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the volume formerly belonged, has been at the pains of chronicling the superstitions connected with a family, ranking amongst the more opulent yeomen of Cliviger, of the name of Briercliffe, on the execution of one of whom for murder the tract was published. The Briercliffe's, from the curious anecdotes which the Doctor gives with great unction, appear to have been one of those gloomy and fated races, dogged by some unassuageable Nemesis, in which crime and horror are transmitted from generation to generation with as much certainty as the family features and name.] [Footnote 37: We yet want a full, elaborate, and satisfactory history of witchcraft. Hutchinson's is the only account we have which enters at all at length into the detail of the various cases; but his materials were generally collected from common sources, and he confines himself principally to English cases. The European history of witchcraft embraces so wide a field, and requires for its just completion a research so various, that there is little probability, I fear, of this _desideratum_ being speedily supplied.] With all his habitual tautology and grave absurdity, Master Potts is, nevertheless, a faithful and accurate chronicler, and we owe his memory somewhat for furnishing us with so elaborate a report of what took place on this trial, and giving us, "in their own country terms," the examinations of the witnesses, which contain much which throws light on the manners and language of the times, and nearly all that is necessary to enable us to form a judgment on the proceedings. It will be observed that he follows with great exactness the course pursued in court, in opening the case and recapitulating the evidence separately against each prisoner, so as most graphically to place before us the whole scene as it occurred. The part in which he is felt to be most deficient, is in the want of some further account of the prisoners convicted, from the trial up to the time of their execution. To Master Potts, a man of legal forms and ceremonies, the entire interest in the case seems to have come in and gone out with the judge's trumpets. As most of the points in the trial which appeared to require observation, have been adverted to in the notes which follow the reprint, it is not considered necessary to enter into any analysis or review of the evidence adduced at the trial, which presents such a miserable mockery of justice. Mother Demdike, it will be seen,
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