Sam. I am fully persuaded he ruleth her heart.
Dan. Then was she his drudge, and not he her servant. He needeth not to be hired and entreated; for if her heart were to send him anywhere, unto such as he knoweth he cannot hurt, nor seeth how to make any show that he hurteth them, he can quickly turn her from that. Well, the cat goeth and killeth the man, certain hogs, and a cow. How could she tell that the cat did it?
Sam. How could she tell? Why, he told her, man, and she saw and heard that he lost his cattle.
Dan. The cat would lie—would she not? for they say such cats are liars.
Sam. I do not trust the cat’s words, but because the thing fell out so.
Dan. Because the hogs and the cow died, are you sure the cat did kill them? Might they not die of some natural causes, as you see both men and beasts are well, and die suddenly?
In this way the dialogue proceeds, with a good deal of ingenuity and some degree of dramatic spirit; and though the reasoning is not without its fallacies, yet it is sufficiently clear and forcible, on the whole, as a protest on the side of liberality and tolerance.
The next branch of the subject taken up for consideration is ‘the help and remedy’ that is sought for against witches ‘at the hands of cunning men;’ Daniel contending that, if the cunning men can render any assistance, it must be through the devil’s instrumentality, and, therefore, Christian men are not justified in availing themselves of it. The alleged cures performed by witches, Daniel refers to the influence of the imagination; and in this category he tells an amusing story. ‘There was a person in London,’ he say, ‘acquainted with the magician Fento. Now, this Fento had a black dog, whom he called Bomelius. This party afterwards had a conceit that Bomelius was a devil, and that he felt him within him. He was in heaviness, and made his moan to one of his acquaintances, who had a merry head, and told him he had a friend could remove Bomelius. He bade him prepare a breakfast, and he would bring him. Then this was the cure: he (the friend) made him be stripped naked and stand by a good fire, and though he were fat enough of himself, basted him all over with butter against the fire, and made him wear a sleek-stone next his skin under his belly, and the man had immediate relief, and gave him afterwards great thanks.’
‘The conceit, or imagination, does much,’ continues Daniel, ‘even when there is no apparent disease. A man feareth he is bewitched; it troubleth all the powers of his mind, and that distempereth his body, making great alterations in it, and bringeth sundry griefs. Now, when his mind is freed from such imaginations, his bodily griefs, which flew from the same, are eased. And a multitude of Satan’s is of the same character.’
The conversation next turns upon the danger of shedding innocent blood, which is inseparable from the execution of alleged witches; while juries, says Daniel, must become guilty of shedding innocent blood by condemning as guilty, and that upon their solemn oath, such as be suspected upon vain surmises, and imaginations, and illusions, rising from blindness and infidelity, and fear of Satan which is in the ignorant sort.