make us unreasonably impatient for any further manifestations of his
poetical skill. In the year 1654 he published another tract of
singular interest and curiosity, in which he attacks the Universities
and the received system of education there, always with vigour and
various learning, and frequently with success. It is entitled
"Academiarum Examen, or the Examination of Academies; wherein is
discussed and examined the matter, method, and customes of academick
and scholastic learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and
laid open; as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of
schools, and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science;
offered to the judgment of all those that love the proficiencie of
arts and sciences and the advancement of learning. By Jo. Webster. In
moribus et institutis academiarum, collegiorum et similium conventium
quo ad doctorum hominum sedes et operas mutuas destinata sunt, omnia
progressui scientiarum in ulterius adversa inveniri. Franc. Bacon de
Verulamio lib. de cogitat. et vis. pag. mihi. 14. London: Printed for
Giles Calvert, and are to be sold at the sign of the Black
Spread-Eagle, at the west end of Paul's. 1654." 4to. In this tract,
which, like some other attacks upon the seats of learning, displays
more power in objection than in substitution, in pulling down than in
building up again, he shews the same fondness for the philosophers of
the Hermetic school, for Paracelsus, Dee, Fludd and Van Helmont, and
the same adhesion to planetary sigils, astrology, and the doctrine of
sympathies and primæval signatures, which is perceptible in the
deliberate performance of his old age. Of himself he observes: "I owe
little to the advantages of those things called the goods of fortune,
but most (next under the goodness of God) to industry: however, I am a
free born Englishman, a citizen of the world and a seeker of
knowledge, and am willing to teach what I know, and learn what I know
not." No one can read the _Academiarum Examen_ without feeling that it
is the production of a vigorous and powerful mind, which had "tasted,"
and that not scantily, of the "sweet fruit of far fetched and dear
bought science." Yet it still remains a literary problem rather
difficult of solution, how a performance so clear, well digested, and
rational, could proceed, and that contemporaneously, from the same
author as the cloudy and fanatical "Judgment Set and Books Opened." On
behalf of the Universities, answerers started up in the persons of
Ward and Wilkins, both afterwards bishops, and the part taken by the
first of them in the controversy was considered of sufficient
importance to form matter of commemoration in his monumental
inscription. Two opponents so famous, might almost seem to threaten
extinction to one, of whom it could only be said, that he had been an
obscure country schoolmaster, and whose acquirements, whatever they
were, were mainly the result of his own unassisted study. In the joint
answer, the title of which is "Vindiciæ Academiarum, containing some
briefe animadversions upon Mr. Webster's book entitled the
'Examination of Academies,' together with an appendix concerning what
Mr. Hobbes and Mr. Dell have published in this argument, Oxford,
1654," 4to., there is no want of bitterness nor of controversial
skill, but though, particularly in the limited arena of the prescribed
course of academical study, the knowledge displayed in it is more
exact, there is neither visible in it the same power of mind, nor the
same breadth of views, nor even the same variety of learning, as is
conspicuous in the original tract. This, with the two fanatical pieces
which Webster published contemporaneously with it, were entirely
unknown to his biographer, Dr. Whitaker, who has ceded him a place
amongst the distinguished natives and residents of the parish of
Whalley, in the full confidence "that there is no puritanical taint in
his writings, and that his taste had evidently been formed upon better
models.[27]" Had these early theological and literary delinquencies
of the physician of Clitheroe been communicated to his historian, it
may be questioned whether the portals of his provincial temple of fame
would have opened to receive so heinous a transgressor. But Dr.
Whitaker's deduction would have been perhaps perfectly warrantable,
had Webster left no remains but his _History of Metals_, and
_Displaying of Witchcraft_--so little do an author's latest works
afford a clue to the character of his earliest. From 1654 to 1671,
when he published his _History of Metals_, little is known of
Webster's course of life. He appears to have retired into the country
and devoted himself to medical practice and study, and to have taken
up his residence in or near Clitheroe. He complains, that in the year
1658 all his books and papers were taken from him, an abstraction
which, so far as his manuscripts are concerned, posterity is not
called upon to lament, if they all resembled his _Judgment Set and
Books Opened_. But his capacious and acute understanding was gradually
unfolding new resources, supplying the defects, and overcoming the
disadvantages of his imperfect education and desultory and irregular
studies, while his matured and enlightened judgment had abandoned and
discarded the fanatical pravities and erroneous tenets, which his
ardent enthusiasm had too hastily imbibed. When he again became a
candidate for the honours of authorship, it was evident that he knew
well how to apply those quarries of learning into which, during his
long recess, he had been digging so indefatigably, to furnish
materials for solid and durable structures, rising in honourable and
gratifying contrast to the fabrics which had preceded them. In 1671
came forth his "Metallographia, or History of Metals,"[28] in which
all that recondite learning and extensive observation could bring
together, on a subject which experiment had scarcely yet placed upon a
rational basis, is collected. He styles himself on the Title page,
"Practitioner in Physic and Chirurgery." In 1677, he published his
great work. Its Title is "The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft.
Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of Deceivers and
Impostors. And Divers persons under a passive Delusion of Melancholy
and Fancy. But that there is a Corporeal League made betwixt the Devil
and the Witch, Or that he sucks on the Witches Body, has Carnal
Copulation, or that Witches are turned into Cats, Dogs, raise
Tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also
is handled, the Existence of Angels and Spirits, the truth of
Apparitions, the Nature of Astral and Sydereal Spirits, the force of
Charms and Philters; with other abstruse matters. By John Webster,
Practitioner in Physic. Falsæ etenim opiniones Hominum præoccupantes,
non solum surdos, sed et cæcos faciunt, ita ut videre nequeant, quæ
aliis perspicua apparent. Galen, lib. 8. de Comp. Med. London, Printed
by J.M. and are to be sold by the Booksellers in London. 1677," (fol.)
In this memorable book he exhausts the subject, as far as it is
possible to do so, by powerful ridicule, cogent arguments, and the
most various and well applied learning, leaving to Hutchinson, and
others who have since followed in his track, little further necessary
than to reproduce his facts and reasonings in a more popular, it can
scarcely be said, in a more effective, form.[29] Those who love
literary parallels may compare Webster, as he appears in this his
last and most characteristic performance, with two famous medical
contemporaries, Sir Thomas Browne, and Thomas Bartholinus the Dane,
whom he strongly resembled in the character of his mind, in the
complexion and variety of his studies, in grave simplicity, in
exactness of observation, in general philosophical incredulity with
some startling reserves, in elaborate and massive ratiocination, and
in the enthusiasm, subdued but not extinguished, which gives zest to
his speculations and poignancy and colouring to his style. He who
seeks to measure great men in their strength and in their weakness,
and what operation of literary analysis is more instructive or
delightful, will find ample employment for collation and comparison
in this extraordinary book, in which, keen as is the penetration
displayed on almost every subject of imposition and delusion, he
appears still to cling, with the obstinacy of a veteran, to some of
the darling Dalilahs of his youth, "to the admirable and
soul-ravishing knowledge of the three great Hypostatical principles of
nature, salt, sulphur, and mercury," and, _proh pudor!_ to alchemy and
astrology--and those seraphic doctors and professors, Crollius,
Libavius, and Van Helmont. He closed his literary performances with
this noble fabric of logic and learning, not the less striking, and
scarcely less useful, because it is chequered by some of the mosaic
work of human imperfection,--a performance which may be said to have
grown up under the umbrage of Pendle, and which he might have
bequeathed to its future Demdikes and Chattox's as an amulet of
irresistible power.[30]
[Footnote 27: What would Dr. Whitaker have thought of the following
explosion, in which Webster sounds the tocsin with a vehemence and
vigour which no Macbriar or Kettledrumle of the period could have
surpassed. The extract is from his _Judgment Set and Books Opened_:--
"All those that claim an Ordination by Man, or from Man, that speak
from the Spirit of the World, from Wit, Learning and Humane Reason,
who Preach for Hire, and make Merchandize of the Souls of Men; I
witness they are all Baal's Priests and Idol-Shepherds, who destroy
the Sheep, and are Theives and Robbers, who came not in by the Door of
the Sheep-fold, but climbed up another way, and _are the Magicians,
Sorcerers, Inchanters, Soothsayers, Necromancers, and Consulters with
Familiar Spirits, which the Lord will cut off out of the Land_, so
that his People shall have no more Soothsayers; and as Jannes and
Jambres resisted Moses, so do these resist the Truth; Men of corrupt
Minds, reprobate concerning the Faith; but they shall proceed no
farther, for their Folly shall be manifest to all Men, as theirs also
was. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran
greedily after the Errors of Balaam, for Reward, and Perished in the
Gainsaying of Core. These are Spots in your Feasts of Charity, when
they Feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: Clouds they are
without Water, carried of Winds; Trees, whose Fruit withered, without
Fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the Roots: Raging Waves of the Sea,
foaming out their own Shame, wandring Stars, to whom is reserved the
blackness of Darkness for ever."]
[Footnote 28: "_Metallographia: or, An History of Metals. Wherein is
declared the signs of Ores and Minerals both before and after digging,
the causes and manner of their generations, their kinds, sorts and
differences; with the description of sundry new Metals or Semi-Metals,
and many other things pertaining to Mineral knowledge. As also, the
handling and shewing of their Vegetability, and the discussion of the
most difficult Questions belonging to Mystical Chymistry, as of the
Philosophers Gold, their Mercury, the Liquor Alkahest, Aurum potabile,
and such like. Gathered forth of the most approved Authors that have
written in Greek, Latine, or High Dutch; With some Observations and
Discoveries of the Author himself. By John Webster, Practitioner in
Physick and Chirurgery. Qui principia naturalia in seipso ignoraverit,
hic jam multum remotus est ab arte nostra, quoniam non habet radicem
veram supra quam intentionem suam fundet. Geber. Sum. perfect. l. c.
i. p. 21._
_Sed non ante datur telluris operta subire,
Auricomos quam quis discerpserit arbore foetus._
_Virg._ Æneid. l. 6.
_London, Printed by A.C. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in
Duck-lane, 1671, 4to._"]
[Footnote 29: Dr. Whitaker's assertion, that Webster was "neglected
alike by the wise and unwise," seems to be a mere _gratis dictum_. The
age of folios was rapidly passing away; but few folios of the period
appear to have been more generally read, if we are to judge at least
from its being frequently mentioned and quoted, than Webster's
_Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft_. The same able writer's "Doubt
whether Sir Matthew Hale ever read Webster's _Discovery of Supposed
Witchcraft_," might easily have been satisfied by a reference to any
common life of that great judge, which would have shown the historian
of Whalley that Hale died before the book was published. Nor is Dr.
Whitaker correct in stating that all tradition of Webster is now lost
in the neighbourhood where he resided. The following anecdote, which
would have delighted him, I had from an old inhabitant of Burnley, to
whom it had been handed down by his grandfather:--In the days of
Webster's fanaticism, during the usurpation, he is stated, in the
zealous crusade then so common against superstitious relics, to have
headed a party by whom the three venerable crosses, now set up in the
churchyard of Whalley, commonly called the Crosses of Paulinus, and
supposed to be coeval with the first preaching of Christianity in the
North of England, were removed and taken away from their site and
appropriated as a boundary fence for some adjoining fields. After the
Restoration, and when his religious views had become sobered and
settled, he is said, in an eager desire to atone for the desecration
of which he had been guilty, to have purchased the crosses from the
person who was then in possession of them, and to have been at the
cost of re-erecting them on their present site, from which no
sacrilegious hand will, I trust, ever again remove them. It is further
said, that Webster's favourite and regular walk, in the latter part of
his life, till his infirmities rendered him unable to take exercise of
any kind, was to the remains of Whalley Abbey; and that a path along
the banks of the stream which glides by those most picturesque and
pleasing ruins, was long called "Webster's Walk." If this tradition be
founded in fact, and I give it as I received it, John Webster, of
Clitheroe, if not identical, as Mr. Collier has contended, with the
dramatic poet of that name, must have felt something assimilated in
spirit to the fine inspiration of those noble lines of the latter:--
"I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history;
And, questionless, here in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some men lie interred that
Lov'd the Church so well and gave so largely to't,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till doomsday: but all things have their end.
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,
Must have like death that we have."]
[Footnote 30: Webster's death took place on the 18th June, 1682. He
left an extensive library, composed principally of chemical,
hermetical, and philosophical works, of which the MSS. catalogue is
now in the possession of my friend, the Rev. T. Corser. I have two
books which appear to have at one time formed part of his collection,
from having his favourite signature, Johannes Hyphantes, in his
autograph, on the title pages. Before I conclude with Webster, I ought
perhaps to observe, that in the valuable edition of the works of
Webster, the dramatic poet, published by the Rev. A. Dyce, that most
accurate and judicious editor has proved indisputably, by an elaborate
argument, that the John Webster, the writer of the _Examen
Academiarum_, and John Webster, the author of the _Displaying of
Supposed Witchcraft_, were one and the same person, who was not
identical with the dramatic writer of the same name. Mr. Dyce does
not, however, appear to have been aware, that the identity of the
author of the _Examen Academiarum_ and the writer on witchcraft is
distinctly stated by Dr. Henry More, in his _Præfatio Generalissima_,
to the Latin edition of his works, whose testimony being that of a
contemporary, who was, like Webster, "a Cambridge scholar," may
perhaps be considered sufficient, without resorting to internal and
circumstantial evidence. The inscription on Webster's monument in the
chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, at Clitheroe, is too characteristic and
curious to be omitted. I give it entire:--
"_Qui hanc figuram intelligunt
Me etiam intellexisse, intelligent._
[Illustration]
_Hic jacet ignotus mundo, mersusque tumultu
Invidiæ, semper mens tamen æqua fuit,
Multa tulit veterum ut sciret secreta sophorum
Ac tandem vires noverit ignis aquæ._
* * * * *
_Johannes Hyphantes sive Webster,
In villa Spinosa supermontana, in
Parochia silvæ cuculatæ, in agro
Eboracensi, natus 1610 Feb. 3,
Ergastulum animæ deposuit 1682, Junii 18,
Annoq. ætatis suæ 72 currente._
_Sicq. peroravit moriens mundo huic valedicens,
Aurea pax vivis, requies æterna sepultis._"]
But it is necessary to proceed from the authors on witchcraft to that
extraordinary case which forms the subject of the present
republication, and which first gave to Pendle its title to be
considered as the Hartz Forest of England.
The Forest of Pendle is a portion of the greater one of
Blackburnshire, and is so called from the celebrated mountain of that
name, over the declivity of which it extends and stretches in a long
but interrupted descent of five miles, to the water of Pendle, a
barren and dreary tract. Dr. Whitaker observes of this and the
neighbouring forests, and the remark even yet holds good, "that they
still bear the marks of original barrenness, and recent cultivation;
that they are still distinguished from the ancient freehold tracts
around them, by want of old houses, old woods, high fences; (for these
were forbidden by the forest laws;) by peculiarities of dialect and
manners in their inhabitants; and lastly, by a general air of poverty
which all the opulence of manufactures cannot remove." He considers
that "at an uncertain period during the occupancy of the Lacies, the
first principle of population" (in these forests) commenced; it was
found that these wilds, bleak and barren as they were, might be
occupied to some advantage in breeding young and depasturing lean
"cattle, which were afterwards fattened in the lower domains.
_Vaccaries_, or great upland pastures, were laid out for this purpose;
_booths_ or mansions erected upon them for the residence of herdsmen;
and at the same time that herds of deer were permitted to range at
large as heretofore, _lawnds_, by which are meant parks within a
forest, were inclosed, in order to chase them with greater facility,
or, by confinement, to produce fatter venison. Of these lawnds Pendle
had new and old lawnd, with the contiguous park of Ightenhill."
In the early part of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of this
district must have been, with few exceptions, a wretchedly poor and
uncultivated race, having little communication with the occupants of
the more fertile regions around them, and in whose minds superstition,
even yet unextinguished, must have had absolute and uncontrollable
domination. Under the disenchanting influence of steam, manufactures,
and projected rail-roads, still much of the old character of its
population remains. _Hodie manent vestigia ruris._ The "parting
genius" of superstition still clings to the hoary hill tops and rugged
slopes and mossy water sides, along which the old forest stretched its
length, and the voices of ancestral tradition are still heard to speak
from the depth of its quiet hollows, and along the course of its
gurgling streams. He who visits Pendle[31] will yet find that charms
are generally resorted to amongst the lower classes; that there are
hares which, in their persuasion, never can be caught, and which
survive only to baffle and confound the huntsman; that each small
hamlet has its peculiar and gifted personage, whom it is dangerous to
offend; that the wise man and wise woman (the white witches of our
ancestors) still continue their investigations of truth, undisturbed
by the rural police or the progress of the schoolmaster; that each
locality has its haunted house; that apparitions still walk their
ghostly rounds--and little would his reputation for piety avail that
clergyman in the eyes of his parishioners who should refuse to lay
those "extravagant and erring spirits," when requested, by those due
liturgic ceremonies which the orthodoxy of tradition requires.
[Footnote 31: It was my good fortune to visit this wizard-haunted spot
within the last few weeks, in company with the able and zealous
Archdeacon[A] within whose ecclesiastical cure it is comprized, and to
whose singularly accurate knowledge of this district, and courteous
communication of much valuable information regarding it, I hold myself
greatly indebted. Following, with unequal steps, such a guide,
accompanied, likewise, by an excellent Canon of the Church[B] with all
the "armamentaria coeli" at command against the powers of darkness,
and a lay auxiliary[C], whose friendly converse would make the
roughest journey appear smooth, I need scarcely say, I passed through
"The forest wyde,
Whose hideous horror and sad trembling sownd
Full griesly seem'd,"
unscathed by the old lords of the soil, and needed not Mengus's Fuga,
Fustis et Flagellum Dæmonum, as a triple coat of mail.]
[Footnote A: The Venerable the Archdeacon of Manchester, the Rev. John
Rushton, who is also the Incumbent of New Church, in Pendle.]
[Footnote B: The Rev. Canon Parkinson.]
[Footnote C: J.B. Wanklyn, Esq.]
In the early part of the reign of James the first, and at the period
when his execrable statute against witchcraft might have been
sharpening its appetite by a temporary fast for the full meal of blood
by which it was eventually glutted,--for as yet it could count no
recorded victims,--two wretched old women with their families resided
in the Forest of Pendle. Their names were Elizabeth Southernes and Ann
Whittle, better known, perhaps, in the chronicles of witchcraft, by
the appellations of Old Demdike and Old Chattox.[32] Both had
attained, or had reached the verge of the advanced age of eighty, were
evidently in a state of extreme poverty, subsisting with their
families by occasional employment, by mendicancy, but principally,
perhaps, by the assumption of that unlawful power, which commerce with
spirits of evil was supposed to procure, and of which their sex, life,
appearance, and peculiarities, might seem to the prejudiced
neighbourhood in the Forest to render them not unsuitable
depositaries. In both, perhaps, some vindictive wish, which appeared
to have been gratified nearly as soon as uttered, or some one of those
curious coincidences which no individual's life is without, led to an
impression which time, habit, and general recognition would gradually
deepen into full conviction, that each really possessed the powers
which witchcraft was believed to confer. Whether it be with witches as
it is said to be with a much maligned branch of a certain profession,
that it needs two of its members in a district to make its exercise
profitable, it is not for me to say; but it is seldom found that
competition is accompanied by any very amicable feeling in the
competitors, or by a disposition to underrate the value of the
merchandize which each has to offer for sale. Accordingly, great was
the rivalry, constant the feuds, and unintermitting the respective
criminations of the Erictho and Canidia of Pendle,[33] who had opened
shops for the vending of similar contraband commodities, and were
called upon to decry each other's stock, as well as to magnify their
own. Each "gave her little senate laws," and had her own party (or
tail, according to modern phraseology) in the Forest. Some looked up
to and patronized one, and some the other. If old Demdike could boast
that she had Tibb as a familiar, old Chattox was not without her
Fancy. If the former had skill in waxen images, the latter could dig
up the scalps of the dead, and make their teeth serviceable to her
unhallowed purposes. In the anxiety which each felt to outvie the
other, and to secure the greater share of the general custom of a not
very extended or very lucrative market, each would wish to be
represented as more death-dealing, destructive, and powerful than her
neighbour; and she who could number up the most goodly assortment of
damage done to man and beast, whether real or not was quite
immaterial, as long as the draught was spiced and flavoured to suit
the general taste, stood the best chance of obtaining a monopoly. It
is a curious fact, that the son-in-law of one of these two
individuals, and whose wife was herself executed as a witch, paid to
the other a yearly rent,[34] on an express covenant that she should
exempt him from her charms and witchcrafts. Where the possession of a
commission from the powers of darkness was thus eagerly and
ostentatiously paraded, every death, the cause of which was not
perfectly obvious, whether it ended in a sudden termination or a slow
and gradual decline, would be placed to the general account of one of
the two (to use Master Potts's description,) "agents for the devil in
those parts," as the party responsible for these unclaimed dividends
of mortality. Did a cow go mad, or was a horse unaccountably afflicted
with the staggers, the same solution was always at hand to clear
negligence and save the trouble of inquiry; and so far from modestly
disclaiming these atrocities, the only struggle on the parts of
Mothers Demdike and Chattox would be which should first appropriate
them. And in all this it must not be forgotten that their own
credulity was at least as great as the credulity of their neighbours,
and that each had the power in question was so much an admitted point,
that she had long ceased, in all probability, to entertain any doubts
on the subject. With this general conviction on one hand, and a
sincere persuasion on the other, it would be surprising if, in the
course of a few years, the scandalous chronicle of Pendle had not
accumulated a _corpus delicti_ against them, which only required that
"_one of his Majesties Justices in these parts, a very religious
honest gentleman, painful in the service of his country_," should work
the materials into shape, and make "the gruel thick and slab."
[Footnote 32: The Archdeacon of Manchester suggests that this is
merely a corruption of Chadwick or Chadwicks, and not, as explained in
the Note, p. 19, from her chattering as she went along.]
[Footnote 33: These bickerings were no doubt exasperated by the
robbery committed upon old Demdike and Alizon Device, which is
detailed in the examinations, some of the _opima spolia_ abstracted on
which occasion she detected on the person of old Chattox's daughter.]
[Footnote 34: Of an aghendole of meal. Since writing the Note, p. 23,
I am indebted to Miss Clegg, of Hallfoot, near Clitheroe, for
information as to the exact quantity contained in an aghendole, which
is eight pounds. This measure, she informs me, is still in use in
Little Harwood, in the district of Pendle. The Archdeacon of
Manchester considers that an aghendole, or more properly, as generally
pronounced, a nackendole, is a kneading-dole, the quantity of meal,
&c. usually taken for kneading at one time. There can be no doubt that
this is the correct derivation.]
Such a man was soon found in the representative of the old family of
the Nowels of Read, who, desirous of signalizing himself as an active
and stirring justice, took up the case of these self-accusing
culprits, for both made confessions when examined before him, with a
vigour worthy of a better cause. On the 2nd April, 1612, he committed
old Demdike, old Chattox, Alizon Device, and Anne Redfern to
Lancaster, to take their trial at the next assizes for various murders
and witchcrafts. "Here," says the faithful chronicler, Master Potts,
"they had not stayed a weeke, when their children and friendes being
abroad at libertie, laboured a speciall meeting at Malking Tower[35]
in the Forrest of Pendle, vpon Good-fryday, within a weeke after they
were committed, of all the most dangerous, wicked, and damnable
witches in the county farre and neere. Vpon Good-fryday they met,
according to solemne appoyntment, solemnized this great festiuall day
according to their former order, with great cheare, merry company, and
much conference. In the end, in this great assemblie it was decreed
that M. Covell, [he was the gaoler of Lancaster Castle,] by reason of
his Office, shall be slaine before the next Assises, the Castle at
Lancaster to be blown up," &c., &c. This witches' convention, so
historically famous, we unquestionably owe to the "painful justice"
whose scent after witches and plots entitled him to a promotion which
he did not obtain. An overt act so alarming and so indisputable, at
once threw the country, far and near, into the greatest
ferment--_furiis surrexit Etruria justis_--while it supplied an
admirable _locus in quo_ for tracing those whose retiring habits had
prevented their propensities to witchcraft from being generally known
to their intimate friends and connexions. The witness by whose
evidence this legend was principally supported, was Jennet Device, a
child about nine years old, and grand-daughter of old Demdike. A more
dangerous tool in the hands of an unscrupulous evidence-compeller,
being at once intelligent, cunning and pliant, than the child proved
herself, it would not have been easy to have discovered. A foundation
being now laid capable of embracing any body of confederates, the
indefatigable justice proceeded in his inquiries, and in the end,
Elizabeth Device the daughter of old Demdike, James Device her son,
Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock, Jane Bulcock, with some
others, were committed for trial at Lancaster. The very curious report
of that trial is contained in the work now republished, which was
compiled under the superintendence of the judges who presided, by
Master Thomas Potts, clerk in court, and present at the trial. His
report, notwithstanding its prolixity and its many repetitions, it has
been thought advisable to publish entire, and the reprint which
follows is as near a fac-simile as possible of the original tract.
[Footnote 35: Baines confounds Malking-Tower with Hoar-stones, a place
rendered famous by the second case of pretended witchcraft in 1633,
but at some distance from the first-named spot, the residence of
Mother Demdike, which lies in the township of Barrowford. The witch's
mansion--
"Where that same wicked wight
Her dwelling had--
Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave
That still for carrion carcases doth crave,
On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owle,
Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl,
And all about it wandering ghosts did wail and howle"--
is now, alas! no more. It stood in a field a little elevated, on a
brow above the building at present called Malking-Tower. The site of
the house or cottage is still distinctly traceable, and fragments of
the plaster are yet to be found imbedded in the boundary wall of the
field. The old road to Gisburne ran almost close to it. It commanded a
most extensive prospect in front, in the direction of Alkincoates,
Colne, and the Yorkshire moors; while in another direction the vast
range of Pendle, nearly intercepted, gloomed in sullen majesty. At the
period when Mother Demdike was in being, Malking-Tower would be at
some distance from any other habitation; its occupier, as the vulgar
would opine--
"So choosing solitarie to abide
Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deedes
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off unknown whomever she envide."]
It is rather strange that Dr. Whitaker, to whom local superstitions
were always matters of the strongest interest, and welcome as manna to
the sojourners in the wilderness,[36] should have been ignorant, not
merely of Master Potts's discovery, but even of the fact of this trial
of the witches in 1612. It is equally singular that Sir Walter Scott
should have forgotten, when writing his letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft, that he had republished this tract, somewhat inaccurately,
but with rather a long introduction and notes, in the third volume of
his edition of the Somers Tracts, which appeared in 1810. He mentions
Potts's _Discoverie_, in the amusing but very inaccurate and imperfect
historical sketch referred to,[37] as a curious and rare book, which
he had then for the first time obtained a sight of. What could have
been his meaning in referring his readers, for an account of Mother
Demdike and a description of Malking Tower, to "Mr. Roby's Antiquities
of Lancaster," that apocryphal historian having given no such account
or description, and having published no such work, it is rather
difficult to conjecture.
[Footnote 36: In a scarce little book, "The Triumph of Sovereign
Grace, or a Brand plucked out of the Fire, by David Crosly, Minister,
Manchester," 1743, 12mo., which I owe to the kindness of the very able
historian of Cheshire, George Ormerod, Esq., Dr. Whitaker, to whom the
volume formerly belonged, has been at the pains of chronicling the
superstitions connected with a family, ranking amongst the more
opulent yeomen of Cliviger, of the name of Briercliffe, on the
execution of one of whom for murder the tract was published. The
Briercliffe's, from the curious anecdotes which the Doctor gives with
great unction, appear to have been one of those gloomy and fated
races, dogged by some unassuageable Nemesis, in which crime and horror
are transmitted from generation to generation with as much certainty
as the family features and name.]
[Footnote 37: We yet want a full, elaborate, and satisfactory history
of witchcraft. Hutchinson's is the only account we have which enters
at all at length into the detail of the various cases; but his
materials were generally collected from common sources, and he
confines himself principally to English cases. The European history of
witchcraft embraces so wide a field, and requires for its just
completion a research so various, that there is little probability, I
fear, of this _desideratum_ being speedily supplied.]
With all his habitual tautology and grave absurdity, Master Potts is,
nevertheless, a faithful and accurate chronicler, and we owe his
memory somewhat for furnishing us with so elaborate a report of what
took place on this trial, and giving us, "in their own country terms,"
the examinations of the witnesses, which contain much which throws
light on the manners and language of the times, and nearly all that is
necessary to enable us to form a judgment on the proceedings. It will
be observed that he follows with great exactness the course pursued in
court, in opening the case and recapitulating the evidence separately
against each prisoner, so as most graphically to place before us the
whole scene as it occurred. The part in which he is felt to be most
deficient, is in the want of some further account of the prisoners
convicted, from the trial up to the time of their execution. To Master
Potts, a man of legal forms and ceremonies, the entire interest in the
case seems to have come in and gone out with the judge's trumpets.
As most of the points in the trial which appeared to require
observation, have been adverted to in the notes which follow the
reprint, it is not considered necessary to enter into any analysis or
review of the evidence adduced at the trial, which presents such a
miserable mockery of justice. Mother Demdike, it will be seen, died in
prison before the trial came on. Of the Pendle witches four, namely
Old Chattox, Elizabeth Device, James Device, and Alizon Device, had
all made confessions, and had little chance, therefore, of escaping
condemnation. They were all found guilty; and with them were
convicted, Anne Redfern, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John
Bulcock, and Jane Bulcock, who were all of Pendle or its
neighbourhood, and who maintained their innocence and refused to make
any confession. They were executed, along with the first-mentioned
four and Isabel Robey, who was of Windle, in the parish of Prescot,
and had been found guilty of similar practises, the day after the
trial, viz. on the 18th of August, 1612, "at the common place of
execution near to Lancaster."
The main interest in reviewing this miserable band of victims will be
felt to centre in Alice Nutter.[38] Wealthy, well conducted, well
connected, and placed probably on an equality with most of the
neighbouring families and the magistrate before whom she was brought,
and by whom she was committed, she deserves to be distinguished from
the companions with whom she suffered, and to attract an attention
which has never yet been directed towards her.[39] That Jennet Device,
on whose evidence she was convicted, was instructed to accuse her by
her own nearest relatives, to whom "superfluous lagged the veteran on
the stage," and that the magistrate, Roger Nowell, entered actively as
a confederate into the conspiracy from a grudge entertained against
her on account of a long disputed boundary, are allegations which
tradition has preserved, but the truth or falsehood of which, at this
distance of time, it is scarcely possible satisfactorily to examine.
With such a witness, however, as Jennet Device, and such an admirable
engine as the meeting at Malking-Tower, the guests at which she could
multiply _ad libitum_, doling out the _plaat_, as Titus Oates would
call it, by such instalments, and in such fragmentary portions, as
would conduce to an easy digestion of the whole, the wonder seems not
to be, that one unfortunate victim of a higher class should have
perished in the meshes of artful and complicated villainy, but that
its ramifications were not more extensive, and still more fatal and
destructive. From one so capable of taking a hint as the little
precocious prodigy of wickedness, in whose examination, Potts tells
us, "_Mr. Nowell took such great paines_," a very summary deliverance
might be expected from troublesome neighbours, or still more
troublesome relatives; and if, by a leading question, she could only
be induced to marshal them in their allotted places at the witches'
imaginary banquet, there was little doubt of their taking their
station at a place of meeting where the sad realities of life were
only to be encountered, "the common place of execution near to
Lancaster."
[Footnote 38: The explorer of Pendle will find the mansion of Alice
Nutter, Rough Lee, still standing. It is impossible to look at it,
recollecting the circumstances of her case, without being strongly
interested. It is a very substantial, and rather a fine specimen of
the houses of the inferior gentry in the time of James the first, and
is now divided into cottages. On one of the side walls is an
inscription, almost entirely obliterated, which contained the date of
the building and the initials of the name of its first owner. At a
little distance from Rough Lee, pursuing the course of the stream, he
will find the foundations of an ancient mill, and the millstones still
unremoved, though the building itself has been pulled down long ago.
This was, doubtless, the mill of Richard Baldwin, the miller, who, as
stated in Old Demdike's confession, ejected her and Alizon Device her
daughter, from his land so contumeliously; immediately after which her
"Spirit or divell called Tibb appeared, and sayd Revenge thee of him."
Greenhead, the residence of Robert Nutter, one of the reputed victims
of the prisoners tried on this occasion, is at some distance from
Rough Lee, and is yet in good preservation, and occupied as a
farmhouse.]
[Footnote 39: The instances are very few in England in which the
statute of James the first was brought to bear against any but the
lowest classes of the people. Indeed, there are not many attempts
reported to attack the rich and powerful with weapons derived from its
provisions. One of such attempts, which did not, like that against
Alice Nutter, prove successful, is narrated in a curious and scarce
pamphlet, which I have now before me, with this title--"Wonderful News
from the North, or a true Relation of the sad and grievous Torments
inflicted upon the Bodies of three children of Mr. George Muschamp,
late of the County of Northumberland, by Witchcraft, and how
miraculously it pleased God to strengthen them and to deliver them; as
also the prosecution of the say'd Witches, as by Oaths and their own
Confessions will appear, and by the Indictment found by the Jury
against one of them at the Sessions of the Peace held at Alnwick, the
24th day of April, 1650. London, printed by T.H., and are to be sold
by Richard Harper at his Shop in Smithfield. 1650," 4to. This was
evidently a diabolical plot, in which these children were made the
puppets, and which was got up to accomplish the destruction of a
person of condition, Mrs. Dorothy Swinnow, the wife of Colonel
Swinnow, of Chatton, in Northumberland, and from which she had great
difficulty in escaping.]
The trial of the Samlesbury witches, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley,
and Jane Southworth, forms a curious episode in Potts's _Discoverie_.
A Priest or Jesuit, of the name of Thomson, _alias_ Southworth, had
tutored the principal evidence, Grace Sowerbuts, a girl of the age of
fourteen, but who had not the same instinctive genius for perjury as
Jennet Device, to accuse the three persons above mentioned of having
bewitched her; "so that," as the indictment runs, "by means thereof
her body wasted and consumed." "The chief object," says Sir Walter
Scott, "in this imposture, was doubtless the advantage and promotion
of the Catholic cause, as the patient would have been in due time
exorcised and the fiend dispossessed, by the same priest who had
taught her to counterfeit the fits. Revenge against the women, who had
become proselytes to the Church of England, was probably an additional
motive." But the imposture broke down, from the inability of the
principal witness to support the scheme of deception. Unsuccessful,
however, as it proved, the time was well chosen, the groundwork
excellently laid, the evidence industriously got up, and it must ever
deserve a prominent place in the history--a history, how delightful
when it shall be written in the spirit of philosophy and with due
application of research--of human fraud and imposture.
We can only speculate, of course, on such an occasion, but perhaps no
trial is recorded as having taken place, with the results of which
every body, the parties convicted only excepted, was, in all
probability, better pleased or satisfied, than at this witch trial at
Lancaster in 1612. The mob would be delighted with a pageant, always
acceptable, in the execution of ten witches; and still more, that one
of them was of a rank superior to their own;--the judge had no doubt,
in his opinion, avoided each horn of the dilemma--the abomination
mentioned in Scripture--punishing the innocent or letting the guilty
go free--by tracking guilt with well breathed sagacity, and
unravelling imposture with unerring skill;--a Jesuit had been
unkennelled, a spectacle as gratifying to a serious Protestant in
those days, as running down a fox to a thorough sportsman;--a plot had
been discovered which might have made Lancaster Castle "to topple on
its warders" and "slope its head to its foundations," and Master
Cowell, who had held so many inquests, to vanish without leaving
anything in his own person whereon an inquest could be holden;--a
pestilent nest of incorrigible witches had been dug out and rooted up,
and Pendle Hill placed under sanatory regulations;--and last, and not
least, as affording matter of pride and exultation to every loyal
subject, a commentary had at last been collected for two texts, which
had long called for some such support without finding it, King James's
_Demonology_, and his statute against witchcraft. When the
_Discoverie_ of Master Potts, with its rich treasury of illustrative
evidence, came to hand, would not the monarch be the happiest man in
his dominions!
Twenty years after the publication of the tract now reprinted, Pendle
Forest again became the scene of pretended witchcrafts; and from
various circumstances, the trial which took place then (in 1633) has
acquired even greater notoriety than the one which preceded it, though
no Master Potts could be found to transmit a report of the proceedings
in the second case, a deficiency which is greatly to be lamented. The
particulars are substantially comprised in the following examination,
which is given from the copy in Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 213, which,
on comparison, is unquestionably more accurate than the other two
versions, in Webster, p. 347, and Baines's _Lancashire_, vol. i. p.
604:[40]--
[Footnote 40: The copy in Baines is from the Harl. MSS., cod. 6854,
fo. 26 _b_, and though inserted in his history as more correct than
that in Whitaker's Whalley, is so disfigured by errors, particularly
in the names of persons and places, as to be utterly unintelligible.
From what source Whitaker derived his transcript does not appear; for
the confession of Margaret Johnson he cites Dodsworth MSS. in Bodleian
Lib., vol. 61, p. 47.]
"THE EXAMINATION OF EDMUND ROBINSON,
"Son of _Edm. Robinson_, of _Pendle_ forest, mason,[41] taken at
_Padiham_ before _Richard Shuttleworth_[42] and _John Starkie_,[43]
Esqs. two of his majesty's justices of the peace, within the county of
_Lancaster_, 10th of February, A.D. 1633.
[Footnote 41: "The informer was one Edmund Robinson (yet living at the
writing hereof, and commonly known by the name of Ned of Roughs) whose
Father was by trade a Waller, and but a poor Man, and they finding
that they were believed and had incouragement by the adjoyning
Magistrates, and the persons being committed to prison or bound over
to the next Assizes, the boy, his Father and some others besides did
make a practice to go from Church to Church that the Boy might reveal
and discover Witches, pretending that there was a great number at the
pretended meeting whose faces he could know, and by that means they
got a good living, that in a short space the Father bought a Cow or
two, when he had none before. And it came to pass that this said Boy
was brought into the Church of Kildwick a large parish Church, where I
(being then Curate there) was preaching in the afternoon, and was set
upon a stall (he being but about ten or eleven years old) to look
about him, which moved some little disturbance in the Congregation for
a while. And after prayers I inquiring what the matter was, the people
told me that it was the Boy that discovered Witches, upon which I went
to the house where he was to stay all night, where I found him, and
two very unlikely persons that did conduct him, and manage the
business; I desired to have some discourse with the Boy in private,
but that they utterly refused; then in the presence of a great many
people, I took the Boy near me, and said: Good Boy tell me truly, and
in earnest, did thou see and hear such strange things of the meeting
of Witches, as is reported by many that thou dost relate, or did not
some person teach thee to say such things of thy self? But the two men
not giving the Boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he
had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace, and they did
never ask him such a question, to whom I replied, the persons accused
had therefore the more wrong."--Webster's _Displaying of Witchcraft_,
p. 276.]
[Footnote 42: This was Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorp, Esq., who
married the daughter and heiress of R. Fleetwood, Esq., of Barton, and
died June 1669, aged 82.]
[Footnote 43: John Starkie, Esq., of the family of Starkie of
Huntroyd, the same probably who was sheriff of Lancashire 9 Charles I,
and one of the seven demoniacs at Cleworth in the year 1595, on whose
evidence Hartley was hanged for witchcraft. Having commenced so early,
he must by this time have qualified himself, if he only improved the
advantages of his Cleworth education, to take the chair and proceed as
professor, in all matters appertaining to witchcraft.]
"Who informeth upon oath, (beeinge examined concerninge the greate
meetings of the witches) and saith, that upon All-saints day last
past, hee, this informer, beeinge with one _Henry Parker_, a neare
doore neighbor to him in _Wheatley-lane_,[44] desyred the said
_Parker_ to give him leave to get some bulloes,[45] which hee did. In
which tyme of gettinge bulloes, hee sawe two greyhounds, viz. a blacke
and a browne one, came runninge over the next field towards him, he
verily thinkinge the one of them to bee Mr. _Nutters_,[46] and the
other to bee Mr. _Robinsons_,[47] the said Mr. _Nutter_ and Mr.
_Robinson_ havinge then such like. And the said greyhounds came to him
and fawned on him, they havinge about theire necks either of them a
coller, and to either of which collers was tyed a stringe, which
collers as this informer affirmeth did shine like gould, and hee
thinkinge that some either of Mr. _Nutter's_ or Mr. _Robinson's_
family should have followed them: but seeinge noe body to followe
them, he tooke the said greyhounds thinkinge to hunt with them, and
presently a hare did rise very neare before him, at the sight whereof
he cryed, loo, loo, but the dogges would not run. Whereupon beeinge
very angry, he tooke them, and with the strings that were at theire
collers tyed either of them to a little bush on the next hedge, and
with a rod that hee had in his hand, hee bett them. And in stede of
the blacke greyhound, one _Dickonson_ wife stoode up (a neighb^r.)
whom this informer knoweth, and in steade of the browne greyhound a
little boy whom this informer knoweth not. At which sight this
informer beeinge affraid indevoured to run away: but beeinge stayed by
the woman, viz. by _Dickonson's_ wife, shee put her hand into her
pocket, and pulled out a peace of silver much like to a faire
shillinge, and offered to give him to hould his tongue, and not to
tell, whiche hee refused, sayinge, nay thou art a witch; Whereupon
shee put her hand into her pocket againe, and pulled out a stringe
like unto a bridle[48] that gingled, which shee put upon the litle
boyes heade that stood up in the browne greyhounds steade; whereupon
the said boy stood up a white horse. Then immediately the said
_Dickonson_ wife tooke this informer before her upon the said horse,
and carried him to a new house called _Hoarestones_,[49] beinge about
a quarter of a mile off, whither, when they were comme, there were
divers persons about the doore, and hee sawe divers others cominge
rideinge upon horses of severall colours towards the said house, which
tyed theire horses to a hedge neare to the sed house; and which
persons went into the sed house, to the number of threescore or
thereabouts, as this informer thinketh, where they had a fyer and
meate roastinge, and some other meate stirringe in the house, whereof
a yonge woman whom hee this informer knoweth not, gave him flesh and
breade upon a trencher, and drinke in a glasse, which, after the first
taste, hee refused, and would have noe more, and said it was nought.
And presently after, seeinge diverse of the company goinge to a barn
neare adioyneinge,[50] hee followed after, and there he sawe sixe of
them kneelinge, and pullinge at sixe severall roapes which were
fastened or tyed to ye toppe of the house; at or with which pullinge
came then in this informers sight flesh smoakeinge, butter in lumps,
and milke as it were syleinge[51] from the said roapes, all which fell
into basons whiche were placed under the saide roapes. And after that
these sixe had done, there came other sixe which did likewise, and
duringe all the tyme of theire so pullinge, they made such foule faces
that feared[52] this informer, soe as hee was glad to steale out and
run home, whom, when they wanted, some of theire company came runninge
after him neare to a place in a high way, called Boggard-hole,[53]
where this informer met two horsemen, at the sight whereof the sed
persons left followinge him, and the foremost of which persons yt
followed him, hee knoweth to bee one _Loynd_ wife, which said wife,
together with one _Dickonson_ wife, and one _Jenet Davies_[54] he hath
seene at severall tymes in a croft or close adioninge to his fathers
house, whiche put him in a greate feare. And further, this informer
saith, upon Thursday after New Yeares day last past, he sawe the sed
_Loynd_ wife sittinge upon a crosse peece of wood, beeinge within the
chimney of his father's dwellinge house, and hee callinge to her,
said, come downe thou _Loynd_ wife, and immediately the sed _Loynd_
wife went up out of his sight. And further, this informer saith, yt
after hee was comme from ye company aforesed to his father's house,
beeinge towards eveninge, his father bad him goe fetch home two kyne
to seale,[55] and in the way, in a field called the Ollers, hee
chanced to hap upon a boy, who began to quarrell with him, and they
fought soe together till this informer had his eares made very bloody
by fightinge, and lookinge downe, hee sawe the boy had a cloven foote,
at which sight hee was affraid, and ran away from him to seeke the
kyne. And in the way hee sawe a light like a lanthorne, towards which
he made hast, supposinge it to bee carried by some of Mr. _Robinson's_
people: But when hee came to the place, hee onley found a woman
standinge on a bridge, whom, when hee sawe her, he knewe to bee
_Loynd_ wife, and knowinge her, he turned backe againe, and immediatly
hee met with ye aforesed boy, from whom he offered to run, which boy
gave him a blow on the back which caus'd him to cry. And hee farther
saith, yt when hee was in the barne, he sawe three women take three
pictures from off the beame, in the which pictures many thornes, or
such like things sticked, and yt _Loynd_ wife tooke one of the said
pictures downe, but thother two women yt tooke thother two pictures
downe hee knoweth not.[56] And beeinge further asked, what persons
were at ye meeteinge aforesed, hee nominated these persons hereafter
mentioned, viz. _Dickonson_ wife, _Henry Priestley_ wife and her sone,
_Alice Hargreaves_ widdowe, _Jennet Davies_, _Wm. Davies_, uxor.
_Hen. Jacks_ and her sone _John_, _James Hargreaves_ of _Marsden_,
_Miles_ wife of _Dicks_, _James_ wife, _Saunders_ sicut credit,
_Lawrence_ wife of _Saunders_, _Loynd_ wife, _Buys_ wife of
_Barrowford_, one _Holgate_ and his wife sicut credit, _Little Robin_
wife of _Leonard's_, of the _West Cloase_.[57]
[Footnote 44: Wheatley-lane is still a place of note in Pendle.]
[Footnote 45: Wild plums.]
[Footnote 46: It would seem as if a case of witchcraft in Pendle,
without a Nutter in some way connected with it, could not occur.]
[Footnote 47: What Mr. Robinson is intended does not appear. It was a
common name in Pendle. It is, however, a curious fact, that a family
of this name, _with the alias of Swyer_, (see Potts, confession of
Elizabeth Device,) is even now, or very recently was, to be met with
in Pendle, of whom the John Robinson, _alias_ Swyer, one of the
supposed victims of Witchcraft, was probably an ancestor. There are
few instances of an _alias_ being similarly transmitted in families
for upwards of two centuries.]
[Footnote 48: Mother Dickenson, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, brings to
mind the magician Queen in the Arabian Tales.]
[Footnote 49: This house is still standing, and though it has
undergone some modernizations, has every appearance of having been
built about this period.]
[Footnote 50: The old barn, so famous as the scene of these exploits,
is no longer extant. A more modern and very substantial one has now
been erected on its site.]
[Footnote 51: Syleing, from the verb sile or syle, to strain, to pass
through a strainer. See Jamieson, under "sile."]
[Footnote 52: Frightened.]
[Footnote 53: Boggard Hole lies in a hollow, near to Hoarstones, and
is still known by that name.]
[Footnote 54: "It is the sport to see the engineer hoist with his own
petar." Her old occupation as witness having got into other hands,
Janet or Jennet Davies, or Device, for the person spoken of appears to
be the same with the grand-daughter of Old Demdike, on whose evidence
three members of her family were executed, has now to take her place
amongst the witnessed against.]
[Footnote 55: Seale, from sele, _s._ a yoke for binding cattle in the
stall. Sal (A.S.) denotes "a collar or bond." Somner. Sile (Isl.)
seems to bear the very same sense with our sele, being exp. a ligament
of leather by which cattle and other things are bound. Vide Jamieson,
under "sele."]
[Footnote 56: Heywood and Broome, in their play, "The late Lancashire
Witches," 1634, 4to, follow the terms of this deposition very closely.
It is very probable that they had seen and conversed with the boy, to
whom, when taken up to London, there was a great resort of company.
The Lancashire dialect, as given in this play, and by no means
unfaithfully, was perhaps derived from conversations with some of the
actors in this drama of real life, a drama quite as extraordinary as
any that Heywood's imagination ever bodied forth from the world of
fiction.
"_Enter Boy with a switch._
_Boy._ Now I have gathered Bullies, and fild my bellie pretty well,
i'le goe see some sport. There are gentlemen coursing in the medow
hard by; and 'tis a game that I love better than going to Schoole ten
to one.
_Enter an invisible spirit. J. Adson[D] with a brace of greyhounds._
What have we here a brace of Greyhounds broke loose from their
masters: it must needs be so, for they have both their Collers and
slippes about their neckes. Now I looke better upon them, me thinks I
should know them, and so I do: these are Mr. Robinsons dogges, that
dwels some two miles off, i'le take them up, and lead them home to
their master; it may be something in my way, for he is as liberall a
gentleman, as any is in our countrie, Come Hector, come. Now if I c'ud
but start a Hare by the way, kill her, and carry her home to my
supper, I should thinke I had made a better afternoones worke of it
than gathering of bullies. Come poore curres along with me.
_Exit._"
* * * * *
"_Enter Boy with the Greyhounds._
A Hare, a Hare, halloe, halloe, the Divell take these curres, will
they not stir, halloe, halloe, there, there, there, what are they
growne so lither and so lazie? Are Mr. Robinsons dogges turn'd tykes
with a wanion? the Hare is yet in sight, halloe, halloe, mary hang you
for a couple of mungrils (if you were worth hanging,) and have you
serv'd me thus? nay then ile serve you with the like sauce, you shall
to the next bush, there will I tie you, and use you like a couple of
curs as you are, and though not lash you, yet lash you whilest my
switch will hold, nay since you have left your speed, ile see if I can
put spirit into you, and put you in remembrance what halloe, halloe
meanes.
_As he beats them, there appeared before him Gooddy_ Dickison, _and
the Boy upon the dogs, going in._
Now blesse me heaven, one of the Greyhounds turn'd into a woman, the
other into a boy! The lad I never saw before, but her I know well; it
is my gammer _Dickison_.
_G. Dick._ Sirah, you have serv'd me well to swindge me thus. You yong
rogue, you have vs'd me like a dog.
_Boy._ When you had put your self into a dogs skin, I pray how c'ud I
help it; but gammer are not you a Witch? if you bee, I beg upon my
knees you will not hurt me.
_Dickis._ Stand up my boie, for thou shalt have no harme,
Be silent, speake of nothing thou hast seene.
And here's a shilling for thee.
_Boy._ Ile have none of your money, gammer, because you are a Witch;
and now she is out of her foure leg'd shape, ile see if with my two
legs I can out-run her.
_Dickis._ Nay sirra, though you be yong, and I old, you are not so
nimble, nor I so lame, but I can overtake you.
_Boy._ But Gammer what do you meane to do with me
Now you have me?
_Dickis._ To hugge thee, stroke thee, and embrace thee thus,
And teach thee twentie thousand prety things,
So thou tell no tales; and boy this night
Thou must along with me to a brave feast.
_Boy._ Not I gammer indeed la, I dare not stay out late,
My father is a fell man, and if I bee out long, will both
chide and beat me.
_Dickis._ Not sirra, then perforce thou shalt along,
This bridle helps me still at need,
And shall provide us of a steed.
Now sirra, take your shape and be
Prepar'd to hurrie him and me.
_Exit._
Now looke and tell mee wher's the lad become.
_Boy._ The boy is vanisht, and I can see nothing in his stead
But a white horse readie sadled and bridled.
_Dickis._ And thats the horse we must bestride,
On which both thou and I must ride,
Thou boy before and I behinde,
The earth we tread not, but the winde,
For we must progresse through the aire,
And I will bring thee to such fare
As thou ne're saw'st, up and away,
For now no longer we can stay.
_She catches him up, and turning round._
_Boy._ Help, help.
_Exit._"
* * * * *
"_Rob._ What place is this? it looks like an old barne: ile peep in at
some cranny or other, and try if I can see what they are doing. Such a
bevy of beldames did I never behold; and cramming like so many
Cormorants: Marry choke you with a mischiefe.
_Gooddy Dickison._ Whoope, whurre, heres a sturre,
Never a cat, never a curre,
But that we must have this demurre.
_Mal._ A second course.
_Mrs. Gen._ Pull, and pull hard
For all that hath lately him prepar'd
For the great wedding feast.
_Mall._ As chiefe
Of Doughtyes Surloine of rost Beefe.
_All._ Ha, ha, ha.
_Meg._ 'Tis come, 'tis come.
_Mawd._ Where hath it all this while beene?
_Meg._ Some
Delay hath kept it, now 'tis here,
For bottles next of wine and beere,
The Merchants cellers they shall pay for't.
_Mrs. Gener._ Well,
What sod or rost meat more, pray tell.
_Good. Dick._ Pul for the Poultry, Foule, and Fish,
For emptie shall not be a dish.
_Robin._ A pox take them, must only they feed upon hot meat, and I
upon nothing but cold sallads.
_Mrs. Gener._ This meat is tedious, now some Farie,
Fetch what belongs unto the Dairie,
_Mal._ Thats Butter, Milk, Whey, Curds and Cheese,
Wee nothing by the bargaine leese.
_All._ Ha, ha, ha.
_Goody Dickison._ Boy, theres meat for you.
_Boy._ Thanke you.
_Gooddy Dickis._ And drinke too.
_Meg._ What Beast was by thee hither rid?
_Mawd._ A Badger nab.
_Meg._ And I bestrid
A Porcupine that never prickt.
_Mal._ The dull sides of a Beare I kickt.
I know how you rid, Lady Nan.
_Mrs. Gen._ Ha, ha, ha, upon the knave my man.
_Rob._ A murrein take you, I am sure my hoofes payd for't.
_Boy._ Meat lie there, for thou hast no taste, and drinke there, for
thou hast no relish, for in neither of them is there either salt or
savour.
_All._ Pull for the posset, pull.
_Robin._ The brides posset on my life, nay if they come to their
spoone meat once, I hope theil breake up their feast presently.
_Mrs. Gen._ So those that are our waiters nere,
Take hence this Wedding cheere.
We will be lively all,
And make this barn our hall.
_Gooddy Dick._ You our Familiers, come.
In speech let all be dumbe,
And to close up our Feast,
To welcome every gest
A merry round let's daunce.
_Meg._ Some Musicke then ith aire
Whilest thus by paire and paire,
We nimbly foot it; strike.
_Musick._
_Mal._ We are obeyd.
_Sprite._ And we hels ministers shall lend our aid.
_Dance and Song together. In the time of which the Boy speakes._
_Boy._ Now whilest they are in their jollitie, and do not mind me, ile
steale away, and shift for my selfe, though I lose my life for't.
_Exit._"
* * * * *
"_Dought._ He came to thee like a Boy thou sayest, about thine own
bignesse?
_Boy._ Yes Sir, and he asked me where I dwelt, and what my name was.
_Dough._ Ah Rogue!
_Boy._ But it was in a quarrelsome way; Whereupon I was as stout, and
ask'd him who made him an examiner?
_Dough._ Ah good Boy.
_Mil._ In that he was my Sonne.
_Boy._ He told me he would know or beat it out of me,
And I told him he should not, and bid him doe his worst;
And to't we went.
_Dough._ In that he was my sonne againe, ha boy; I see him at it now.
_Boy._ We fought a quarter of an houre, till his sharpe nailes made my
eares bleed.
_Dough._ O the grand Divell pare 'em.
_Boy._ I wondred to finde him so strong in my hands, seeming but of
mine owne age and bignesse, till I looking downe, perceived he had
clubb'd cloven feet like Oxe feet; but his face was as young as mine.
_Dought._ A pox, but by his feet, he may be the Club-footed
Horse-coursers father, for all his young lookes.
_Boy._ But I was afraid of his feet, and ran from him towards a light
that I saw, and when I came to it, it was one of the Witches in white
upon a Bridge, that scar'd me backe againe, and then met me the Boy
againe, and he strucke me and layd mee for dead.
_Mil._ Till I wondring at his stay, went out and found him in the
Trance; since which time, he has beene haunted and frighted with
Goblins, 40 times; and never durst tell any thing (as I sayd) because
the Hags had so threatned him till in his sicknes he revealed it to
his mother.
_Dough._ And she told no body but folkes on't. Well Gossip Gretty, as
thou art a Miller, and a close thiefe, now let us keepe it as close as
we may till we take 'hem, and see them handsomly hanged o'the way: Ha
my little Cuffe-divell, thou art a made man. Come, away with me.
_Exeunt._"