Discovery of Witches / The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster

E-text prepared by Clare Boothby, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
PRINTED FOR THE CHETHAM SOCIETY. M.DCCC.XLV.
EDWARD HOLME, Esq., M.D., President. REV. RICHARD PARKINSON, B.D., Canon of Manchester, Vice-President. THE HON. & VERY REV. WILLIAM HERBERT, Dean of Manchester. GEORGE ORMEROD, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., Sedbury Park. SAMUEL HIBBERT WARE, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.E., Edinburgh. REV. THOMAS CORSER, M.A. REV. GEORGE DUGARD, M.A. REV. C.G. HULTON, M.A. REV. J. PICCOPE, M.A. REV. F.R. RAINES, M.A., F.S.A., Milnrow Parsonage, near Rochdale. JAMES CROSSLEY, Esq. JAMES HEYWOOD, Esq., F.R.S. WILLIAM LANGTON, Esq., Treasurer. WILLIAM FLEMING, Esq., M.D., Hon. Secretary.
PRINTED FOR THE CHETHAM SOCIETY. M.DCC.XLV.
Manchester: Printed by Charles Simms and Co.

The sun itself is dark And silent as the moon Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,
Learning, blinded first and then beguiled, Looks dark as ignorance, as frenzy wild;
but which it is impossible to read without being carried along by the force of mind and power of combination which the author manifests, and without feeling how much ingenious sophistry can perform to mitigate and soften the most startling absurdity. His contemporary, Erastus, after all his victories on the field of imposition, was foiled by the subject of witchcraft at last. This was his pet delusion—almost the only one he cared not to discard—like the dying miser's last reserve:—
—— My manor, sir? he cried; Not that, I cannot part with that,—and died.