e that he expired by the hands of the mob. Butler
has immortalised this scamp in the following lines of his _Hudibras_:

"Hath not this present Parliament
A lieger to the devil sent,
Fully empower'd to treat about
Finding revolted witches out?
And has he not within a year
Hang'd threescore of them in one shire?
Some only for not being drown'd,
And some for sitting above ground
Whole days and nights upon their breeches,
And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches;
And some for putting knavish tricks
Upon green geese or turkey chicks;
Or pigs that suddenly deceased
Of griefs unnatural, as he guessed;
Who proved himself at length a witch,
And made a rod for his own breech."

In Scotland also witch-finding became a trade. They were known under the
designation of "common prickers," and, like Hopkins, received a fee for
each witch they discovered. At the trial of Janet Peaston, in 1646, the
magistrates of Dalkeith "caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common
pricker, to exercise his craft upon her. He found two marks of the devil's
making; for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either of the
said marks, nor did the marks bleed when the pin was taken out again. When
she was asked where she thought the pins were put in her, she pointed to a
part of her body distant from the real place. They were pins of three
inches in length."[33]

[33] Pitcairn's _Records of Justiciary_.

These common prickers became at last so numerous that they were considered
nuisances. The judges refused to take their evidence; and in 1678 the
privy council of Scotland condescended to hear the complaint of an honest
woman who had been indecently exposed by one of them, and expressed their
opinion that common prickers were common cheats.

But such an opinion was not formed in high places before hundreds of
innocent persons had fallen victims. The parliaments had encouraged the
delusion both in England and Scotland; and by arming these fellows with a
sort of authority, had in a manner forced the magistrates and ministers to
receive their evidence. The fate of one poor old gentleman, who fell a
victim to the arts of Hopkins in 1646, deserves to be recorded. Mr. Louis,
a venerable clergyman, upwards of seventy years of age, and who had been
rector of Framlingham, in Suffolk, for fifty years, excited suspicion that
he was a wizard. Being a violent royalist, he was likely to