into his hands; so with the special
points of faith, peculiar to the creed of witchcraft, such as communion
and covenant with the devil, transportation through the air on sticks,
straws, or bedstaves; transformation into the shapes of cat, dog, wolf,
raven, &c.; intercourse with imps and familiars; witches' sabbaths;
charms; conjurations; weeping the prescribed three tears with the left eye
only, or not weeping at all; swimming on the surface of the water, because
of the Christian character of that element, which refused to admit a
devil-devoted soul within its bosom; apparitions, or spectres of witches
troubling the afflicted--souls quitting their bodies, but taking with them
the spiritual substance even of woven garments; with the whole course of
lies and delusions belonging to the subject, from the devil's baptism to
the imps' bigges. All this seemed but so much delusion to plain John
Webster, with his unidealising common sense and kindly heart; yet a
delusion so fraught with sin and danger as to make it a Christian man's
first duty to combat and destroy it. Wherefore was he most barbarously and
evilly entreated by Glanvil in his "Saducismus Triumphatus"--the answer to
the "Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft"--and a mighty pretty quarrel, full
of the choicest amenities, was the result. But as Glanvil had error and
credulity, and Webster reason and right judgment on his side, it mattered
little who was assumed to have the best of it for the moment. Time and
education gradually settled the question, and buried it for a time out of
sight; yet it has sprung up anew of late, and now needs settling again.

THE BIDEFORD TROUBLES.[152]

In the July of 1682, Temperance Lloyd, of Bideford, or "Bytheford," was
accused of bewitching Mrs. Grace Thomas. Temperance, being a little crazy,
had cried one day on meeting Mrs. Grace, who had been for long months but
a poor, "dunt," feckless body; and when asked why she wept had made
answer, "For joy to see her who had been so ill, walk abroad again without
disaster." But that very same night Mrs. Grace was taken with fresh pains,
"sticking and pricking Pains, as if Pins and Awls had been thrust into her
Body, from the Crown of her Head to the Soles of her Feet, and she lay as
if she had been upon a rack;" and none but Temperance Lloyd the cause
thereof, despite all her hypocritical tears. And did not Elizabeth
Eastcheap see her knee, which looked as if it had been pricked in nine
places