s' urine, or the
burning of clothes in which such persons lie."

The learned professor thought that witchcraft might be proved by
witnesses who have heard the accused person invoking the devil for
help, or seen the suspected party entertaining a familiar spirit and
feeding it in any form or likeness, conjuring to raise storms, showing
in a glass or show-stone the faces of absent persons. His opinion was
that it was competent to receive as evidence the dying testimonies of
penitent witches concerning others informed against by them, as proof
of witchcraft was difficult to obtain; and the more secret
acts--meeting of witches in the night-time to adore their infernal
master, and hatch their mischievous projects when other people are
asleep, or when they themselves are invisible--cannot be otherwise
proved than by such as are privy thereto.

Sir Matthew Hale, the astute lawyer and judge, was a believer in
witchcraft, and entertained views on this subject similar to those of
Mr. Forbes, as will appear from the following particulars of the trial
of Rose Cullender and Ann Duny in 1664. These women were accused
before Sir Matthew Hale of various acts of witchcraft--such as
tormenting children by means of devilish devices, upsetting carts,
killing horses, breeding vermin, etc., through diabolical means. At
the trial, evidence was given by Anne Durent, that William Durent, her
son (one of the children bewitched) had strange and sad fits, caused
by Duny giving the child suck. A wise man (Dr. Jacob) advised her to
hang up the child's blanket in the chimney corner all day, and at
night, when she went to put the child to bed, if she found anything in
the blanket, to throw the thing, whether apparently animate or
inanimate, into the fire. The blanket was hung up and shaken according
to instructions, when, behold, a large toad fell on the hearth-stone.
The creature was thrown into the fire, and exploded like a gun. Next
day a friend of Duny's told deponent that a certain old woman was
severely burned. On hearing this, deponent went to the old woman's
house, and found her grievously scorched. Duny (for it was she who was
in this sad condition) told the witness, that because of the evil she
did to her, she (Duny) would see much evil befall the Durent family.
Deponent further stated that her daughter, Elizabeth Durent, about ten
years of age, was afflicted like her other child, and in her fits
complained of Ann Duny tormenting her