turning himself into such a form, and others hurrying on the
body of Julian near the same place, and at the same
swiftness, but interposing betwixt that hare-like spectre
and her body, modifying the air so that the scene there, to
the beholders sight, was as if nothing but air were there,
and a shew of earth perpetually suited to that where the
hare passed. As I have heard of some painters that have
drawn the sky in an huge large landskip, so lively that the
birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so
have fallen down. And if painters and juglers by the tricks
of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of
the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits
as far surpass them in all such praestigious doings as the
air surpasses the earth for subtilty.

And the like praestigiae may be in the toad. It might be a
real toad (though actuated and guided by a daemon) which was
cut in pieces, and that also which was whipt about, and at
last snatcht out of sight (as if it had vanished) by these
aerial hocus-pocus's. And if some juglers have tricks to
take hot coals into their mouth without hurt, certainly it
is not surprising that some small attempt did not suffice to
burn that toad. That such a toad, sent by a witch and
crawling up the body of the man of the house as he sate by
the fire's side, was overmastered by him and his wife
together, and burnt in the fire; I have heard credibly
reported by one of the Isle of Ely. _Of these daemoniack
vermin, I have heard other stories also, as of a rat that
followed a man some score of miles trudging through thick
and thin along with him._ So little difficulty is there in
that of the toad.--_Glanvil's Collection of Relations_, p.
200.

T 2 _a_ 1. "_Isabel Robey._" This person was of Windle, in the parish
of Prescot, a considerable distance from Pendle. The Gerards were
lords of the manor of Windle. Sir Thomas Gerard, before whom the
examinations were taken, was created baronet, 22nd May, 9th James I.;
and thrice married. From him the present Sir John Gerard, of New Hall,
near Warrington, is descended. Sir Thomas was determined that the
hundred of West Derby should have its witch as well as the other parts
of the county. A more melancholy tissue of absurd and incoherent
accusations than those ag