old woman confess, because four flies had appeared in the
room, that she was attended by four imps, named "Ilemazar,"
"Pye-wackett," "Peck-in-the-crown," and "Grizel-Greedigut."

It is consoling to think that this impostor perished in his own snare.
Mr. Gaul's exposure and his own rapacity weakened his influence among
the magistrates; and the populace, who began to find that not even the
most virtuous and innocent were secure from his persecution, looked
upon him with undisguised aversion. He was beset by a mob, at a village
in Suffolk, and accused of being himself a wizard. An old reproach was
brought against him, that he had, by means of sorcery, cheated the
devil out of a certain memorandum-book, in which he, Satan, had entered
the names of all the witches in England. "Thus," said the populace,
"you find out witches, not by God's aid, but by the devil's." In vain
he denied his guilt. The populace longed to put him to his own test. He
was speedily stripped, and his thumbs and toes tied together. He was
then placed in a blanket, and cast into a pond. Some say that he
floated; and that he was taken out, tried, and executed upon no other
proof of his guilt. Others assert that he was drowned. This much is
positive, that there was an end of him. As no judicial entry of his
trial and execution is to be found in any register, it appears most
probable that he expired by the hands of the mob. Butler has
immortalized 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 guess'd;
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 s