said to have found, or rather to have invented, the key that unlocked the hitherto unopened halls of nature. He introduced man to the secret chambers of the universe, and placed in his hand the thread by which he has been conducted to the magnificent results of modern science, and will undoubtedly be led on to results still more magnificent in times to come. But it was not for human nature to pass in a moment from darkness to light. The transition was slow and gradual: a long twilight intervened before the sun shed its clear and full radiance upon the world.

The great discoverer himself refused to admit, or was unable to discern, some of the truths his system had revealed. Bacon was numbered among the opponents of the Copernican or true system of astronomy to the day of his death; so also was Sir Thomas Browne, the great philosopher already described, and who flourished during the latter half of the same century. Indeed, it may be said, that, at the time of the witchcraft delusion, the ancient empire of darkness which had oppressed and crushed the world of science had hardly been shaken. The great and triumphant progress of modern discovery had scarcely begun.

I shall now proceed to illustrate these views of the state of science in the world at that time by presenting a few instances. The slightest examination of the accounts which remain of occurrences deemed supernatural by our ancestors will satisfy any one that they were brought about by causes entirely natural, although unknown to them. For instance, the following circumstances are related by the Rev. James Pierpont, pastor of a church in New Haven, in a letter to Cotton Mather, and published by him in his "Magnalia:"[D]—

In the year 1646, a new ship, containing a valuable cargo, and having several distinguished persons on board as passengers, put to sea from New Haven in the month of January, bound to England. The vessels that came over the ensuing spring brought no tidings of her arrival in the mother-country. The pious colonists were earnest and instant in their prayers that intelligence might be received of the missing vessel. In the month of June, 1648, "a great thunder-storm arose out of the north-west; after which (the hemisphere being serene), about an hour before sunset, a ship of like dimensions with the aforesaid, with her canvas and colors abroad (although the wind was northerly), appeared in the air, coming up from the harbor's mouth, which lies southward from the town,—seemingly with her sails filled under a fresh gale, holding her course north, and continuing under observation, sailing against the wind for the space of half an hour." The phantom-ship was borne along, until, to the excited imaginations of the spectators, she seemed to have approached so near that they could throw a stone into her. Her main-topmast then disappeared, then her mizzen-topmast; then her masts were entirely carried away; and, finally, her hull fell off, and vanished from sight,—leaving a dull and smoke-colored cloud, which soon dissolved, and the whole atmosphere became clear. All affirmed that the airy vision was a precise copy and image of the missing vessel, and that it was sent to announce and describe her fate. They considered it the spectre of the lost ship; and the Rev. Mr. Davenport declared in public, "that God had condescended, for the quieting their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many fervent prayers were made continually."

The results of modern science enable us to explain the mysterious appearance. It is probable that some Dutch vessel, proceeding slowly, quietly, and unconsciously on her voyage from Amsterdam to the New Netherlands, happened at the time to be passing through the Sound. At the moment the apparition was seen in the sky, she was so near, that her reflected image was painted or delineated, to the eyes of the observers, on the clouds, by laws of optics now generally well known, before her actual outlines could be discerned by them on the horizon. As the sun sunk behind the western hills, and his rays were gradually withdrawn, the visionary ship slowly disappeared; and the approach of night effectually concealed the vessel as she continued her course along the Sound.

The optical illusions that present themselves on the sea-shore, by which distant objects are raised to view, the opposite capes and islands made to loom up, lifted above the line of the apparent circumference of the earth, and thrown into every variety of shape which the imagination can conceive, are among the most beautiful phenomena of nature; and they impress the mind with the idea of enchantment and mystery, more perhaps than any others: but they have received a complete solution from modern discovery.

It should be observed, that the optical principles which explain these phenomena have recently afforded a foundation for the science, or rather art, of nauscopy; and there are persons in some places,—in the Isle of France, as I have been told,—whose calling and profession is to ascertain and predict the approach of vessels, by their reflection in the atmosphere and on the clouds, long before they are visible to the eye, or through the glass.

The following opinion prevailed at the time of our narrative. The discoveries in electricity, itself a recent science, have rendered it impossible for us to contemplate it without ridicule. But it was the sober opinion of the age. "A great man has noted it," says a learned writer, "that thunders break oftener on churches than any other houses, because demons have a peculiar spite at houses that are set apart for the peculiar service of God."

Every thing that was strange or remarkable—every thing at all out of the usual course, every thing that was not clear and plain—was attributed to supernatural interposition. Indeed, our fathers lived, as they thought, continually in the midst of miracles; and felt themselves surrounded, at all times, in all scenes, with innumerable invisible beings. The beautiful verse of Milton describes their faith:—

What was to him, however, a momentary vision of the imagination, was to them like a perpetual perception of the senses: it was a practical belief, an everyday common sentiment, an all-pervading feeling. But these supernatural beings very frequently were believed to have become visible to our superstitious ancestors. The instances, indeed, were not rare, of individuals having seen the Devil himself with their mortal eyes. They may well be brought to notice, as illustrating the ideas which then prevailed, and had an immediate, practical effect on the conduct of men, in reference to the power, presence, and action of the Devil in human affairs. This, in fact, is necessary, that we may understand the narrative we are preparing to contemplate of transactions based wholly on those ideas.

The following passage is extracted from a letter written to Increase Mather by the Rev. John Higginson:—

Kircher relates the following anecdote, with a full belief of its truth: He had a friend who was zealously and perseveringly devoted to the study of alchemy. At one time, while he was intent upon his operations, a gentleman entered his laboratory, and kindly offered to assist him. In a few moments, a large mass of the purest gold was brought forth from the crucible. The gentleman then took his hat, and went out: before leaving the apartment, however, he wrote a recipe for making the precious article. The grateful and admiring mortal continued his operations, according to the directions of his visitor; but the charm was lost: he could not succeed, and was at last completely ruined by his costly and fruitless experiments. Both he and his friend Kircher were fully persuaded that the mysterious stranger-visitor was the Devil.

Baxter has recorded a curious interview between Satan and Mr. White, of Dorchester, assessor to the Westminster Assembly:—

"The Devil, in a light night, stood by his bedside. The assessor looked a while, whether he would say or do any thing, and then said, 'If thou hast nothing to do, I have;' and so turned himself to sleep." Dr. Hibbert is of opinion, that the Rev. Mr. White treated his satanic majesty, on this occasion, with "a cool contempt, to which he had not often been accustomed."

Indeed, there is nothing more curious or instructive, in the history of that period, than the light which it sheds upon the influence of the belief of the personal existence and operations of the Devil, when that belief is carried out fully into its practical effects. The Christian doctrine had relapsed into a system almost identical with Manicheism. Wierus thus describes Satan, as he was regarded in the prevalent theology: "He possesses great courage, incredible cunning, superhuman wisdom, the most acute penetration, consummate prudence, an incomparable skill in veiling the most pernicious artifices under a specious disguise, and a malicious and infinite hatred towards the human race, implacable and incurable." Milton merely responded to the popular sentiment in making Satan a character of lofty dignity, and in placing him on an elevation not "less than archangel ruined." Hallywell, in his work on witchcraft, declares that "that mighty angel of darkness is not foolishly nor idly to be scoffed at or blasphemed. The Devil," says he, "may properly be looked upon as a dignity, though his glory be pale and wan, and those once bright and orient colors faded and darkened in his robes; and the Scriptures represent him as a prince, though it be of devils." Although our fathers cannot be charged with having regarded the Devil in this respectful and deferential light, it must be acknowledged that they gave him a conspicuous and distinguished—we might almost say a dignified—agency in the affairs of life and the government of the world: they were prone to confess, if not to revere, his presence, in all scenes and at all times. He occupied a wide space, not merely in their theology and philosophy, but in their daily and familiar thoughts.[E]

Cotton Mather, in one of his sermons, carries home this peculiar belief to the consciences of his hearers, in a manner that could not have failed to quicken and startle the most dull and drowsy among them.

It is very remarkable, that such a train of thought as this did not suggest to the mind of Dr. Mather the true doctrine of the Bible respecting the Devil. One would have supposed, that, in carrying out the mode of speaking of him as a person to this extent, it would have occurred to him, that it might be that the scriptural expressions of a similar kind were also mere personifications of moral and abstract ideas. In describing the inattention, irreverence, and unholy reflections of his hearers as the operations of the Devil, it is wonderful that his eyes were not opened to discern the import of our Saviour's interpretation of the Parable of the Tares, in which he declares, that he understands by the Devil whatever obstructs the growth of virtue and piety in the soul, the causes that efface good impressions and give a wrong inclination to the thoughts and affections, such as "the cares of this world" or "the deceitfulness of riches." By these are the tares planted, and by these is their growth promoted. "The enemy that sowed them is the Devil."

Satan was regarded as the foe and opposer of all improvement in knowledge and civilization. The same writer thus quaintly expresses this opinion: He "has hindered mankind, for many ages, from hitting those useful inventions which yet were so obvious and facile that it is everybody's wonder that they were not sooner hit upon. The bemisted world must jog on for thousands of years without the knowledge of the loadstone, till a Neapolitan stumbled upon it about three hundred years ago. Nor must the world be blessed with such a matchless engine of learning and virtue as that of printing, till about the middle of the fifteenth century. Nor could one old man, all over the face of the whole earth, have the benefit of such a little, though most needful, thing as a pair of spectacles, till a Dutchman, a little while ago, accommodated us. Indeed, as the Devil does begrudge us all manner of good, so he does annoy us with all manner of woe." In one of his sermons, Cotton Mather claimed for himself and his clerical brethren the honor of being particularly obnoxious to the malice of the Evil One. "The ministers of God," says he, "are more dogged by the Devil than other persons are."

Without a knowledge of this sentiment, the witchcraft delusion of our fathers cannot be understood. They were under an impression, that the Devil, having failed to prevent the progress of knowledge in Europe, had abandoned his efforts to obstruct it effectually there; had withdrawn into the American wilderness, intending here to make a final stand; and had resolved to retain an undiminished empire over the whole continent and his pagan allies, the native inhabitants. Our fathers accounted for the extraordinary descent and incursions of the Evil One among them, in 1692, on the supposition that it was a desperate effort to prevent them from bringing civilization and Christianity within his favorite retreat; and their souls were fired with the glorious thought, that, by carrying on the war with vigor against him and his confederates, the witches, they would become chosen and honored instruments in the hand of God for breaking down and abolishing the last stronghold on the earth of the kingdom of darkness.

That this opinion was not merely a conceit of their vanity, or an overweening estimate of their local importance, but a calm, deliberate conviction entertained by others as well as themselves, can be shown by abundant evidence from the literature of that period. I will quote a single illustration of the form in which this thought occupied their minds. The subject is worthy of being thoroughly appreciated, as it affords the key that opens to view the motives and sentiments which gave the mighty impetus to the witchcraft prosecution here in New England.

Joseph Mede, B.D., Fellow of Christ's College, in Cambridge, England, died in 1638, at the age of fifty-three years. He was perhaps, all things considered, the most profound scholar of his times. His writings give evidence of a brilliant genius and an enlightened spirit. They were held in the highest esteem by his contemporaries of all denominations, and in all parts of Europe. He was a Churchman; but had, to a remarkable degree, the confidence of nonconformists. He entertained, as will appear by what follows, in the boldest form, the then prevalent opinions concerning diabolical agency and influence; but, at the same time, was singularly free from some of the worst traits of superstition and bigotry. His intimacy with the learned Dr. William Ames, and the general tone and tendency of his writings, naturally made him an authority with Protestants, particularly the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England. His posthumous writings, published in 1652, are exceedingly interesting. They contain fragments found among his papers, brief discussions of points of criticism, philosophy, and theology, and a varied correspondence on such subjects with eminent men of his day. Among his principal correspondents was Dr. William Twiss, himself a person of much ingenious learning, and whom John Norton, as we are told by Cotton Mather, "loved and admired" above all men of that age. The following passages between them illustrate the point before us.

In a letter dated March 2, 1634, Twiss writes thus:—

"Now, I beseech you, let me know what your opinion is of our English plantations in the New World. Heretofore, I have wondered in my thoughts at the providence of God concerning that world; not discovered till this Old World of ours is almost at an end; and then no footsteps found of the knowledge of the true God, much less of Christ; and then considering our English plantations of late, and the opinion of many grave divines concerning the gospel's fleeting westward. Sometimes I have had such thoughts, Why may not that be the place of the New Jerusalem? But you have handsomely and fully cleared me from such odd conceits. But what, I pray? Shall our English there degenerate, and join themselves with Gog and Magog? We have heard lately divers ways, that our people there have no hope of the conversion of the natives. And, the very week after I received your last letter, I saw a letter, written from New England, discoursing of an impossibility of subsisting there; and seems to prefer the confession of God's truth in any condition here in Old England, rather than run over to enjoy their liberty there; yea, and that the gospel is like to be more dear in New England than in Old. And, lastly, unless they be exceeding careful, and God wonderfully merciful, they are like to lose that life and zeal for God and his truth in New England which they enjoyed in Old; as whereof they have already woful experience, and many there feel it to their smart."

Mr. Mede's answer was as follows:—

Dr. Twiss, in a reply to the above, dated April 6, 1635, thanks Mede for his letter, which he says he read "with recreation and delight;" and, particularly in reference to the "peopling of the New World," he affirms that there is "more in this letter of yours than formerly I have been acquainted with. Your conceit thereabouts, if I have any judgment, is grave and ponderous."

This correspondence, while it serves as a specimen of the style of Mede, is a remarkable instance of the power of a sagacious intellect to penetrate through the darkness of theoretical and fanciful errors, and behold the truth that lies behind and beyond. The whole superstructure of the Devil, his oracles, and his schemes of policy and dominion, covers, in this brief familiar epistle, what is, I suppose, the theory most accredited at this day of the origin and traduction of the aboriginal races of America, proceeding from the nearest portions of the ancient continent on the North, and advancing down over the vast spaces towards Central and South America. The letter also foreshadows the decisive conflict which is here to be waged between the elements of freedom and slavery, between social and political systems that will rescue and exalt humanity, and those which depress and degrade it. In the phraseology of that age, it was to be determined whether—the Old World, in the language of Twiss, "being almost at an end"—a "light" should be "set up" here to usher in the "kingdom of Christ," or America also be for ever given over to the "army of Gog and Magog."

Our fathers were justified in feeling that this was the sense of their responsibility entertained by all learned men and true Christians in the Old World; and they were ready to meet and discharge it faithfully and manfully. They were told, and they believed, that it had fallen to their lot to be the champions of the cross of Christ against the power of the Devil. They felt, as I have said, that they were fighting him in his last stronghold, and they were determined to "tie him up" for ever.

This is the true and just explanation of their general policy of administration, in other matters, as well as in the witchcraft prosecutions.

The conclusion to which we are brought, by a review of the seventeenth century up to the period when the prosecutions took place here, is, that the witchcraft delusion pervaded the whole civilized world and every profession and department of society. It received the sanction of all the learned and distinguished English judges who flourished within the century, from Sir Edward Coke to Sir Matthew Hale. It was countenanced by the greatest philosophers and physicians, and was embraced by men of the highest genius and accomplishments, even by Lord Bacon himself. It was established by the convocation of bishops, and preached by the clergy. Dr. Henry More, of Christ's College, Cambridge, in addition to his admirable poetical and philosophical works, wrote volumes to defend it. It was considered as worthy of the study of the most cultivated and liberal minds to discover and distinguish "a true witch by proper trials and symptoms." The excellent Dr. Calamy has already been mentioned in this connection; and Richard Baxter wrote his work entitled "The Certainty of the World of Spirits," for the special purpose of confirming and diffusing the belief. He kept up a correspondence with Cotton Mather, and with his father, Increase Mather, through the medium of which he stimulated and encouraged them in their proceedings against supposed witches in Boston and elsewhere. The divines of that day seem to have persuaded themselves into the belief that the doctrines of demonology were essential to the gospel, and that the rejection of them was equivalent to infidelity. A writer in one of our modern journals, in speaking of the prosecutions for witchcraft, happily and justly observes, "It was truly hazardous to oppose those judicial murders. If any one ventured to do so, the Catholics burned him as a heretic, and the Protestants had a vehement longing to hang him for an atheist." The writings of Dr. More, of Baxter, Glanvil, Perkins, and others, had been circulating for a long time in New England before the trials began at Salem. It was such a review of the history of opinion as we have now made, which led Dr. Bentley to declare that "the agency of invisible beings, if not a part of every religion, is not contrary to any one. It may be found in all ages, and in the most remote countries. It is then no just subject for our admiration, that a belief so alarming to our fears, so natural to our prejudices, and so easily abused by superstition, should obtain among our fathers, when it had not been rejected in the ages of philosophy, letters, and even revelation."

The works on demonology, the legal proceedings in prosecutions, and the phraseology of the people, gave more or less definite form to certain prominent points which may be summarily noticed. Several terms and expressions were employed to characterize persons supposed to be conversant with supernatural and magic art; such as diviner, enchanter, charmer, conjurer, necromancer, fortune-teller, soothsayer, augur, and sorcerer. These words are sometimes used as more or less synonymous, although, strictly speaking, they have meanings quite distinct. But none of them convey the idea attached to the name of witch. It was sometimes especially used to signify a female, while wizard was exclusively applied to a male. The distinction was not, however, often attempted to be made; the former title being prevailingly applied to either sex. A witch was regarded as a person who had made an actual, deliberate, formal compact with Satan, by which it was agreed that she should become his faithful subject, and do all in her power to aid him in his rebellion against God and his warfare against the gospel and church of Christ; and, in consideration of such allegiance and service, Satan, on his part, agreed to exercise his supernatural powers in her favor, and communicate to her those powers, in a greater or less degree, as she proved herself an efficient and devoted supporter of his cause. Thus, a witch was considered as a person who had transferred allegiance and worship from God to the Devil.

The existence of this compact was supposed to confer great additional power on the Devil, as well as on his new subject; for the doctrine seems to have prevailed, that, for him to act with effect upon men, the intervention, instrumentality, and co-operation of human beings was necessary; and almost unlimited potency was ascribed to the combined exertions of Satan and those persons in league with him. A witch was believed to have the power, through her compact with the Devil, of afflicting, distressing, and rending whomsoever she would. She could cause them to pine away, throw them into the most frightful convulsions, choke, bruise, pierce, and craze them, subjecting them to every description of pain, disease, and torture, and even to death itself. She was believed to possess the faculty of being present, in her shape or apparition, at a different place, at any distance whatever, from that which her actual body occupied. Indeed, an indefinite amount of supernatural ability, and a boundless freedom and variety of methods for its exercise, were supposed to result from the diabolical compact. Those upon whom she thus exercised her malignant and mysterious energies were said to be bewitched.

Beside these infernal powers, the alliance with Satan was believed to confer knowledge such as no other mortal possessed. The witch could perform the same wonders, in giving information of the things that belong to the invisible world, which is alleged in our day, by spirit-rappers, to be received through mediums. She could read inmost thoughts, suggest ideas to the minds of the absent, throw temptations in the path of those whom she desired to delude and destroy, bring up the spirits of the departed, and hear from them the secrets of their lives and of their deaths, and their experiences in the scenes of being on which they entered at their departure from this.

When we consider that these opinions were not merely prevalent among the common people, but sanctioned by learning and philosophy, science and jurisprudence; that they possessed an authority, which but few ventured to question and had been firmly established by the convictions of centuries,—none can be surprised at the alarm it created, when the belief became current, that there were those in the community, and even in the churches, who had actually entered into this dark confederacy against God and heaven, religion and virtue; and that individuals were beginning to suffer from their diabolical power. It cannot be considered strange, that men looked with more than common horror upon persons against whom what was regarded as overwhelming evidence was borne of having engaged in this conspiracy with all that was evil, and this treason against all that was good.

Elaborate works, scientific, philosophical, and judicial in their pretensions and reputation,—to some of which reference has been made,—defined and particularized the various forms of evidence by which the crime of confederacy with Satan could be proved.

It was believed that the Devil affixed his mark to the bodies of those in alliance with him, and that the point where this mark was made became callous and dead. The law provided, specifically, the means of detecting and identifying this sign. It required that the prisoner should be subjected to the scrutiny of a jury of the same sex, who would make a minute inspection of the body, shaving the head and handling every part. They would pierce it with pins; and if, as might have been expected, particularly in aged persons, any spot could be found insensible to the torture, or any excrescence, induration, or fixed discoloration, it was looked upon as visible evidence and demonstration of guilt. A physician or "chirurgeon" was required to be present at these examinations. In conducting them, there was liability to great roughness and unfeeling recklessness of treatment; and the whole procedure was barbarous and shocking to every just and delicate sensibility. There is reason to believe, that, in the trials here, there was more considerateness, humanity, and regard to a sense of decent propriety, than in similar proceedings in other countries, so far as this branch of the investigation is regarded.

Another accredited field of evidence, recognized in the books and in legal proceedings, was as follows: It was believed, that, when witches found it inconvenient from any cause to execute their infernal designs upon those whom they wished to afflict by going to them in their natural human persons, they transformed themselves into the likeness of some animal,—a dog, hog, cat, rat, mouse, or toad; birds—particularly yellow birds—were often imagined to perform this service, as representing witches or the Devil. They also had imps under their control. These imps were generally supposed to bear the resemblance of some small insect,—such as a fly or a spider. The latter animal was prevailingly considered as most likely to act in this character. The accused person was closely watched, in order that the spider imp might be seen when it approached to obtain its nourishment, as it was thought to do, from the witchmark on the body of the culprit. Within the cells of a prison, spiders were, of course, often seen. Whenever one made its appearance, the guard attacked it with all the zeal and vehemence with which it was natural and proper to assault an agent of the Wicked One. If the spider was killed in the encounter, it was considered as an innocent animal, and all suspicion was removed from its character as the diabolical confederate of the prisoner; but if it escaped into a crack or crevice of the apartment, as spiders often do when assailed, all doubt of its guilty connection with the person accused of witchcraft was removed: it was set down as, beyond question or cavil, her veritable imp; and the evidence of her confederacy with Satan was thenceforward regarded as complete. The books of law and other learned writings, as well as the practice of courts in the old countries, recognized this doctrine of transformation into the shapes of animals, and the employment of imps. Where judicial tribunals countenanced the popular credulity in maintaining these ideas, there was no security for innocence, and no escape from wrong. No matter how clear and certain the evidence adduced, that an accused individual, at the time alleged, was absent from the specified place; no matter how far distant, whether twenty or a thousand miles, it availed him nothing; for it was charged that he was present, and acted through his agent or imp. This notion was further enlarged by the establishment of the additional doctrine, that a witch could be present, and act with demoniac power upon her victims, anywhere, at all times, and at any distance, without the instrumental agency of any other animal or being, in her spirit, spectre, or apparition. When the person on trial was accused of having tortured or strangled or pinched or bruised another, it did not break the force of the accusation to bring hundreds of witnesses to prove that he was, at the very time, in another remote place or country; for it was alleged that he was present in the spectral shape in which Satan enabled his spirit to be and to act any and every where at once. It was impossible to disprove the charge, and the last defence of innocence was swept away.

If any thing strange or remarkable could be discovered in the persons, histories, or deportment of accused persons, the usage of the tribunals, and the books of authority on the subject, allowed it to be brought in evidence against them. If any thing they had forewarned, or even conjectured, happened to come to pass, any careless speech had been verified by events, any extraordinary knowledge had been manifested, or any marvellous feats of strength or agility been displayed, they were brought up with decisive and fatal effect.

A witch was believed to have the power of operating upon her victims, at any distance, by the instrumentality of puppets. She would procure or make an object like a doll, or a figure of some animal,—any little bunch of cloth or bundle of rags would answer the purpose. She would will the puppet to represent the person whom she proposed to torment or afflict; and then whatever she did to the puppet would be suffered by the party it represented at any distance, however remote. A pin stuck into the puppet would pierce the flesh of the person whom she wished to afflict, and produce the appropriate sensations of pain. So would a pinch, or a blow, or any kind of violence. When any one was arrested on the charge of witchcraft, a search was immediately made for puppets from garret to cellar; and if any thing could be found that might possibly be imagined to possess that character,—any remnant of flannel or linen wrapped up, the foot of an old stocking, or a cushion of any kind, particularly if there were any pins in it,—it was considered as weighty and quite decisive evidence against the accused party.

A writer, in a recent number of the "North-American Review," on the superstitions of the American Indians, makes the following statement:—

It was a received opinion, accredited and acted upon in courts, that a person in confederacy with the Evil One could not weep. Those accused of this crime, both in Europe and America, were, in many instances, of an age and condition which rendered it impossible for them, however innocent, to escape the effect of this test. A decrepit, emaciated person, shrivelled and desiccated by age, was placed at the bar: and if she could not weep on the spot; if, in consequence of her withered frame, her amazement and indignation at the false and malignant charges by which she was circumvented, her exhausted sensibility, her sullen despair, the hopeless horror of her situation, or, from what often was found to be the effect of the treatment such persons received, a high-toned consciousness of innocence, and a brave defiance and stern condemnation of her maligners and persecutors; if, from any cause, the fountain of tears was closed or dried up,—their failure to come forth at the bidding of her defamers was regarded as a sure and irrefragable proof of her guilt.

King James explains the circumstance, that witches could not weep, in rather a curious manner:—

Reginald Scott, in introducing a Romish form of adjuration, makes the following excellent remarks on the trial by tears:—

A distinction was made between black and white witches. The former were those who had leagued with Satan for the purpose of doing injury to others, while the latter class was composed of such persons as had resorted to the arts and charms of divination and sorcery in order to protect themselves and others from diabolical influence. They were both considered as highly, if not equally, criminal. Fuller, in his "Profane State," thus speaks of them: "Better is it to lap one's pottage like a dog, than to eat it mannerly, with a spoon of the Devil's giving. Black witches hurt and do mischief; but, in deeds of darkness, there is no difference of colors. The white and the black are both guilty alike in compounding with the Devil." White witches pretended to extract their power from the mysterious virtues of certain plants. The following form of charmed words was used in plucking them:—

Then there was the evidence of ocular fascination. The accused and the accusers were brought into the presence of the examining magistrate, and the supposed witch was ordered to look upon the afflicted persons; instantly upon coming within the glance of her eye, they would scream out, and fall down as in a fit. It was thought that an invisible and impalpable fluid darted from the eye of the witch, and penetrated the brain of the bewitched. By bringing the witch so near that she could touch the afflicted persons with her hand, the malignant fluid was attracted back into her hand, and the sufferers recovered their senses. It is singular to notice the curious resemblance between this opinion—the joint product of superstition and imposture—and the results to which modern science has led us in the discoveries of galvanism and animal electricity. The doctrine of fascination maintained its hold upon the public credulity for a long time, and gave occasion to the phrase, still in familiar use among us, of "looking upon a person with an evil eye." Its advocates claimed, in its defence, the authority of the Cartesian philosophy; but it cannot be considered, in an age of science and reason, as having any better support than the rural superstition of Virgil's simple shepherd, who thus complains of the condition of his emaciated flock:—

Witchcraft, in all ages and countries, was recognized as a reality, just as much as any of the facts of nature, or incidents to which mankind is liable. By the laws of all nations, Catholic and Protestant alike, in the old country and in the new, it was treated as a capital offence, and classed with murder and other highest crimes, although regarded as of a deeper dye and blacker character than them all. Indictments and trials of persons accused of it were not, therefore, considered as of any special interest, or as differing in any essential particulars from proceedings against any other description of offenders. There had been many such proceedings in the American colonies,—more, perhaps, than have come to our knowledge,—previous to 1692. They were not looked upon as sufficiently extraordinary to be transferred, from the oblivion sweeping like a perpetual deluge over the vast multitude of human experiences, to the ark of history, which rescues only a select few. The following are the principal facts of this class of which we have information:—

William Penn presided, in his judicial character, at the trial of two Swedish women for witchcraft; the grand jury, acting under instructions from him, having found bills against them. They were saved, not in consequence of any peculiar reluctance to proceed against them arising out of the nature of the alleged crime, but only from some technical defect in the indictment. If it had not been for this accidental circumstance, as the annalist of Philadelphia suggests, scenes similar to those subsequently occurring in Salem Village might have darkened the history of the Quakers, Swedes, Germans, and Dutch, who dwelt in the City of Brotherly Love and the adjacent colonies. There had been trials and executions for witchcraft in other parts of New England, and excitements had obtained more or less currency in reference to the assaults of the powers of darkness upon human affairs. These incidents prepared the way for the delusion in Salem, and provided elements to form its character. They must not, therefore, be wholly overlooked. But the memorials for their elucidation are very defective. Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts" is, perhaps, the most valuable authority on the subject. He enjoyed an advantage over any other writer, before, since, or hereafter, so far as relates to the witchcraft proceedings in 1692; for he had access to all the records and documents connected with it, a great part of which have subsequently been lost or destroyed. His treatment of that particular topic is more satisfactory than can elsewhere be found. But of incidents of the sort that preceded it, his information appears to have been very slight and unreliable. It is a singular fact, that we know more of the history of the first century of New England than was known by the most enlightened persons of the intermediate century. There was no regular organized newspaper press, the commemorative age had not begun, and none seem to have been fully aware of the importance of putting events on record. The publication, but a few years since, of the colonial journals of the first half-century of Massachusetts; researches by innumerable hands among papers on file in public offices; the printing of town-histories, and the collections made by historical and genealogical societies,—have rescued from oblivion, and redeemed from error, many points of the greatest interest and importance.

Winthrop, in his "Journal," gives an account of the execution of Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, who had been tried and condemned by the Court of Assistants. The charges against her were, that she had a malignant touch, so that many persons,—"men, women, and children,"—on coming in contact with her, were "taken with deafness, vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness;" that she practised physic, and her medicines, "being such things as (by her own confession) were harmless, as aniseed, liquors, &c., yet had extraordinary violent effects;" and that they found on her body, "upon a forced search," the witchmarks, particularly "a teat, as fresh if it had been newly sucked." Other ridiculous allegations were made against her. As for the effects of the touch, it is obvious that they could be easily simulated by evil-disposed persons. The whole substance of her offence seems to have been, that she was very successful in the use of simple prescriptions for the cure of diseases. Her practice was charged as "against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons." A bitter animosity was, accordingly, raised against her. She treated her accusers and defamers with indignant resentment. "Her behavior at her trial," says Winthrop, "was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and railing upon the jury and witnesses, &c.; and, in the like distemper, she died." We shall find that the bold assertion of innocence, and indignant denunciations of the persecutors and defamers who had destroyed their reputations and pursued them to the death, by persons tried and executed for witchcraft, in 1692, were regarded by some, as they were by Winthrop, as proofs of ill-temper and falsehood. The Governor closes his statement about Margaret Jones, by relating what he regarded as a demonstration of her guilt: "The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees, &c." The records of the General Court contain no express notice of this case. Perhaps it is referred to in the following paragraph, under date of May 13, 1648:—

Margaret Jones was executed in Boston on the 15th of June. Hutchinson refers to the statement made by Johnson, in the "Wonder-working Providence," that "more than one or two in Springfield, in 1645, were suspected of witchcraft; that much diligence was used, both for the finding them and for the Lord's assisting them against their witchery; yet have they, as is supposed, bewitched not a few persons, among whom two of the reverend elder's children." Johnson's loose and immethodical narrative covers the period from 1645 till toward the end of 1651; and Hutchinson was probably misled in supposing that the Springfield cases occurred as early as 1645. The Massachusetts colonial records, under the date of May 8, 1651, have this entry:—

Mr. Pinchon was probably able to stay a few days longer. She was not brought to trial before the Court until the 13th, under which date is the following:—

Under the same date—May 13—is an order of the Court appointing a day of humiliation "throughout our jurisdiction in all the churches," in consideration, among other things, of the extent to which "Satan prevails amongst us in respect of witchcrafts."

The colonial records, under date of May 31, 1652, recite the facts, that Hugh Parsons, of Springfield, had been tried before the Court of Assistants—held at Boston, May 12, 1652—for witchcraft; that the case was transferred to a "jury of trials," which found him guilty. The magistrates not consenting to the verdict of the jury, the case came legally to the General Court, which body decided that "he was not legally guilty of witchcraft, and so not to die by law."

When these citations are collated and examined, and it is remembered that Mr. Moxon was the "reverend elder" of the church at Springfield, it cannot be doubted that the case of the Parsonses is that referred to by Johnson in the "Wonder-working Providence," and that Hutchinson was in error as to the date. We are left in doubt as to the fate of Mary Parsons. There is a marginal entry on the records, to the effect that she was reprieved to the 29th of May. Neither Johnson nor Hutchinson seem to have thought that the sentence was ever carried into effect. It clearly never ought to have been. The woman was in a weak and dying condition, her mind was probably broken down,—the victim of that peculiar kind of mania—partaking of the character of a religious fanaticism and perversion of ideas—that has often led to child-murder.

These instances show, that, at that time, the General Court exercised consideration and discrimination in the treatment of questions of this kind brought before it.

Hutchinson, on the authority of Hale, says that a woman at Dorchester, and another at Cambridge, were executed, not far from this time, for witchcraft; and that they asserted their innocence with their dying breath. He also says, that, in 1650, "a poor wretch,—Mary Oliver,—probably weary of her life from the general reputation of being a witch, after long examination, was brought to a confession of her guilt; but I do not find that she was executed."

In 1656, a very remarkable case occurred. William Hibbins was a merchant in Boston, and one of the most prominent and honored citizens of Massachusetts. He was admitted a freeman in 1640; was deputy in the General Court in that and the following year; was elected an assistant for twelve successive years,—from 1643 to 1654; represented the Colony, for a time, as its agent in England, and received the thanks of the General Court for his valuable service there. No one appears to have had more influence, or to have enjoyed more honorable distinction, during his long legislative career. He died in 1654. Hutchinson says, in the text of his first and second volumes, that his widow was tried, condemned, and hanged as a witch in 1655, although he corrects the error in a note to the passage in the first volume. The following is the statement of the case in the Massachusetts colonial records, under the date of May 14, 1656:—

Mrs. Hibbins is stated to have been a sister of Richard Bellingham, at that very time deputy-governor, and always regarded as one of the chief men in the country. Strange to say, very little notice appears to have been taken of this event, beyond the immediate locality; but what little has come down to us indicates that it was a case of outrageous folly and barbarity, justly reflecting infamy upon the community at the time. Hutchinson, who wrote a hundred years after the event, and evidently had no other foundation for his opinion than vague conjectural tradition, gives the following explanation of the proceedings against her: "Losses, in the latter part of her husband's life, had reduced his estate, and increased the natural crabbedness of his wife's temper, which made her turbulent and quarrelsome, and brought her under church censures, and at length rendered her so odious to her neighbors as to cause some of them to accuse her of witchcraft."

While this is hardly worthy of being considered a sufficient explanation of the matter,—it being beyond belief, that, even at that time, a person could be condemned and executed merely on account of a "crabbed temper,"—it is not consistent with the facts, as made known to us from the record-offices. She could not have been so reduced in circumstances as to produce such extraordinary effects upon her character, for she left a good estate. The truth is, that the tongue of slander was let loose upon her, and the calumnies circulated by reckless gossip became so magnified and exaggerated, and assumed such proportions, as enabled her vilifiers to bring her under the censure of the church, and that emboldened them to cry out against her as a witch. Hutchinson expresses the opinion that she was the victim of popular clamor. But that alone, without some pretence or show of evidence, could not have brought the General Court, in reversal of the judgment of the magistrates, to condemn to death a person of such a high social position.

The only clue we have to the kind of evidence bearing upon the charge of witchcraft that brought this recently bereaved widow to so cruel and shameful a death, is in a letter, written by a clergyman in Jamaica to Increase Mather in 1684, in which he says, "You may remember what I have sometimes told you your famous Mr. Norton once said at his own table,—before Mr. Wilson, the pastor, elder Penn, and myself and wife, &c., who had the honor to be his guests,—that one of your magistrate's wives, as I remember, was hanged for a witch only for having more wit than her neighbors. It was his very expression; she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her, which, proving true, cost her her life, notwithstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us." Nothing was more natural than for her to suppose, knowing the parties, witnessing their manner, considering their active co-operation in getting up the excitement against her, which was then the all-engrossing topic, that they were talking about her. But, in the blind infatuation of the time, it was considered proof positive of her being possessed, by the aid of the Devil, of supernatural insight,—precisely as, forty years afterwards, such evidence was brought to bear, with telling effect, against George Burroughs.—The body of this unfortunate lady was searched for witchmarks, and her trunks and premises rummaged for puppets.

It is quite evident that means were used to get up a violent popular excitement against her, which became so formidable as to silence every voice that dared to speak in her favor. Joshua Scottow, a citizen of great respectability and a selectman, ventured to give evidence in her favor, counter, in its bearings, to some testimony against her; and he was dealt with very severely, and compelled to write an humble apology to the Court, to disavow all friendly interest in Mrs. Hibbins, and to pray "that the sword of justice may be drawn forth against all wickedness." He says, "I am cordially sorry that any thing from me, either by word or writing, should give offence to the honored Court, my dear brethren in the church, or any others."

Hutchinson states that there were, however, some persons then in Boston, who denounced the proceedings against Mrs. Hibbins, and regarded her, not merely as a persecuted woman, but as "a saint;" that a deep feeling of resentment against her persecutors long remained in their minds; and that they afterwards "observed solemn marks of Providence set upon those who were very forward to condemn her." It is evident that the Court of Magistrates were opposed to her conviction, and that Mr. Norton did what he could to save her. He was one of the four "great Johns," who were the first ministers of the church in Boston; and it is remarkable, as showing the violence of the people against her, that even his influence was of no avail in her favor. But she had other friends, as appears from her will, which, after all, is the only source of reliable information we have respecting her character. It is dated May 27, 1656, a few days after she received the sentence of death. In it she names, as overseers and administrators of her estate, "Captain Thomas Clarke, Lieutenant Edward Hutchinson, Lieutenant William Hudson, Ensign Joshua Scottow, and Cornet Peter Oliver." In a codicil, she says, "I do earnestly desire my loving friends, Captain Johnson and Mr. Edward Rawson, to be added to the rest of the gentlemen mentioned as overseers of my will." It can hardly be doubted, that these persons—and they were all leading citizens—were known by her to be among her friends.

The whole tone and manner of these instruments give evidence, that she had a mind capable of rising above the power of wrong, suffering, and death itself. They show a spirit calm and serene. The disposition of her property indicates good sense, good feeling, and business faculties suitable to the occasion. In the body of the will, there is not a word, a syllable, or a turn of expression, that refers to, or is in the slightest degree colored by, her peculiar situation. In the codicil, dated June 16, there is this sentence: "My desire is, that all my overseers would be pleased to show so much respect unto my dead corpse as to cause it to be decently interred, and, if it may be, near my late husband."

When married to Mr. Hibbins, she was a widow, named Moore. There were no children by her last marriage,—certainly none living at the time of her death. There were three sons by her former marriage,—John, Joseph, and Jonathan. These were all in England; but the youngest, hearing of her situation, embarked for America. When she wrote the codicil,—three days before her execution,—she added, at the end, having apparently just heard of his coming, "I give my son Jonathan twenty pounds, over and above what I have already given him, towards his pains and charge in coming to see me, which shall be first paid out of my estate." There is reason to cherish the belief that he reached her in the short interval between the date of the codicil and her death, from the tenor of the following postscript, written and signed on the morning of her execution: "My further mind and will is, out of my sense of the more than ordinary affection and pains of my son Jonathan in the times of my distress, I give him, as a further legacy, ten pounds." The will was proved in Court, July 2, 1656. The will and codicil speak of her "farms at Muddy River;" and of chests and a desk, in which were valuables of such importance that she took especial pains to intrust the keys of them to Edward Rawson, in a provision of the codicil. The estate was inventoried at £344. 14s., which was a considerable property in those days, as money was then valued.

Hutchinson mentions a case of witchcraft in Hartford, in 1662, where some women were accused, and, after being proceeded against until they were confounded and bewildered, one of them made the most preposterous confessions, which ought to have satisfied every one that her reason was overthrown; three of them were condemned, and one, certainly,—probably all,—executed. In 1669, he says that Susanna Martin, of Salisbury,—whom we shall meet again,—was bound over to the Court on the same charge, "but escaped at that time." Another case is mentioned by him as having occurred, in 1671, at Groton, in which the party confessed, and thereby avoided condemnation. In 1673, a case occurred at Hampton; but the jury, although, as they said, there was strong ground of suspicion, returned a verdict of "Not guilty;" the evidence not being deemed quite sufficient. There were several other cases, about this time, in which some persons were severely handled in consequence of being reputed witches; and others suffered, as they imagined, "under an evil hand."

In this immediate neighborhood, there had been several attempts, previous to the delusion at Salem Village in 1692, to get up witchcraft prosecutions, but without much success. The people of this county had not become sufficiently infected with the fanaticism of the times to proceed to extremities.

In September, 1652, the following presentment was made by the grand jury:—

"We present John Bradstreet, of Rowley, for suspicion of having familiarity with the Devil. He said he read in a book of magic, and that he heard a voice asking him what work he had for him. He answered, 'Go make a bridge of sand over the sea; go make a ladder of sand up to heaven, and go to God, and come down no more.'

"Witness hereof, Francis Parat and his wife, of Rowley.
"Witness, William Bartholomew, of Ipswich."

On the 28th of that month, the jury at Ipswich, "upon examination of the case, found he had told a lie, which was a second, being convicted once before. The Court sets a fine of twenty shillings, or else to be whipped."

Bradstreet was probably in the habit of romancing, and it was wisely concluded not to take a more serious view of his offences.

In 1658, a singular case of this kind occurred in Essex County. The following papers relating to it illustrate the sentiments and forms of thought prevalent at that time, and give an insight of the state of society in some particulars:—

The petitioners mention in brief some instances in confirmation of their complaint. There are several depositions. That of Charles Browne and wife says:—

The depositions in this case are presented as they are in the originals on file, leaving in blank such words or parts of words as have been worn off. They are given in full.

The proceedings against Godfrey were carried up to other tribunals, as appears by a record of the County Court at Salem, 28th of June, 1659:—

What action, if any, was had by either of these high courts, I have found no information. But he must have come off unscathed; for, soon after, he commenced actions in the County Court for defamation against his accusers; with the following results:—

In the trial of the case between Godfrey and Singletary, the latter attempted to prove the truth of his allegations against the former, by giving the following piece of testimony, which, while it failed to convince the jury, is worth preserving, from the inherent interest of some of its details:—

It can hardly be doubted, that Singletary's story was the result of the workings of an excited imagination, in wild and frightful dreams under the spasms of nightmare. We shall meet similar phenomena, when we come to the testimony in the trials of 1692.

Godfrey was a most eccentric character. He courted and challenged the imputation of witchcraft, and took delight in playing upon the credulity of his neighbors, enjoying the exhibition of their amazement, horror, and consternation. He was a person of much notoriety, had more lawsuits, it is probable, than any other man in the colony, and in one instance came under the criminal jurisdiction for familiarity with other than immaterial spirits; for we find, by the record of Sept. 25, 1666, that John Godfrey was "fined for being drunk."

I have allowed so much space to the foregoing documents, because they show the fancies which, fermenting in the public mind, and inflamed by the prevalent literature, theology, and philosophy, came to a head thirty years afterwards; and because they prove that in 1660 a conviction for witchcraft could not be obtained in this county. The evidence against none of the convicts in 1692, throwing out of view the statements and actings of the "afflicted children," was half so strong as that against Godfrey. Short work would have been made with him then.

There is one particularly interesting item in Singletary's deposition. It illustrates the value of good preaching. This young man, in his gloomy prison, and overwhelmed with the terrors of superstition, found consolation, courage, and strength in what he remembered of a sermon, to which he had happened to listen, from "Matchless Mitchel." It was indeed good doctrine; and it is to be lamented that it was not carried out to its logical conclusions, and constantly enforced by the divines of that and subsequent times.

In November, 1669, there was a prosecution of "Goody Burt," a widow, concerning whom the most marvellous stories were told. The principal witness against her was Philip Reed, a physician, who on oath declared his belief that "no natural cause" could produce such effects as were wrought by Goody Burt upon persons whom she afflicted. Her range of operations seems to have been confined to Marblehead, Lynn, Salem, and the vicinity: as nothing more was ever heard of the case, another evidence is afforded, that an Essex jury, notwithstanding this positive opinion of a doctor, was not ready to convict on the charge of witchcraft. This same Philip Reed tried very hard to prosecute proceedings, eleven years afterwards, against Margaret Gifford as a witch. But she failed to appear, and no effort is recorded as having been made to apprehend her.

In 1673, Eunice Cole, of Hampton, was tried before a county court, at Salisbury, on the charge of witchcraft; and she was committed to jail, in Boston, for further proceedings. She was subsequently indicted by the Grand Jury for the Massachusetts jurisdiction for "familiarity with the Devil." The Court of Assistants found that there was "just ground of vehement suspicion of her having had familiarity with the Devil," and got rid of the case by ordering her "to depart from and abide out of this jurisdiction."

At a County Court, held at Salem, Nov. 24, 1674, a case was brought up, of which the following is all we know:—

It would have been well if the action of this Court had been followed as an authoritative precedent.

In the year 1679, the house of William Morse, of Newbury, was, for more than two months, infested in a most strange and vexatious manner. The affair was brought into court, where it played a conspicuous part, and was near reaching a tragical conclusion. The history of the proceedings in reference to it is very curious.

Mr. John Woodbridge, of Newbury, had been for some time an associate county judge, and was commissioned to administer oaths and join persons in marriage. The following is a record of what occurred before him, sitting as a magistrate, and as a commissioner to adjudicate in small, local causes, and hold examinations in matters that went to higher courts:—

Powell was accordingly brought before the Court at Ipswich, March 30, 1680, under an indictment for witchcraft. Before giving the substance of the evidence adduced on this occasion, it will be well to mention the manner in which he got into the case as a principal. He was a mate of a vessel. While at home, between voyages, he happened to hear of the wonderful occurrences at Mr. Morse's house. His curiosity was awakened, and he was also actuated by feelings of commiseration for the family under the torments and terrors with which they were said to be afflicted. Determined to see what it all meant, and to put a stop to it if he could, he went to the house, and soon became satisfied that a roguish grandchild was the cause of all the trouble. He prevailed upon the old grandparents to let him take off the boy. Immediately upon his removal, the difficulty ceased.

New-England navigators, at that time and long afterwards, sailed almost wholly by the stars; and Powell probably had often related his own skill, which, as mate of a vessel, he would have been likely to acquire, in calculating his position, rate of sailing, and distances, on the boundless and trackless ocean, by his knowledge and observations of the heavenly bodies. He had said, perhaps, that, by gazing among the stars, he could, at any hour of the night, however long or far he had been tossed and driven on the ocean, tell exactly where his vessel was. Hence the charge of being an astrologist. Probably, like other sailors, Powell may have indulged in "long yarns" to the country people, of the wonders he had seen, "some in one country, and some in another." It is not unlikely, that, in foreign ports, he had witnessed exhibitions of necromancy and mesmerism, which, in various forms and under different names, have always been practised. Possibly he may have boasted to be a medium himself, a scholar and adept in the mystic art, able to read and divine "the workings of spirits." At any rate, when it became known, that, at a glance, he attributed to the boy the cause of the mischief, and that it ceased on his taking him away from the house, the opinion became settled that he was a wizard. He was arrested forthwith, and brought to trial, as has been stated, for witchcraft. His astronomy, astrology, and spiritualism brought him in peril of his life.

There seem to have been several hearings before Commissioner Woodbridge. The boy had returned to his grandparents before the last deposition of William Morse, and his audacious operations were persisted in to the last. The final decision of the Court was as follows:—

The entry of this sentence, in the records of the County Court, is as follows; the clerk strangely mistaking the name of the party:—

The matter of Powell's connection with the affair being thus disposed of, and no one seeming to entertain his idea of the guilt of the boy, the next step was to fasten suspicion upon the good old grandmother; and a general outcry was raised against her. Her arrest and condemnation were clamored for. But the result of Powell's trial, and all preceding cases, showed that an Essex jury could not yet be relied on for a conviction in witchcraft cases; and it was resolved to institute proceedings in a more favorable quarter. The Grand Jury returned a bill of indictment against her to the Court of Assistants, sitting in Boston. This was the highest tribunal in the country, subject only to the General Court, and embracing the whole colony in its jurisdiction. The following is the substance of the record of the case:—

At a Court of Assistants, on adjournment, held at Boston, on the 20th of May, 1680.

The Grand Jury having presented Elizabeth Morse, wife of William Morse, she was tried and convicted of the crime of witchcraft. The Governor, on the 27th of May, "after the lecture," in the First Church of Boston, pronounced the sentence of death upon her. On the 1st of June, the Governor and Assistants voted to reprieve her "until the next session of the Court in Boston." At the said next session, the reprieval was still further continued. This seems to have produced much dissatisfaction, as is shown by the following extract from the records of the House of Deputies:—

The action of the magistrates, on this reference, is recorded as follows:—

The evidence against Mrs. Morse was frivolous to the last degree, without any of the force and effect given to support the prosecutions in Salem, twelve years afterwards, by the astounding confessions of the accused, and the splendid acting of the "afflicted children;" yet she was tried and condemned in Boston, and sentenced there on "Lecture-day." The representatives of the people, in the House of Deputies, cried out against her reprieve. She was saved by the courage and wisdom of Governor Bradstreet, subsequently a resident of Salem, where his ashes rest. He was living here, at the age of ninety years, during the witchcraft prosecutions in 1692; but, old as he was, he made known his entire disapprobation of them. It is safe to say, that, if he had not been superseded by the arrival of Sir William Phipps as governor under the new charter, they would never have taken place. Notwithstanding all this,—in spite of the remonstrances, at the time, of Brattle, and afterwards of Hutchinson,—Boston and other towns (earlier, if not equally, committed to such proceedings) have, by a sort of general conspiracy, joined the rest of the world in trying to throw and fasten the whole responsibility and disgrace of witchcraft prosecutions upon Salem.

Things continued in the condition just described,—Mrs. Morse in jail under sentence of death; that sentence suspended by reprieves from the Governor, from time to time, until the next year, when her husband, in her behalf and in her name, presented an earnest and touching petition "to the honored Governor, Deputy-governor, Magistrates, and Deputies now assembled in Court, May the 18th, 1681," that her case might be concluded, one way or another. After referring to her condemnation, and to her attestation of innocence, she says, "By the mercy of God, and the goodness of the honored Governor, I am reprieved." She begs the Court to "hearken to her cry, a poor prisoner." She places herself at the foot of the tribunal of the General Court: "I now stand humbly praying your justice in hearing my case, and to determine therein as the Lord shall direct. I do not understand law, nor do I know how to lay my case before you as I ought; for want of which I humbly beg of your honors that my request may not be rejected." The House of Deputies, on the 24th of May, voted to give her a new trial. But the magistrates refused to concur in the vote; and so the matter stood, for how long a time there are, I believe, no means of knowing. Finally, however, she was released from prison, and allowed to return to her own house. This we learn from a publication made by Mr. Hale, of Beverly, in 1697. It seems, that, after getting her out of prison and restored to her home, to use Mr. Hale's words, "her husband, who was esteemed a sincere and understanding Christian by those that knew him, desired some neighbor ministers, of whom I was one, to discourse his wife, which we did; and her discourse was very Christian, and still pleaded her innocence as to that which was laid to her charge." From Mr. Hale's language, it may be inferred that she had not been pardoned or discharged, but still lay under sentence of death, after her removal to her own house: for he and his brethren did not "esteem it prudence to pass any definite sentence upon one under her circumstances;" but they ventured to say that they were "inclined to the more charitable side." Mr. Hale states, that, "in her last sickness, she was in much trouble and darkness of spirit, which occasioned a judicious friend to examine her strictly, whether she had been guilty of witchcraft; but she said no, but the ground of her trouble was some impatient and passionate speeches and actions of hers while in prison, upon the account of her suffering wrongfully, whereby she had provoked the Lord by putting contempt upon his Word. And, in fine, she sought her pardon and comfort from God in Christ; and died, so far as I understand, praying to and relying upon God in Christ for salvation."

The cases of Margaret Jones, Ann Hibbins, and Elizabeth Morse illustrate strikingly and fully the history and condition of the public mind in New England, and the world over, in reference to witchcraft in the seventeenth century. They show that there was nothing unprecedented, unusual, or eminently shocking, after all, in what I am about to relate as occurring in Salem, in 1692. The only real offence proved upon Margaret Jones was that she was a successful practitioner of medicine, using only simple remedies. Ann Hibbins was the victim of the slanderous gossip of a prejudiced neighborhood; all our actual knowledge of her being her Will, which proves that she was a person of much more than ordinary dignity of mind, which was kept unruffled and serene in the bitterest trials and most outrageous wrongs which it is possible for folly and "man's inhumanity to man" to bring upon us in this life. Elizabeth Morse appears to have been one of the best of Christian women. The accusations against them, as a whole, cover nearly the whole ground upon which the subsequent prosecutions in Salem rested. John Winthrop passed sentence upon Margaret Jones, John Endicott upon Ann Hibbins, and Simon Bradstreet upon Elizabeth Morse. The last-named governor performed the office as an unavoidable act of official duty, and prevented the execution of the sentence by the courageous use of his prerogative, in defiance of public clamor and the wrath of the representatives of the whole people of the colony. These facts sufficiently show, that the proceedings afterwards had in Salem accorded with those in like cases, of that and preceding generations; and were sanctioned by the all but universal sentiments of mankind and a uniform chain of precedents.

The trial of Bridget Bishop, in 1680, before the County Court at Salem, for witchcraft, and her acquittal, have already been mentioned in the account of Salem Village, in the First Part.

In 1688, an Irish woman, named Glover, was executed in Boston for bewitching four children belonging to the family of a Mr. Goodwin. She was a Roman Catholic, represented to have been quite an ignorant person, and seems, moreover, from the accounts given of her, to have been crazy. The oldest of the children was only about thirteen years of age. The most experienced physicians pronounced them bewitched. Their conduct, as it is related by Cotton Mather, was indeed very extraordinary. At one time they would bark like dogs, and then again they would purr like cats. "Yea," says he, "they would fly like geese, and be carried with an incredible swiftness, having but just their toes now and then upon the ground, sometimes not once in twenty feet, and their arms waved like the wings of a bird."

One of the children seems to have had a genius scarcely inferior to that of Master Burke himself: there was no part nor passion she could not enact. She would complain that the old Irish woman had tied an invisible noose round her neck, and was choking her; and her complexion and features would instantly assume the various hues and violent distortions natural to a person in such a predicament. She would declare that an invisible chain was fastened to one of her limbs, and would limp about precisely as though it were really the case. She would say that she was in an oven; the perspiration would drop from her face, and she would exhibit every appearance of being roasted: then she would cry out that cold water was thrown upon her, and her whole frame would shiver and shake. She pretended that the evil spirit came to her in the shape of an invisible horse; and she would canter, gallop, trot, and amble round the rooms and entries in such admirable imitation, that an observer could hardly believe that a horse was not beneath her, and bearing her about. She would go up stairs with exactly such a toss and bound as a person on horseback would exhibit.

After some time, Cotton Mather took her into his own family, to see whether he could not exorcise her. His account of her conduct, while there, is highly amusing for its credulous simplicity. The cunning and ingenious child seems to have taken great delight in perplexing and playing off her tricks upon the learned man. Once he wished to say something in her presence, to a third person, which he did not intend she should understand. He accordingly spoke in Latin. But she had penetration enough to conjecture what he had said: he was amazed. He then tried Greek: she was equally successful. He next spoke in Hebrew: she instantly detected the meaning. At last he resorted to the Indian language, and that she pretended not to know. He drew the conclusion that the evil being with whom she was in compact was acquainted familiarly with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but not with the Indian tongue.

It is curious to notice how adroitly she fell into the line of his prejudices. He handed her a book written by a Quaker, to which sect it is well known he was violently opposed: she would read it off with great ease, rapidity, and pleasure. A book written against the Quakers she could not read at all. She could read Popish books, but could not decipher a syllable of the Assembly's Catechism. Dr. Mather was earnestly opposed to the order and liturgy of the Church of England. The artful little girl worked with great success upon this prejudice. She pretended to be very fond of the Book of Common Prayer, and called it her Bible. It would relieve her of her sufferings, in a moment, to put it into her hands. While she could not read a word of the Scriptures in the Bible, she could read them very easily in the Prayer-book; but she could not read the Lord's Prayer even in this her favorite volume. All these things went far to strengthen the conviction of Dr. Mather that she was in league with the Devil; for this was the only explanation that could be given to satisfy his mind of her partiality to the productions of Quakers, Catholics, and Episcopalians, and her aversion to the Bible and the Catechism.

She exhibited the most exquisite ingenuity in beguiling Dr. Mather by the force of a charm, the power of which he could not resist for a moment,—flattery. He thus describes, with a complacency but thinly concealed under the veil of affected modesty, the part she played, in order to give the impression—which it was the great object of his ambition to make upon the public mind—that the Devil stood in special fear of his presence:—

"There then stood open the study of one belonging to the family, into which, entering, she stood immediately on her feet, and cried out, 'They are gone! they are gone! They say that they cannot,—God won't let 'em come here!' adding a reason for it which the owner of the study thought more kind than true; and she presently and perfectly came to herself, so that her whole discourse and carriage was altered into the greatest measure of sobriety."

Upon quitting the study, "the demons" would instantly again take hold of her. Mather continues the statement, by saying that some persons, wishing to try the experiment, had her brought "up into the study;" but he says that she at once became—

Even in her most riotous proceedings, she kept her eye fixed upon the doctor's weak point. When he called the family to prayers, she would whistle and sing and yell to drown his voice, would strike him with her fist, and try to kick him. But her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body; thus giving the idea that there was a sort of invisible coat of mail, of heavenly temper, and proof against the assaults of the Devil, around his sacred person! After a while, Dr. Mather concluded to prepare an account of these extraordinary circumstances, wherewithal to entertain his congregation in a sermon. She seemed to be quite displeased at the thought of his making public the doings of her master, the Evil One, attempted to prevent his writing the intended sermon, and disturbed and interrupted him in all manner of ways. For instance, she once knocked at his study door, and said that "there was somebody down stairs that would be glad to see him." He dropped his pen, and went down. Upon entering the room, he found nobody there but the family. The next time he met her, he undertook to chide her for having told him a falsehood. She denied that she had told a falsehood. "Didn't you say," said he, "that there was somebody down stairs that would be glad to see me?"—"Well," she replied, with inimitable pertness, "is not Mrs. Mather always glad to see you?"

She even went much farther than this in persecuting the good man while he was writing his sermon: she threw large books at his head. But he struggled manfully against these buffetings of Satan, as he considered her conduct to be, finished the sermon, related all these circumstances in it, preached, and published it. Richard Baxter wrote the preface to an edition printed in London, in which he declares that he who will not be convinced by all the evidence Dr. Mather presents that the child was bewitched "must be a very obdurate Sadducee." It is so obvious, that, in this whole affair, Cotton Mather was grossly deceived and audaciously imposed upon by the most consummate and precocious cunning, that it needs no comment. I have given this particular account of it, because there is reason to believe that it originated the delusion in Salem. It occurred only four years before. Dr. Mather's account of the transaction filled the whole country; and it is probable that the children in Mr. Parris's family undertook to re-enact it.

There is nothing in the annals of the histrionic art more illustrative of the infinite versatility of the human faculties, both physical and mental, and of the amazing extent to which cunning, ingenuity, contrivance, quickness of invention, and presence of mind can be cultivated, even in very young persons, than such cases as this just related. It seems, at first, incredible that a mere child could carry on such a complex piece of fraud and imposture as that enacted by the little girl whose achievements have been immortalized by the famous author of the "Magnalia." Many other instances, however, are found recorded in the history of the delusion we are discussing.

That of the grandchild of William and Elizabeth Morse, in Newbury, was nearly as marvellous, and perfectly successful in deceiving the whole country except Caleb Powell; and he got into much trouble in consequence of seeing through it. A similar instance of juvenile imposture is related as having occurred at Amsterdam in 1560. Twenty or thirty boys pretended to be suddenly seized with a kind of rage and fury, were cast upon the ground, and tormented with great agony. These fits were intermittent; and, when they had passed off, their subjects did not seem to be conscious of what had taken place. While they lasted, the boys threw up, apparently from their stomachs, large quantities of needles, pins, thimbles, pieces of cloth, fragments of pots and kettles, bits of glass, locks of hair, and a variety of other articles. There was no doubt, at the time, that they were suffering under the influence of the Devil; and multitudes crowded round them, and gazed upon them with wonder and horror.

The details of the cases in Newbury and Charlestown were dressed up by Cotton Mather and other writers in the strongest colors that credulous superstition and the peculiar views of that age on the subject of demonology could employ. They were almost universally received as proof that Satan had commenced an onslaught, such as had never before been known, upon the Church and the world! They appear to us as simply absurd, and the result of precocious knavery; not so to the people of that generation. They were looked upon as fearful demonstrations of diabolical power, and preludes to the coming of Satan, with his infernal confederates, to overwhelm the land. The imaginations of all were excited, and their apprehensions morbidly aroused. The very air was filled with rumors, fancies, and fears. The ministers sounded the alarm from their pulpits. The magistrates sharpened the sword of justice. The deputy-governor of the colony, Danforth, began to arrest suspected persons months before proceedings commenced, or were thought of, in Salem Village. It was believed that evil spirits had been seen, by men's bodily eyes, in a neighboring town. They glided over the fields, hovered around the houses, appeared, vanished, and re-appeared on the outskirts of the woods, in the vicinity of Gloucester. Their movements were observed by several of the inhabitants; and the whole population of the Cape was kept in a state of agitation and alarm, in consequence of the mysterious phenomena, for three weeks. The inhabitants retired to the garrison, and put themselves in a state of defence against the diabolical besiegers. Sixty men were despatched from Ipswich, in military array, to re-enforce the garrison, and several valiant sallies were made from its walls. Much powder was expended, but no corporeal or incorporeal blood was shed. An account of these events was drawn up by the Rev. John Emerson, then the minister of the first parish in Gloucester, from which the facts now mentioned have been selected. It is very minute and particular. The appearance and dress of the supernatural enemies are described. They wore white waistcoats, blue shirts, and white breeches, and had bushy heads of black hair. Mr. Emerson concludes his account by expressing the hope that "all rational persons will be satisfied that Gloucester was not alarmed last summer for above a fortnight together by real French and Indians, but that the Devil and his agents were the cause of all the molestation which at this time befell the town."

These wonderful things took place at Cape Ann, about the time that the great conflict between the Devil and his confederates on the one hand, and the ministers and magistrates on the other, at Salem Village, was reaching its height. It is said that it was regarded by the most considerate persons, at the time, as an artful contrivance of the Devil to create a diversion of the attention of the pious colonists from his operations through the witches in Salem, and, by dividing and distracting their forces, to obtain an advantage over them in the war he was waging against their churches and their religion.

We are now ready to enter upon the story of Salem witchcraft. We have endeavored to become acquainted with the people who acted conspicuous parts in the drama, and to understand their character; and have tried to collect, and bring into appreciating view, the opinions and theories, the habits of thought, the associations of mind, the passions, impulses, and fantasies that guided, moulded, and controlled their conduct. The law, literature, and theology of the age, as they bore on the subject, have been brought before us. The last great display of the effects of the doctrines of demonology, of the belief of the agency of invisible, irresponsible beings, whether fallen angels or departed spirits, upon the actions of men and human affairs, is now to open before us. The final results of superstitions and fables and fancies, accumulating through the ages, are to be exhibited in a transaction, an actual demonstration in real life. They are to present an exemplification that will at once fully display their power, and deal their death-blow.

Without the least purpose or wish to cover up or extenuate the follies, excesses, or outrages I am about to describe, into which the community suffered itself to be led in the witchcraft proceedings of 1692,—with a desire, on the contrary, to make the lesson then given of the mischief resulting from misguided enthusiasm, and which will always result when popular excitement is allowed to wield the organized powers of society, as impressive as facts and truth will justify,—I feel bound to say, in advance, that there are some considerations which we must keep before us, while reviewing the incidents of the transaction. The theological, legal, and philosophical doctrines and the popular beliefs, on which it was founded, have, as I have shown, led, in other countries and periods, to similar, and often vastly more shameful, cruel, and destructive results. But there was something in the affair, as it was developed here, that has arrested the notice of mankind, and clothed it with an inherent interest, beyond all other events of the kind that have elsewhere or ever occurred.

The moral force engendered in the civilization planted on these shores, and pervading the whole body of society, supplied a mightier momentum, as it does to this day, and ever will, to the movement of the people, acting in a mass and as a unit, than can anywhere else be found. A population, invigorated by hardy enterprise, and the constant exercise of all the faculties of freedom, and actuated throughout by individual energy of character, must be mightier in motion than any other people. Such a population multiplies tenfold its physical forces, by the addition of moral and intellectual energies. The men of the day and scene we are now to contemplate, however deluded, to whatever extremities carried, were controlled by fixed, absolute, sharply defined, and, in themselves, great ideas. They believed in God. They also believed in the Devil. They bowed in an adoration that penetrated their inmost souls, before the one as a being of infinite holiness: they regarded the other as a being of an all but infinite power of evil. They feared and worshipped God. They hated and defied the Devil. They believed that Satan was waging war against Jehovah, and that the conflict was for the dominion of the world, for the establishment or the overthrow of the Church of Christ. The battle, they fully believed, could have no other issue than the salvation or the ruin of the souls of men. This was not, with them, a mere technical, verbal creed. It was a deep-seated conviction, held earnestly with a clear and distinct apprehension of its import, by every individual mind. For this warfare, they put on the whole armor of faith, rallied to the banner of the Most High, and met Satan face to face. In this one great idea, a stern, determined, unflinching, all-sacrificing people concentrated their strength. No wonder that the conflict reached a magnitude which made it observable to the whole country and all countries at the time, and will make it memorable throughout all time. Those engaged in it, with this sentiment absorbing their very souls, passed, for the time, out of the realm of all other sentiments, and were insensible to all other considerations. The nearer and dearer the relatives, the higher and more conspicuous the persons, who, in their belief, were in league with the Devil, the more profound the abhorrence of their crime, and the determination to cut off and destroy them utterly. They believed that Satan had, once before, "against the throne and monarchy of God, raised impious war and battle proud;" and that for this he had been cast out from "heaven, with all his host of rebel angels;" that he, with his army of subordinate wicked spirits, was making a desperate effort to retrieve his lost estate, by a renewed rebellion against God; and they were determined to drive him, and all his confederates, for ever from the confines of the earth. The humble hamlet of Salem Village was felt to be the great and final battle-ground. However wild and absurd this idea is now regarded, it was then sincerely and thoroughly entertained, and must be taken into the account, in coming to a just estimate of the character of the transaction, and of those engaged in it.

One other thought is to be borne in mind, as we pass through the scenes that are to be spread before us. The theology of Christendom, at that time, so far as it relates to the power and agency of Satan and demonology in general,—and this is the only point of view on which I ever refer to theology in this discussion,—and the whole fabric of popular superstitions founded upon it, had reached their culmination. The beginning, middle, and close of the seventeenth century, witnessed the greatest display of those superstitions, and prepared the way for their final explosion. As the hour of their dissolution was at hand, and they were doomed to vanish before the light of science and education, to pass from the realm of supposed reality into that of acknowledged fiction, it seems to have been ordered that they should leave monuments behind them, from which their character, elements, and features, and their terrible influence, might be read and studied in all subsequent ages.

The ideas in reference to the agency and designs of the great enemy of God and man, and all his subordinate hosts, witches, fairies, ghosts, "gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire," "apparitions, signs, and prodigies," by which the minds of men had so long been filled, and their fearful imaginations exercised, as they took their flight, imprinted themselves, for perpetual remembrance, in productions which, more than any works of mere human genius, are sure to live for ever. They left their forms crystallized, with imperishable lineaments, in the greatest of dramas and the greatest of epics. The plays of Shakespeare, as the century opened, and the verse of Milton in its central period, are their record and their picture.

But there was another shape and aspect in which it was pre-eminently important to have their memory preserved; and that was their application to life, their influence upon the conduct of men, the action of tribunals, and the movements of society, and, in general, their effects, when allowed full operation, upon human happiness and welfare. This want was supplied, as the century terminated, by the tragedy in real life, whose scenes are now to be presented in Witchcraft at Salem Village.

However strange it seems, it is quite worthy of observation, that the actors in that tragedy, the "afflicted children," and other witnesses, in their various statements and operations, embraced about the whole circle of popular superstition. How those young country girls, some of them mere children, most of them wholly illiterate, could have become familiar with such fancies, to such an extent, is truly surprising. They acted out, and brought to bear with tremendous effect, almost all that can be found in the literature of that day, and the period preceding it, relating to such subjects. Images and visions which had been portrayed in tales of romance, and given interest to the pages of poetry, will be made by them, as we shall see, to throng the woods, flit through the air, and hover over the heads of a terrified court. The ghosts of murdered wives and children will play their parts with a vividness of representation and artistic skill of expression that have hardly been surpassed in scenic representations on the stage. In the Salem-witchcraft proceedings, the superstition of the middle ages was embodied in real action. All its extravagances, absurdities, and monstrosities appear in their application to human experience. We see what the effect has been, and must be, when the affairs of life, in courts of law and the relations of society, or the conduct or feelings of individuals, are suffered to be under the control of fanciful or mystical notions. When a whole people abandons the solid ground of common sense, overleaps the boundaries of human knowledge, gives itself up to wild reveries, and lets loose its passions without restraint, it presents a spectacle more terrific to behold, and becomes more destructive and disastrous, than any convulsion of mere material nature; than tornado, conflagration, or earthquake.

END OF VOL. I.

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