tells us with great gravity:
Their killing of infants is common, both for confection of their ointment (whereto one ingredient is the fat boiled, as I have shewed before out of Paracelsus and Porta) as also out of a lust to do murder. Sprenger in Mal. Malefic. reports that a witch, a midwife in the diocese of Basil, confessed to have killed above forty infants (ever as they were new born, with pricking them in the brain with a needle) which she had offered to the devil. See the story of the three witches in Rem. Dæmonola lib. cap. 3, about the end of the chapter. And M. Phillippo Ludwigus Elich Quæst. 8. And that it is no new rite, read the practice of Canidia, Epod. Horat. lib. ode 5, and Lucan, lib. 6, whose admirable verses I can never be weary to transcribe:—
Nec cessant à cæde manus, si sanguine vivo
Est opus, erumpat jugulo qui primus aperto.
Nec refugit cædes, vivum si sacra cruorem
Extaque funereæ poscunt trepidantia mensæ.
Vulnere si ventris, non quâ natura vocabat,
Extrahitur partus calidus ponendus in aris;
Et quoties sævis opus est, et fortibus umbris
Ipsa facit maneis. Hominum mors omnis in usu est.
Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford, vol. vii. p. 130.
[L 2 a 2]. "They said they would annoint themselues.">[ Ben Jonson informs us:
When they are to be transported from place to place, they use to anoint themselves, and sometimes the things they ride on. Beside Apul. testimony, see these later, Remig. Dæmonolatriæ lib. 1. cap. 14. Delrio, Disquis. Mag. l. 2. quæst. 16. Bodin Dæmonoman. lib. 2 c. 14. Barthol. de Spina. quæst. de Strigib. Phillippo Ludwigus Elich. quæst. 10. Paracelsus in magn. et occul. Philosophia, teacheth the confection. Unguentum ex carne recens natorum infantium, in pulmenti, forma coctum, et cum herbis somniferis, quales sunt Papaver, Solanum, Cicuta, &c. And Giov. Bapti. Porta, lib. 2. Mag. Natur. cap. 16.—Ben Jonson's Works by Gifford, vol. vii. p. 119.
[L 3 a]. "Did carrie her into the loft.">[ There is something in this strange tissue of incoherencies, for knavery has little variety, which forcibly reminds us of the inventions of Elizabeth Canning, who ought to have lived in the days when witchcraft was part of the popular creed. What an admirable witch poor old Mary Squires would have made, and how brilliantly would her persecutor have shone in the days of the Baxters and Glanvilles, who acquitted herself so creditably in those of the Fieldings and the Hills.
[L 4 b 1]. "Robert Hovlden, Esquire.">[ This individual would be of the ancient family of Holden, of Holden, the last male heir of which died without issue, 1792. (See Whitaker's Whalley, 418.)
[L 4 b 2]. "Sir John Southworth.">[ In this family the manor of Samlesbury remained for three hundred and fifty years. This was, probably, the John (for the pedigree contained in Whitaker's Whalley, p. 430, does not give the clearest light on the subject) who married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, and who took a great lead amongst the Catholics of Lancashire. What was the degree of relationship between Sir John and the husband of the accused, Jane Southworth, there is nothing in the descent to show. Family bickering might have a share, as well as superstition, in the opinion he entertained, "that she was an evil woman." Of the old hall at Samlesbury, the residence of the Southworths, a most interesting account will be found in Whitaker's Whalley, p. 431. He considers the centre of very high antiquity, probably not later than Edward III; and observes, "There is about the house a profusion and bulk of oak that must almost have laid prostrate a forest to erect it."
[M 1 b]. "The particular points of the Evidence.">[ What a waste of ingenuity Master Potts displays in this recapitulation, where he is merely slaying the slain, and where his wisdom was not needed. Had he applied it to the service of the Pendle witches, he would have found still grosser contrarieties, and as great absurdity. But in that case, there was no horror of Popery to sharpen his faculties, or Jesuit in the background to call his humanity into play.
[M 2 a]. "The wrinkles of an old wiues face is good euidence to the Iurie against a Witch.">[ Si sic omnia! For once the worthy clerk in court has a lucid interval, and speaks the language of common sense.