The particulars your correspondent asks for have not been furnished; but on what authority, to move the previous question, does the alleged fact of such a trial and execution at Huntingdon in 1716 for witchcraft, stated by Mr. Wills, and adopted by the Quarterly Rev., rest? Mr. Wills (Sir Roger de Coverley, Notes, p. 126.) mentions also the execution of two women at Northampton for witchcraft just before the Spectator began to be published (March 1, 1710-11), but gives no reference to any original source to support his statement. On the other hand, Hutchinson, the first edition of whose Essay concerning Witchcraft was published in 1718, and the second in 1720, who gives a chronological table of facts, informs us that the last execution in England for witchcraft was that at Exeter of Susan Edwards, Mary Trembles, and Temperance Lloyd in 1682 (vid. Essay, p. 41., 1st edit.). He was too painstaking a writer to be in ignorance of cases which had occurred so recently; and he had the assistance, in collecting his materials, of the two chief justices Parker and King, and Chief Baron Bury, to whom the work is dedicated. Through their means he must have been informed of what had taken place on the circuits, if any cases of witchcraft on which convictions had arisen had actually come before the judges. When it is remembered what attention was directed to the trial of Jane Wenham in 1712, who, though condemned, was not executed, and on whose case a great number of pamphlets were written, it can scarcely be supposed that in four years after two persons, one only nine years old (I take the account in Mackay's Popular Delusions, vol. iii.), should have been tried and executed for witchcraft without public attention being called to the circumstance. I may add that in the Historical Register for 1716, which notices in the domestic occurrences all trials of interest, there is no mention of such a case; and that in two London newspapers for 1716, which I have in a complete series, though enumerating other convictions on the circuit, I have equally searched without success. As it is a matter of considerable historical interest to ascertain accurately when the last execution for witchcraft took place in England, I should be glad if any of your correspondents would refer me to the authority on which the statements of the trials circ. 1710 and in 1716 are founded. Mr. Wright, I observe, does not notice them, and his words are—
"The case of Jane Wenham is the last instance of a witch being condemned by the verdict of an English jury."—Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, vol. ii. p. 326.
Jas. Crossley.
DODO QUERIES.
(Vol. i., p. 261.)
In answer to Mr. Strickland's third Query, I beg to inform him that among the original authors who speak of the Dodo as a living bird, Johan Nieuhof merits a place. His work is entitled:
"Johan Nieuhofs gedenkweerdige Brasiliaense zee en Lantreize, behelsende alhetgeen op dezelve is voorgevallen: beneffens een bondige beschrijving van gantsch Neerlants Brasil, zoo van lantschappen, steden, dieren, gewassen, als draghten, zeden en godsdienst der inwoonders; en insonderheit, een wijtloopig verhael der merkwaardigste voorvallen en geschiedenissen, die zich, geduurende zijn negenjarigh verblijf in Brasil, in d'oorlogen en opstant der Portugesen, tegen d'onzen, zich sedert het jaer 1640-1649 hebben toegedragen. Doorgaens verciert met verscheide afbeeldingen, na't leven aldaer getekent. Te Amsterdam, voor de Weduwe van Jacob van Meurs, op de Keizersgracht, anno 1682."
This work, although published in six languages, and several times reprinted, adorned with a hundred exquisite engravings, and portrait of the author, seems to be no longer generally known. It was dedicated to Nikolaes Witsen, burgomaster and councillor of Amsterdam; and the licence granted to Jacob van Meurs, the 14th Dec. 1671, by the states of Hollandt en Westvrieslandt, is signed "Johan de Wit."