ve;" and, not content with burning the
books of those who "used curious arts" after the manner of the
Ephesians, they sacrificed the students themselves on the same pile.
Hence we hear little of learned and scientific wizards in New England.
One remarkable character of this kind seems, however, to have escaped
the vigilance of our modern Doctors of the Mosaic Law. Dr. Robert Child
came to this country about the year 1644, and took up his residence in
the Massachusetts colony. He was a man of wealth, and owned plantations
at Nashaway, now Lancaster, and at Saco, in Maine. He was skilful in
mineralogy and metallurgy, and seems to have spent a good deal of money
in searching for mines. He is well known as the author of the first
decided movement for liberty of conscience in Massachusetts, his name
standing at the head of the famous petition of 1646 for a modification
of the laws in respect to religious worship, and complaining in strong
terms of the disfranchisement of persons not members of the Church. A
tremendous excitement was produced by this remonstrance; clergy and
magistrates joined in denouncing it; Dr. Child and his associates were
arrested, tried for contempt of government, and heavily fined. The
Court, in passing sentence, assured the Doctor that his crime was only
equalled by that of Korah and his troop, who rebelled against Moses and
Aaron. He resolved to appeal to the Parliament of England, and made
arrangements for his departure, but was arrested, and ordered to be kept
a prisoner in his own house until the vessel in which he was to sail had
left Boston. He was afterwards imprisoned for a considerable length of
time, and on his release found means to return to England. The Doctor's
trunks were searched by the Puritan authorities while he was in prison;
but it does not appear that they detected the occult studies to which
lie was addicted, to which lucky circumstance it is doubtless owing that
the first champion of religious liberty in the New World was not hung
for a wizard.

Dr. Child was a graduate of the renowned University of Padua, and had
travelled extensively in the Old World. Probably, like Michael Scott,
he had:

"Learned the art of glammarye
In Padua, beyond the sea;"

for I find in the dedication of an English translation of a Continental
work on astrology and magic, printed in 1651 "at the sign of the Three
Bibles," that his "sublime hermeticall and theo