active 1612-1618 Thomas Potts

“ Enlighten the world, thou that art the Light of the World, and let darkness be no more in the world, now or in any future age; but make all people to walk as children of the Light for ever; and destroy Antichrist, that hath deceived the nations, and save us the residue by thyself alone ”

“ He had a manly, straightforward, vigorous understanding, which, united with an honest integrity of purpose, kept him right when greater men went wrong. How invaluable a phalanx would the battalion of folios which the reign of James the first produced now afford us, if the admirable mother-wit and single-minded sincerity of Reginald Scot could only have vivified and informed them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Few authors are better deserving of an extended biography, a desideratum which, in an age characterised by its want of literary research, is not likely to be soon supplied, than Thomas Erastus, whose theological, philosophical, and medical celebrity entitle him to rank with the greatest men of his century. At present we have to collect all that is known of his life from various scattered and contradictory sources. John Webster, in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, contrary to the usual candour and fairness of his judgments, speaks slightingly of Erastus. ”

“ I cannot think without trembling and horror on the vast numbers of people that in several ages and several countries have been sacrificed unto this idol, Opinion. Thousands, ten thousands, are upon record to have been slain, and many of them not with simple deaths, but horrid, exquisite tortures. ”

“ Mother Sawyer, in whom the milk of human kindness is turned to gall by destitution, imbittered by relentless outrage and insult, and who, driven out of the pale of human fellowship, is thrown upon strange and fearful allies, would almost appear to be the counterpart of Mother Demdike. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this diversity of opinion I can only suggest, that difference of climate, habit, and fashion, might possibly have its weight, and render a very different larder necessary for the witches of Pendle and those of Gascony or Lorrain. The fare of the former on this occasion appears to have been of a very substantial and satisfactory kind, "beef, bacon, and roasted mutton:" the old saying so often quoted by the discontented masters of households applying emphatically in this case:—
"God sends us good meat, but the devil sends cooks." ”

“ In truth, human nature is never seen in worse colours than in that dark and dismal review. Childhood, without any of its engaging properties, appears prematurely artful, wicked and cruel [1] ; woman, the victim of a wretched [iv] and debasing bigotry, has yet so little of the feminine adjuncts, that the fountains of our sympathies are almost closed; and man, tyrannizing over the sex he was bound to protect, in its helpless destitution and enfeebled decline, seems lost in prejudice and superstition and only strong in oppression. ”

“ Nothing seems to shock the nerves of these witch historiographers so much as the utter want of decorum and propriety exhibited by these unhappy creatures in giving vent to these indignant outbreaks, which a sense of the wicked injustice of their fate, and seeing their own offspring brought up in evidence against them, through the most detestable acts, and by the basest subornation, would naturally extort from minds even of iron mould. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whitaker's astonishment that Margaret Johnson should make the confession she appears to have done, in a clear case of imposture, few of his readers will be disposed [lxxvii] to participate, who are at all conversant with the trials of reputed witches in this country. Confessions were so common on those occasions, that there is, I believe, not a single instance of any great number of persons being convicted of witchcraft at one time, some of whom did not make a confession of guilt. ”

“ 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 [lvii] runs, "by means thereof her body wasted and consumed." ”

“ Would that we could exchange some of those "faultless monsters" with which that fascinating department of literature too much abounds, for a few more such instantly recognised specimens of true but erring and unequal humanity, which are as rare as they are precious. ”

“ Erastus had shown up the empiricism of Webster's idol Paracelsus, and was in great disfavour with the writers of the Anti-Galenic school.
[13] I cannot concur with Mr. Hallam in the extremely low estimate he forms of the literary merit of Bodin's Demomanie, which he does not seem to have examined with the care and impartiality which he seldom is deficient in. Like all Bodin's works, it has a spirit peculiarly his own, and is, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining books to be found in the circle of Demonology. ”

“ Surely the blood of men ought not to be so cheap, nor so easily to be shed by those who, under the name of God, do gratifie exorbitant passions and selfish ends; for without question, under this side heaven, there is nothing so sacred as the life of man ”

“ Small as might be his stature, and questionable the shape in which he appeared, he might still have taken up the boast of the author of the Religio Medici: "Men that look upon my outside do err in my altitude, for I am above Atlas's shoulders." ”

“ 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 [xlvi] 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. ”

“ Gaule says, speaking of the ceremonies at the witches' solemn meetings: "If the witch be outwardly Christian, baptism must be renounced, and the party must be rebaptized in the Devil's name, and a new name is also imposed by him; and here must be godfathers too, for the Devil takes them not to be so adult as to promise and vow for themselves." (Cases of Conscience touching Witches, page 59. 1646, 12mo.) But Gaule does not mention any naming or baptism of spirits and familiars on such occasions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Atheist and Sadducee, if not very wizard himself, were the terms in which his name was generally mentioned, and as such, the royal author of the Demonology anathematizes him with great unction and very edifying horror. Against the papists, the satire of Scot had been almost as much directed as against what he calls the "witch-mongers," so that that very powerful party were to a man opposed to him. ”

“ If we must believe nothing but what we can reduce to natural, or, to speak more properly, (for I myself believe the devil doth very little, but by nature, though to us unknown,) manifest causes, he doth overthrow his own grounds, and leaves us but very little of magical operations to believe. ”

“ For certainly the Souls of them that are treacherously murdered by surprise, use to leaue their bodies with extreme unwillingness, and with vehement indignation against them that force them to so unprovided and abhorred a passage! ”

“ Of those marks supposed to be produced by the sucking of the Spirit or Familiar, the most curious and scientific (if the word may be applied to such a subject) account will be found in a very scarce tract, which seems to have been unknown to the writers on witchcraft. Its title is "A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, containing these several particulars; That there are Witches called bad Witches, and Witches untruly called good or white Witches, and what manner of people they be, and how they may be knowne, with many particulars thereunto tending. ”

“ None but a large-souled and kindly-affectioned man, whose intellect was as comprehensive as his feelings were benevolent, could have produced the excellent little treatise which claims him as its author. ”

“ This Margaret Pearson was the wife of Edward Pearson of Paddiham, in the Countie of Lancaster; little inferiour in her wicked and malicious course of life to any that hath gone before her: A very dangerous Witch of long continuance, generally suspected and feared in all parts of the Countrie, and of all good people neare her, and not without great cause: For whosoeuer gaue her any iust occasion of offence, shee tormented with great miserie, or cut off their children, goods, or friends. ”

“ But to attempt this woman in that sort, the Diuel had small meanes: For it is certaine she was a rich woman; had a great estate, and children of good hope: in the common opinion of the world, of good temper, free from enuy or malice; yet whether by the meanes of the rest of the Witches, or some vnfortunate occasion, shee was drawne to fall to this wicked course of life, I know not: but hither shee is now come to receiue her Triall, both for Murder, and many other vilde and damnable practises. ”

“ He who visits Pendle [31] will yet find that charms are generally [xlv] 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 ”

“ The lamentable story of poor King Duff, as related by Hector Boethius, a story which has blanched the cheek and spoiled the rest of many a youthful reader, is too well known to need extracting. Even so late as 1676, Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, (See Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 323,) apparently a man of melancholy and valetudinarian habits, believed himself bewitched to death by six witches, one man and five women, who were leagued for the purpose of tormenting a clay image in his likeness. ”

“ Meric Casaubon, who is always an amusing writer, and whose works, notwithstanding his appetite for the wonderful, do not merit the total oblivion into which they have fallen, is very angry with Jerome Cardan, an author not generally given to scepticism, for the hesitation he displays on the subject of these waxen images:—
I know some who question not the power of devils or witches ”

“ Malkin Tower was the habitation of Mother Demdike, the situation of which is preserved, for the structure no longer exists, by local tradition. Malkin is the Scotch or north country word for hare, as this animal was one into which witches were supposed to be fond of transforming themselves. Malkin Tower is, in fact, the Witches' Tower. ”

“ THis Examinate saith, That vpon Good-Friday last about twelue of the clocke in the day-time, there dined in this Examinates said mothers house a number of persons, whereof three were men, with this Examinate, and the rest women: and that they met there for these three causes following (as this Examinates said mother told this Examinate) : First was for the naming of the Spirit, which Alizon Deuice, now Prisoner at Lancaster, had, but did not name him, because shee was not there. ”