Chapter XIII: Part 13

A person, who was one of the first to fall under the imputation, was one George Burroughs, also a minister of Salem. He had, it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he had used ill in their life-time, and consequently, it was whispered, had murdered them. This man was accustomed foolishly to vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and this was brought as a proof that he dealt with the devil. Two women, who were witnesses against him, interrupted their testimony with exclaiming that they saw the ghosts of the murdered wives present (who had promised them they would come), though no one else in the court saw them; and this was taken in evidence. Burroughs conducted himself in a very injudicious way on his trial; but, when he came to be hanged, made so impressive a speech on the ladder, with fervent protestations of innocence, as melted many of the spectators into tears.

The nature of accusations of this sort is ever found to operate like an epidemic. Fits and convulsions are communicated from one subject to another. The "spectral sight," as it was called, is obviously a theme for the vanity of ignorance. "Love of fame," as the poet teaches, is an "universal passion." Fame is placed indeed on a height beyond the hope of ordinary mortals. But in occasional instances it is brought unexpectedly within the reach of persons of the coarsest mould; and many times they will be apt to seize it with proportionable avidity. When too such things are talked of, when the devil and spirits of hell are made familiar conversation, when stories of this sort are among the daily news, and one person and another, who had a little before nothing extraordinary about them, become subjects of wonder, these topics enter into the thoughts of many, sleeping and waking: "their young men see visions, and their old men dream dreams."

In such a town as Salem, the second in point of importance in the colony, such accusations spread with wonderful rapidity. Many were seized with fits, exhibited frightful contortions of their limbs and features, and became a fearful spectacle to the bystander. They were asked to assign the cause of all this; and they supposed, or pretended to suppose, some neighbour, already solitary and afflicted, and on that account in ill odour with the townspeople, scowling upon, threatening, and tormenting them. Presently persons, specially gifted with the "spectral sight," formed a class by themselves, and were sent about at the public expence from place to place, that they might see what no one else could see. The prisons were filled with the persons accused. The utmost horror was entertained, as of a calamity which in such a degree had never visited that part of the world. It happened, most unfortunately, that Baxter's Certainty of the World of Spirits had been published but the year before, and a number of copies had been sent out to New England. There seemed a strange coincidence and sympathy between vital Christianity in its most honourable sense, and the fear of the devil, who appeared to be "come down unto them, with great wrath." Mr. Increase Mather, and Mr. Cotton Mather, his son, two clergymen of highest reputation in the neighbourhood, by the solemnity and awe with which they treated the subject, and the earnestness and zeal which they displayed, gave a sanction to the lowest superstition and virulence of the ignorant.

All the forms of justice were brought forward on this occasion. There was no lack of judges, and grand juries, and petty juries, and executioners, and still less of prosecutors and witnesses. The first person that was hanged was on the tenth of June, five more on the nineteenth of July, five on the nineteenth of August, and eight on the twenty-second of September. Multitudes confessed that they were witches; for this appeared the only way for the accused to save their lives. Husbands and children fell down on their knees, and implored their wives and mothers to own their guilt. Many were tortured by being tied neck and heels together, till they confessed whatever was suggested to them. It is remarkable however that not one persisted in her confession at the place of execution.

The most interesting story that occurred in this affair was of Giles Cory, and Martha, his wife. The woman was tried on the ninth of September, and hanged on the twenty-second. In the interval, on the sixteenth, the husband was brought up for trial. He said, he was not guilty; but, being asked how he would be tried? he refused to go through the customary form, and say, "By God and my country." He observed that, of all that had been tried, not one had as yet been pronounced not guilty; and he resolutely refused in that mode to undergo a trial. The judge directed therefore that, according to the barbarous mode prescribed in the mother-country, he should be laid on his back, and pressed to death with weights gradually accumulated on the upper surface of his body, a proceeding which had never yet been resorted to by the English in North America. The man persisted in his resolution, and remained mute till he expired.

The whole of this dreadful tragedy was kept together by a thread. The spectre-seers for a considerable time prudently restricted their accusations to persons of ill repute, or otherwise of no consequence in the community. By and by however they lost sight of this caution, and pretended they saw the figures of some persons well connected, and of unquestioned honour and reputation, engaged in acts of witchcraft. Immediately the whole fell through in a moment. The leading inhabitants presently saw how unsafe it would be to trust their reputations and their lives to the mercy of these profligate accusers. Of fifty-six bills of indictment that were offered to the grand-jury on the third of January, 1693, twenty-six only were found true bills, and thirty thrown out. On the twenty-six bills that were found, three persons only were pronounced guilty by the petty jury, and these three received their pardon from the government. The prisons were thrown open; fifty confessed witches, together with two hundred persons imprisoned on suspicion, were set at liberty, and no more accusations were heard of. The "afflicted," as they were technically termed, recovered their health; the "spectral sight" was universally scouted; and men began to wonder how they could ever have been the victims of so horrible a delusion. [227]

CONCLUSION.

The volume of records of supposed necromancy and witchcraft is sufficiently copious, without its being in any way necessary to trace it through its latest relics and fragments. Superstition is so congenial to the mind of man, that, even in the early years of the author of the present volume, scarcely a village was unfurnished with an old man or woman who laboured under an ill repute on this score; and I doubt not many remain to this very day. I remember, when a child, that I had an old woman pointed out to me by an ignorant servant-maid, as being unquestionably possessed of the ominous gift of the "evil eye," and that my impulse was to remove myself as quickly as might be from the range of her observation.

But witchcraft, as it appears to me, is by no means so desirable a subject as to make one unwilling to drop it. It has its uses. It is perhaps right that we should be somewhat acquainted with this repulsive chapter in the annals of human nature. As the wise man says in the Bible, "It is good for us to resort to the house of those that mourn;" for there is a melancholy which is attended with beneficial effects, and "by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." But I feel no propensity to linger in these dreary abodes, and would rather make a speedy exchange for the dwellings of healthfulness and a certain hilarity. We will therefore with the reader's permission at length shut the book, and say, "Lo, it is enough."

There is no time perhaps at which we can more fairly quit the subject, than when the more enlightened governments of Europe have called for the code of their laws, and have obliterated the statute which annexed the penalty of death to this imaginary crime.

So early as the year 1672, Louis XIV promulgated an order of the council of state, forbidding the tribunals from proceeding to judgment in cases where the accusation was of sorcery only. [228]

In England we paid a much later tribute to the progress of illumination and knowledge; and it was not till the year 1736 that a statute was passed, repealing the law made in the first year of James I, and enacting that no capital prosecution should for the future take place for conjuration, sorcery and enchantment, but restricting the punishment of persons pretending to tell fortunes and discover stolen goods by witchcraft, to that appertaining to a misdemeanour.

As long as death could by law be awarded against those who were charged with a commerce with evil spirits, and by their means inflicting mischief on their species, it is a subject not unworthy of grave argument and true philanthropy, to endeavour to detect the fallacy of such pretences, and expose the incalculable evils and the dreadful tragedies that have grown out of accusations and prosecutions for such imaginary crimes. But the effect of perpetuating the silly and superstitious tales that have survived this mortal blow, is exactly opposite. It only serves to keep alive the lingering folly of imbecile minds, and still to feed with pestiferous clouds the thoughts of the ignorant. Let us rather hail with heart-felt gladness the light which has, though late, broken in upon us, and weep over the calamity of our forefathers, who, in addition to the inevitable ills of our sublunary state, were harassed with imaginary terrors, and haunted by suggestions,

Whose horrid image did unfix their hair,
And make their seated hearts knock at their ribs,
Against the use of nature.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Joshua, vii. 16, _et seq_.

[2] De Arte Poetica, v. 150.

[3] Romans, xi. 32.

[4] Comte de Gabalis.

[5] Genesis xli, 8, 25, &c.

[6] Exodus, vii. 11; viii. 19.

[7] Ibid, xxii. 18.

[8] Deuteronomy, xviii. 10,11.

[9] Leviticus, xx. 27.

[10] Numbers, xxii. 5,6,7.

[11] Numbers, xxiv, 1.

[12] Ibid, xxiii. 23.

[13] 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, _et seq_.

[14] 2 Kings, xxi. 6.

[15] 1 Kings, xxii. 20, _et seqq_.

[16] 1 Chron. xxi. 1,7,14.

[17] 2 Kings, i. 2,3,4.

[18] Matthew, xii. 24.

[19] Genesis, xliv. 5.

[20] Genesis, xliv. 15.

[21] Brewster on Natural Magic, Letter IX.

[22] De Natura Deorum, Lib. I, c. 38.

[23] Plato, De Republica, Lib. X, _sub finem_.

[24] Batrachos, v. 1032.

[25] De Arte Poetica, v.391.

[26] Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, Tom. V, p. 117.

[27] De Arte Poetica, v. 391, 2, 3.

[28] Virgil, Georgiea, Lib. IV. v. 461, _et seqq_.

[29] Georgiea, iv, 525.

[30] Metamorphoses, xi, 55.

[31] Philostratus, Heroica, cap. v.

[32] Horat, de Arte Poetica, v. 394. Pausanias.

[33] Odyssey, Lib. XI, v. 262.

[34] Statius, Thebais, Lib. X. v. 599.

[35] Ibid, Lib. IV, v. 599.

[36] Ibid, Lib. IV, v. 409, _et seqq_.

[37] Lib. IV, c. 36.

[38] Iamblichus.

[39] Julius Firmicus, _apud_ Scaliger, in Eusebium.

[40] Iamblichus, Vita Pythagorae.

[41] Pluto, Charmides.

[42] Chronological Account of Pythagoras and his Contemporaries.

[43] Laertius, Lib. VIII, c. 3.

[44] Lloyd, _ubi supra_.

[45] Iamblichus, c. 17.

[46] Iamblichus, c. 29.

[47] Ibid, c. 7.

[48] Laertius, c. 15.

[49] Ibid, c. 11.

[50] Plutarchus, Symposiaca, Lib. VIII, Quaestio 2.

[51] Aulus Gellius, Lib. I, c. 1, from Plutarch.

[52] Laertius, c.19.

[53] Bailly, Histoire de l'Astronomie, Lib VIII, S.3.

[54] Plutarchus, de Esu Carnium. Ovidius, Metamorphoses, Lib. XV. Laertius, c. 12.

[55] Iamblichus, c. 16.

[56] Laertius, c. 6.

[57] Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, Lib. I, p. 302.

[58] Iamblichus, c.17.

[59] Laertius, c. 8. Iamblichus, c. 17.

[60] Cicero de Natura Deorum, Lib. I, c. 5.

[61] Laertius, c. 9.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Iamblichus, c. 19.

[64] Laertius, c.1.

[65] Ibid, c. 18.

[66] Iamblichus, c. 8.

[67] Ibid, c. 13.

[68] Laertius, c. 9. Iamblichus, c. 28.

[69] Laertius, c. 9. Iamblichus, c. 18.

[70] Ibid, c. 28.

[71] Laertius, c.21.

[72] Iamblichus, c.17.

[73] Iamblichus, c. 35. Laertius, c. 21.

[74] Laertius, c. 21.

[75] Laertius, Lib. I, c. 109. Plinius, Lib. VII, c. 52.

[76] Laertius, c. 113.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid. c. 111.

[79] Plutarch, Vita Solonis. Laertius, Lib. I, c. 109.

[80] Plutarch, Vita Solonis. Laertius, Lib. I, c. 110.

[81] Ibid.

[82] Laertius, Lib. VIII, c. 51, 64.

[83] Ibid, c. 57.

[84] Ibid, c. 66.

[85] Ibid, c. 73.

[86] Plinius, Lib. VII, c. 52. Laertius, c. 61.

[87] Laertius, c. 77.

[88] Ibid, c. 59.

[89] Ibid, c. 62.

[90] Laertias, c. 69. Horat, De Arte Poetica, v. 463.

[91] Herodotus, Lib. III, c. 14, 15. Plinius, Lib. VII, c. 52.

[92] Plutarch, De Genio Socratis. Lucian, Muscae Encomium. Plinius, Lib. VII, c. 52. [Errata: _dele_ Plinius]

[93] Plinius, Lib. III, c, 61, 62.

[94] Herodotus, Lib. VIII, c. 36, 37, 38, 39.

[95] Herodotus, Lib. VIII, c. 140, _et seqq_.

[96] Historia Naturalis, Lib. X, c. 40.

[97] Plinius, Lib. XXVIII. c. 8.

[98] Pseudomantis, c. 17. See also Philopseudes, c. 32.

[99] Theages.

[100] Plutarch, De Genio Socratis.

[101] Xenophon, Memorabilia, Lib. I, c. 1.

[102] Plutarch, _ubi supra_.

[103] Plato, Theages.

[104] Ibid.

[105] Livius, Lib. I, c. 16.

[106] Dionysius Halicarnassensis.

[107] Livius, Lib. I, c. 19, 21.

[108] Livius, Lib. I, c. 31.

[109] Ibid.

[110] Livius, Lib. I, c. 36.

[111] Livius, Lib. I, c. 39.

[112] Livius, Lib. III, c. 6, _et seqq_.

[113] Epod. V.

[114] Metamorphoses, Lib. VII.

[115] Lib. VI.

[116] Horat., de Arte Poetica, v. 150.

[117] Plutarch, North's Translation.

[118] Matt. c. xii, v. 24, 27.

[119] Acts, c. viii.

[120] Clemens Romanus, Recognitiones, Lib. II, cap. 9. Anastasius Sinaita, Quaestiones; Quaestio 20.

[121] Clemens Romanus, Constitutiones Apostolici, Lib. VI, cap. 7.

[122] Acts, c. xiii.

[123] Ibid, c. xix.

[124] Suetonius, Lib. VI, cap. 14.

[125] Tacitus, Historiae, Lib. IV, cap. 81. Suetonius, Lib. VIII, cap. 7.

[126] Hume, Essays, Part III, Section X.

[127] Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Lib. I, cap. 5, 6.

[128] Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Lib. I, c. 10.

[129] Ibid, c.13.

[130] Ibid, c. 13, 14.

[131] Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 10.

[132] Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 25.

[133] Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 45.

[134] Philostratus, Lib. VIII, c. 5.

[135] Ibid, c. 26.

[136] Philostratus, Lib. VIII, c. 29, 30.

[137] Ibid, c. 29.

[138] Lampridius, in Vita Alex. Severi, c. 29.

[139] C. 24.

[140] Philostratus, Lib. I, c. 3.

[141] Zosimus, Lib, IV, cap. 13. Gibbon observes, that the name of Theodosius, who actually succeeded, begins with the same letters which were indicated in this magic trial.

[142] Zosimus, Lib. IV, cap. 14.

[143] Gibbon, Chap. VIII.

[144] This word is of Sanscrit original.

[145] "They cut themselves with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." I Kings, xviii, 28.

[146] Otherwise, Deeves.

[147] D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale.

[148] D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale.

[149] It is in Selden's Collection of Ballads in the Bodleian Library. See Letters from the Bodleian, Vol. I, p. 120 to 126.

[150] Spenser, Fairy Queen, Book III, Canto III, stanza 9, _et seqq_.

[151] William of Malmesbury, Lib. II, c. 10.

[152] William of Malmesbury, Lib. II, c. 10.

[153] Naudé, Apologie des Grands Hommes Accusés de Magie. Malmesbury, _ubi supra_.

[154] Naudé, Apologie des Grands Hommes Accusés de Magie, chap. 19.

[155] Mornay, Mysterium Iniquitalis, p. 258. Coeffeteau, Reponse à ditto, p. 274.

[156] Ibid.

[157] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 206, 207.

[158] Ibid. p. 207, 208.

[159] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 243, 244.

[160] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 244, 245.

[161] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 246.

[162] Ibid, p. 248, 249.

[163] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 249.

[164] Ibid.

[165] Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 251.

[166] Naudé.

[167] Godwin, Praesulibus, art. Gronthead.

[168] Naudé c. 18.

[169] Johannes de Becka, _apud_ Trithemii Chronica, ann. 1254.

[170] Freind, History of Physick, Vol. II, p. 234 to 239.

[171] Bacon, Epist. ad Clement. IV.

[172] Ubi supra.

[173] See page 261.

[174] Naudé, Cap. 17.

[175] Ibid.

[176] Commentaries, Book IV. chap. vi.

[177] Life of Chaucer, c. xviii.

[178] Wotton, Reflections on Learning, Chap. X.

[179] See above, p. 29.

[180] Biographic Universelle.

[181] Naudé.

[182] Moreri.

[183] Enfield, History of Philosophy, Book VIII, chapter i.

[184] Moreri.

[185] Watson, Chemical Essays, Vol. I.

[186] Fuller, Worthies of England.

[187] Watson, _ubi supra_.

[188] Sir Thomas More, History of Edward the Fifth.

[189] Buck, Life and Reign of Richard III.

[190] Hutchinson on Witchcraft.

[191] I Samuel, xv, 23.

[192] Doctrine of Divorce, Preface.

[193] Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, p. 746.

[194] Alciatus, Parergon Juris, L. VIII, cap. 22.

[195] Danaeus, _apud_ Delrio, Proloquium.

[196] Bartholomaeus de Spina, De Strigibus, c. 13.

[197] Biographie Universelle.

[198] Biographie Universelle.

[199] Hospinian, Historia Sacramentaria, Part II, fol. 131.

[200] Bayle.

[201] Paulus Jovius, Elogia Doctorum Virorum, c.101.

[202] Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, Lib. II, Quaestio xi, S. 18.

[203] Delrio, Lib. II, Quaestio xxix. S. 7.

[204] Wierus, Lib. II, c.v. S. 11, 12.

[205] Cent. I, cap. 70.

[206] De Praestigiis Demonum, Lib. II, cap. iv, sect. 8.

[207] Durrius, _apud_ Schelhorn, Amoenitates Literariae, Tom. V, p.50, _et seqq_.

[208] Memoirs, p. 14.

[209] Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, Letter IV.

[210] Appendix to Johannes Glastoniensis, edited by Hearne.

[211] Camden, anno 1693, 1694.

[212] Pitcairn, Trials in Scotland in Five Volumes, 4to.

[213] King James's Works, p. 135.

[214] King James's Works, p. 135, 136.

[215] Truth brought to Light by Time. Wilson, History of James I.

[216] Fuller, Church History of Britain, Book X, p. 74. See also Osborn's Works, Essay I: where the author says, he "gave charge to his judges, to be circumspect in condemning those, committed by ignorant justices for diabolical compacts. Nor had he concluded his advice in a narrower circle, as I have heard, than the denial of any such operations, but out of reason of state, and to gratify the church, which hath in no age thought fit to explode out of the common people's minds an apprehension of witchcraft." The author adds, that he "must confess James to have been the promptest man living in his dexterity to discover an imposture," and subjoins a remarkable story in confirmation of this assertion.

[217] Discovery of the Witches, 1612, printed by order of the Court.

[218] History of Whalley, by Thomas Dunham Whitaker, p. 215.

[219] Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, Vol. II, p. 507.

[220] Heylyn, Life of Laud.

[221] Hutchinson on Witchcraft.

[222] Menagiana, Tom. II, p. 252, _et seqq_.

[223] Judges, v, 20.

[224] Certainty of the World of Spirits.

[225] Trial of the Witches executed at Bury St. Edmund's.

[226] Narrative translated by Dr. Horneck, _apud_ Satan's Invisible World by Sinclair, and Sadducismus Triumphatus by Glanville.

[227] Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World; Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World; Neal, History of New England.

[228] Menagiana, Tom II, p. 264. Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. xxxi.

End of Project Gutenberg's Lives of the Necromancers, by William Godwin