ht forward to club their startings, starings, and
screamings, there appeared also certain remarkable confessions of the
accused, from which we learn that the Somerset Satan enlisted his
witches, like a wily recruiting sergeant, with one shilling in hand and
twelve in promises; that when the party of weird-sisters passed to the
witch-meeting they used the magic words, _Thout, tout, throughout, and
about_; and that when they departed they exclaimed, _Rentum, Tormentum_!
We are further informed that his Infernal Highness, on his departure,
leaves a smell, and that (in nursery-maid's phrase) not a pretty one,
behind him. Concerning this fact we have a curious exposition by Mr.
Glanville. "This,"--according to that respectable authority, "seems to
imply the reality of the business, those ascititious particles which he
held together in his sensible shape being loosened at the vanishing, and
so offending the nostrils by their floating and diffusing themselves in
the open air."[61] How much are we bound to regret that Mr. Justice
Hunt's discovery "of this hellish kind of witches," in itself so clear
and plain, and containing such valuable information, should have been
smothered by meeting with opposition and discouragement from some then
in authority!

[Footnote 61: Glanville's "Collection of Relations."]

Lord Keeper Guildford was also a stifler of the proceedings against
witches. Indeed, we may generally remark, during the latter part of the
seventeenth century, that where the judges were men of education and
courage, sharing in the information of the times, they were careful to
check the precipitate ignorance and prejudice of the juries, by giving
them a more precise idea of the indifferent value of confessions by the
accused themselves, and of testimony derived from the pretended visions
of those supposed to be bewitched. Where, on the contrary, judges shared
with the vulgar in their ideas of such fascination, or were contented to
leave the evidence with the jury, fearful to withstand the general cry
too common on such occasions, a verdict of guilty often followed.

We are informed by Roger North that a case of this kind happened at the
assizes in Exeter, where his brother, the Lord Chief Justice, did not
interfere with the crown trials, and the other judge left for execution
a poor old woman, condemned, as usual, on her own confession, and on the
testimony of a neighbour, who deponed that he saw a cat jump into the
accus