Boanes had only one, a mouse-like imp called
Rug; Rose Hallybread one, a small grey
bird; while Marian Hocket had Little-man,
Pretty-man, and Dainty; and Margaret
Moore had twelve, all like rats. With many
more in that fatal session than we can give
the smallest note of. Six witches were hung
in a row at Maidstone, in sixteen hundred
and fifty-two; and two months after, three
were hung at Faversham; but, before this,
Hopkins had been seized and "swum" for a
wizard, in his own manner—cross-bound—his
left thumb tied to his right great toe, and
his right thumb to his left great toe. From
that time no more is heard of that worst and
vilest of impostors, and cruelest of popular
tyrants.

One of the most melancholy things
connected with this delusion, was the fearful
part which children, by their falsehoods and
fancies, bore in it. An old woman named
Jane Brooks, was executed because one
Richard Jones, "a sprightly youth of twelve,"
cried out against her for having bewitched
him and counterfeited epileptic convulsions.
Elizabeth Styles, the owner of the Millar imp,
was condemned chiefly on the account of a girl
of thirteen, who played the part of "possessed"
to the life. Julian Coxe was judicially
murdered because—besides its being proved
that she had been hunted when in the form
of a hare; that she had a toad for a familiar;
that she had been seen to fly out of her
window; and that she could not repeat the
Lord's Prayer—she had bewitched a young
maid of scrofulous tendencies and nervous
excitability, who would have sworn to the
first falsehood that presented itself to her
imagination. And these are only three out
of hundreds and thousands of instances where
those miserable afflicted children, as they
were called, swore away the lives of harmless
and unoffending people! During the long
Parliament alone, about three thousand people
were executed in England for witchcraft;
about thirty thousand were executed in all.

The year after Julian's execution, Sir
Matthew Hale tried and condemned Anny
Dunny and Rose Callender, at Saint Edmundsbury,
on evidence and for supposed offences
which a child of this century would not
admit. One of the charges made against the
first-named witch, was the sending of a bee
with a nail to a child of nine years of age,
which nail the bee forced the girl to swallow;
to one of eleven, she sent flies with crooked
pins; once she sent a mouse, on what errand
does not appear; and once the younger
child ran about the house flapping her apron
and crying hush! hush! saying she saw a
duck. There were numerous counts against
the two women, of the same character as
these; without any better evidence, without
any sifting of this absurd testimony,
without any medical inquiry, the grave,
learned, and pious Sir Matthew Hale
condemned them to death by the law of the
land. A woman was hanged at Exeter on
no other testimony but that of a neighbour,
" who deposed that he saw a cat jump into
the accused person's cottage window at
twilight one evening, and that he verily
believed the said cat to be the devil." And
another witch, lying in York gaol, had the
tremendous testimony against her of a scroll
of paper creeping from under the prison-door,
then changing itself into a monkey, and
then into a turkey. To which veracious
account the under-keeper swore.

The last execution in England for witchcraft
was in seventeen hundred and sixteen,
when Mrs. Hicks and her little daughter,
aged nine, were hanged at Huntingdon for
selling their souls to the devil; for making their
neighbours vomit pins; for pulling off their
own stockings to make a lather of soap, and so
to raise a storm, by which a certain ship was
"almost" lost, and for other impossible crimes.
It was not until after seventeen hundred and
fifty-one that the final abolition of James the
First's detestable statute was obtained. On the
thirtieth of July in that year, three men were
tried for the murder of one suspected witch
and the attempted murder of another. One of
the men, named Colley, was executed. The
rabble cursed the authorities, and made
a riot about the gallows, praising Colley for
having rid their parish of a malignant witch,
and holding him up as deserving of reward,
not punishment. And this murder led to
the abolition of the Witch Laws.

All these are histories of long ago; so long
as to be almost out of cognisance as belonging
to ourselves. Yet, how many weeks have
passed since those letters on modern witchcraft
appeared in the Times? Since some not
despicable intellects among us have openly
adopted all the silliness and transparent
deception of the so-called spirit-rappers?
Since miracles have been publicly
proclaimed in certain Catholic countries?
Since one journal of this country gravely
argued for the truth and the reality of diabolical
possession, and distinct Satanic agency,
as exemplified by the popular notion of
witchcraft? With such instances against
us, we have little cause of self-gratulation on
the score of national exemption from
superstition.

       POWERS OF CALCULATION

WHAT an immense difference there is
between hearing of an extraordinary fact—
between even believing it; that is, simply
saying to yourself; "Yes, I suppose it must be
true, because everybody seems to take it for
granted," and witnessing the same fact in
proper person! Reading about the sea, for
instance, and making your first sea-voyage;
rapidly perusing a book of travels, and
beholding for yourself a tropical country;
glancing at the report of an execution or a
battle, and being actually present at the