About 250 years ago, the reality of witchcraft was very generally
admitted throughout Europe. The belief in the active agency of the
Spirit of Evil in human affairs, had existed among Christians from the
earliest period, and the legends of saints, their trials and
temptations, in which the devil plays so important a part, served to
extend and confirm these popular notions. At last, the direct agency of
diabolical powers, and its open manifestation, was assumed, and, at the
period of which we speak, was held to be a point of Christian faith. The
pious Baxter considered the disbelief of witchcraft as equivalent to
infidelity; the just and sagacious Sir Matthew Hale admitted its
reality, and pronounced sentence against those who were convicted of it;
and, alas! the pedantic king, James I. of England, wrote a book
entitled, "Daemonologia, or a Discourse on Witchcraft."
The purpose of this work was to prove the reality of witchcraft, its
prevalence among mankind, its great enormity, and the means of its
detection and punishment. Its effect was to extend the belief in
witchcraft, and, of course, to multiply the apparent instances of its
existence. The insane fancies of diseased minds, unusual phenomena of
nature, and the artful machinery of designing malignity, ambition, or
hypocrisy, were all laid at Satan's door. Of the horrors that followed,
history furnishes a melancholy account. It is supposed that 30,000
persons were executed in England, from the year 1500 to 1722. The same
dreadful delusion prevailed in other parts of Europe, and extended in
due time to this country, and about the year 1692, twenty persons were
executed in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.
During the period in which this fearful mania was prevalent in England,
Matthew Hopkins, denominated Witch-Finder General, acted a conspicuous
part. He pretended to be a great critic in special marks or signs of
witchcraft. Moles, warts, scorbutic spots, were in his eyes teats to
suckle imps, and were sufficient evidences to bring a victim to the
halter. He was assisted by one John Stern, a kindred genius, and in the
year 1644, 5 and 6, they brought a great number of poor wretches to the
fatal tree. Matthew, himself, hung in one year no less than sixty
reputed witches of his own county of Essex. He received twenty shillings
a head from the public authorities for every witch he discovered. The
old, the ignorant, and the indigent,--such as could neither plead their
own cause nor hire an advocate, were the miserable victims of his
credulity, avarice, and spleen.
When other evidences of guilt were wanting, Hopkins adopted the trial by
water, which had been suggested by king James, who remarks that "as some
persons have renounced their baptism by water, so water refuses to
receive them." Those accused of diabolical practices, therefore, were
thrown into a pond. If they floated or swam, according to king James'
notion the water refused to receive them, and they were therefore
guilty. These were consequently taken out and burnt, or hung. If they
were innocent, they sunk, and were only drowned.
Suspicion was at last turned against Hopkins himself, and the ordeal of
swimming was applied in his own case. In consequence of this experiment,
he was convicted and executed as a wizard. An allusion to this
extraordinary character is made in the third canto of Hudibras, who
says,
Has not the present parliament
A lodger 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?
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