ase her soul by confession. As she got home she was met
by another witch who came violently enraged against her. "Ah, thou beast!
what hast thou done? thou hast bewrayed us all!" she said. "What remedy
now?" said she. "What remedy?" saith the other, "send thy spirit and touch
him." At that moment the gentleman felt, as it were, a flash of fire about
him; but he lifted his hat and prayed, and the spirit came back and said
it could do him no hurt, because he had faith. So then they sent it
against his child, and the child was taken ill with great pain and died.
The witches confessed and were hanged. Another witch had her spirit hidden
in the boll of a tree; and there she held long conversations with this
ghastly Ariel, he answering in a hollow ghoustie voice, as might be
expected. When any offended her, she would go to the tree and release her
imp to do them harm. She had killed many hogs, horses, and the like by
this spirit; but at last justice got hold of her with its mailed hand and
killed her. Another friend of Giffard's, also under the disguise of one of
his characters, was twice on a jury, when certain old women were charged
with harming their neighbours' goods and lives. There was no proof in
either case, and the old women protested their innocence passionately; but
the jury brought them in guilty, which was perfectly logical and right
according to their notions of the law of that God who suffers the devil to
torment the sons of men, and to delude old women into the possession of
unholy powers. What, indeed, could be done with them when, by a look or a
word, they could afflict even unto death the most beautiful of God's
creatures, and send the devil to inhabit the purest of souls? The mischief
lay in the fundamental creed, not so much in the application of it,
terrible and bloody as it was; and it is against this creed, that I would
most earnestly insist. It must be remembered, too, that Giffard writes
ironically, and brings together all these cases as evidence of the
foolishness and wickedness of the faith.

THE POSSESSED MAID OF THAMES STREET.[111]

In 1603, Mary Glover, a merchant's daughter in Thames Street, gave herself
out as bewitched, and said that Mother Jackson had done it. A little
glimmering of reason made the physician Dr. Boncraft tell the Lord Chief
Justice Anderson that Mother Jackson was wrongfully accused, and the girl
was counterfeiting. So the Lord Chief Justice caused the Recorder of
London,