a plausible form, some drill
sergeant of evidence behind the curtain, who had his own interest to
serve or revenge to gratify. The two particulars in the narrative that
one feels least disposed to question, are, that James Device stole a
wether from John Robinson of Barley, to provide a family dinner on
Good Friday, and that when the meat was roasted John Bulcock performed
the humble, but very necessary, duty of turning the spit.

R 3 _a_. "_My Lord Gerrard._"] Thomas Gerard, son and heir of Sir
Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Robes 23d Elizabeth, was raised to the
peerage by the title of Lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, in
Staffordshire, 1603. He died 1618.

S _a_. "_Kniues, Elsons, and Sickles._" In the _Promptorium
Parvulorum_, p. 138, to Elsyn (elsyng^k) Sibula, Mr. Way appends this
note: "This word occurs in the Gloss on Gautier de Bibelesworth,
Arund. MS. 220, where a buckled girdle is described:--

"Een isy doyt le hardiloun ([thorn character]e tunnge)
Passer par tru de subiloun (a bore of an alsene.)

"An elsyne,--acus, subula. Cath. Ang. Sibula, an elsyn, an alle or a
bodkyn. ORTUS. In the inventory of the goods of a merchant at
Newcastle, A.D. 1571, occur, 'vj. doss' elsen heftes, 12_d_; 1 clowte
and 1/2 a C elsen blades, viij_s_. viij_d_; xiij. clowtes of talier,
needles, &c.' Wills and Inventories published by the Surtees Society,
l. 361. The term is derived from the French _alene_; elson for
cordwayners, alesne. Palsg. In Yorkshire and some other parts of
England an awl is still called an elsen."

S _b_. "_Which the said Alizon confessing._"] In the case of this
paralytic pedlar, John Law, his mishap could scarcely be called such,
as it would for the remainder of his life, be an all-sufficient
stock-in-trade for him, and popular wonder and sympathy, without the
judge's interposition, would provide for his relief and maintenance.
The near apparent connection and correspondence of the _damnum
minatum_ and _damnum secutum_, in this instance, imposed upon this
unfortunate woman, as it had done upon many others, and gave to her
confession an earnestness which would appear to the unenlightened
spectator to spring only from reality and truth.

S 3 _b_. "_Margaret Pearson._"] This Padiham witch fared better than
her neighbours, being sentenced only to the pillory. Nothing affords a
stronger proof of the vindictive pertinacity with which these
prosecutions were carried on than the fact of this old and h