d a French
story that was brought into England, the story of the Demon of Mascon.
He turned the story over to Glanvill to be used in his list of authentic
narratives; and, when it was later reported that he had pronounced the
demon story an imposture, he took pains to deny the report in a letter
to Glanvill.[51]

Of literary men we have, as of scientists, but two. Aubrey, the
"delitescent" antiquarian and Will Wimble of his time, still credited
witchcraft, as he credited all sorts of narratives of ghosts and
apparitions. It was less a matter of reason than of sentiment. The
dramatist Shadwell had the same feeling for literary values. In his
preface to the play, _The Lancashire Witches_, he explained that he
pictured the witches as real lest the people should want "diversion,"
and lest he should be called "atheistical by a prevailing party who take
it ill that the power of the Devil should be lessen'd."[52] But
Shadwell, although not seriously interested in any side of the subject
save in its use as literary material, included himself among the group
who had given up belief.

What philosophers thought we may guess from the all-pervading influence
of Hobbes in this generation. We have already seen, however, that Henry
More,[53] whose influence in his time was not to be despised, wrote
earnestly and often in support of belief. One other philosopher may be
mentioned. Ralph Cudworth, in his _True Intellectual System_, touched on
confederacies with the Devil and remarked in passing that "there hath
been so full an attestation" of these things "that those our so
confident Exploders of them, in this present Age, can hardly escape the
suspicion of having some Hankring towards Atheism."[54] This was
Glanvill over again. It remains to notice the opinions of clergymen. The
history of witch literature has been in no small degree the record of
clerical opinion. Glanvill, Casaubon, Muggleton, Camfield, and Hallywell
were all clergymen. Fortunately we have the opinions of at least half a
dozen other churchmen. It will be remembered that Oliver Heywood, the
famous Non-Conformist preacher of Lancashire, believed, though not too
implicitly, in witchcraft.[55] So did Samuel Clarke, Puritan divine and
hagiographer.[56] On the same side must be reckoned Nathaniel Wanley,
compiler of a curious work on _The Wonders of the Little World_.[57] A
greater name was that of Isaac Barrow, master of Trinity, teacher of
Isaac Newton, and one of the be