26

Progress of Witchcraft.

One Nicholas Lambert also, swore, that after Style had been committed he and two others watched her, agreeably to the magistrate's request; that he, Lambert, sitting near the fire about three o'clock in the morning, and reading in the Practice of Piety, there came from her head a glittering bright fly, about an inch in length, which pitched at first in the chimney, and then vanished. He looked stedfastly then on Style, perceived her countenance change and to become very black and ghastly; the fire at the same time changed its colour; whereupou Lambert and the two others considering that her familiar was then about her, looked to her poll, and seeing her hair shake very strangely, took it up, and then a great fly flew out from the place and pitched on the table-board, and then vanished away. Upon the witnesses looking again in Style's poll, they found it very red, like raw beef. Upon being asked what it was went out of her poll? she said it was a butterfly; and asked them why they had not caught it. Lambert said they could not; she replied, I think so too. A little while after the informant and others looked upon her poll, and found the place to be of its former colour. Lambert demanded again what the fly was? She confessed it was her familiar, and that she felt it tickle in her poll, and that was the usual time when her familiar came to her.

Elizabeth Torwood then swears, that she, together with four other women who also gave evidence to the same effect, searched Style in the poll, and found a little rising which felt hard like a kernel of beef; whereupon they, suspecting it to be an ill mark, thrust a pin into it, and having drawn it out thrust it in again the second time, that the other women might see it also. Notwithstanding which Style did neither at the first or second time make the least shew that she felt any thing; but after, when the constable told her he would thrust in a pin in the place, and made a shew as if he did, she said he pricked her, whereas no one then touched her.

Style was tried and condemned, but died shortly before the time appointed

for her execution.

Shortly afterwards, Alice Duke, one of Style's knot, was tried for a Witch, and convicted upon the testimony of many witnesses; and her own confes

[Jan.

sion, which contains a minute account of many extraordinary and devilish tricks, which she, in conjunction with her confederates and his Satanic Majesty, performed; she confesses that her familiar commonly sucked her right breast about seven at night, in the shape of a little cat of a dunnish colour, and when she was sucked she was in a kind of trance. That she hurt Thomas Garrett's cows because he refused to write a petition for her. That she hurt Thomas Conway, by putting a dish into his hand, which dish she had from the devil. That she hurt Dorothy, the wife of George Vining, by giving an iron stake to put into her steeling box. That being angry with Edith Watts for treading on her foot, she cursed her, and afterwards touched her, which had done her much harm, for which she is very sorry. That being provoked by Swanton's wife, she did before her death curse her, and believes she did thereby hurt her; but denies that she did bewitch Mr. Swanton's cattle. And then she gives this suitable information, which may serve to put us on our guard against having any thing to do with this father of lies. That when the devil does any thing for her, she calls for him by the name of Robin, upon which he appears; and when in the shape of a man, she can hear him speak, but his voice is very low. He promised her, when she had made her contract with him, that she should want nothing, but ever since she wanted all things.

And Conway, his wife, and Watts, also corroborated her statements, by describing on oath the injuries which they had sustained from this acknowledged Witch.

The intimation above, as to the devil being a hard master, reminds one of a passage in an old translation of Bodinus, from which it appears that in Livonia, yearly, about the end of December, a certain knave or devil warneth all the Witches in the country to come to a certain place. If they fail, the devil cometh and whippeth then with an iron rod, so as the print of his lashes remains upon their bodies for ever. Which circumstance has thus been preserved by one of our early bards:

"Till on a day (that day is everie Prime) When Witches wont do penance for their

crime."

28

Progress and Decline of Witchcraft.

a saddle, and carried her about two miles to a mill pond, stripped off her upper clothes, tied her legs, and with a rope about her middle threw her in, two hundred spectators huzzaing and abetting in the riot. They affirm she swam like a cork, though forced several times under water. About an hour

after she was taken out of the water she expired. The coroner sat on her body, but could make no discovery of the ringleaders, although above forty persons assisted in the fact, yet none of them could be persuaded to accuse his neighbour, so that the inquest were able to charge only three of them with manslaughter.

We must now notice the statute which was passed in the 9th year of the reign of George the Second, c. 5. whereby all previous statutes against witchcraft, &c. are repealed. And it is thereby enacted, that all persons pretending to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, inchantment, or conjuration, or undertake to tell fortunes, or pretend from his or her skill or knowledge in any occult or crafty science to discover where, or in what manner, any goods or chattels supposed to have been lost or stolen may be found, shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned for a year, and once in every quarter of a year in some market-place of the proper county upon the market day, stand openly on the pillory by the space of one hour, and also give security for good behaviour.

The passing of this Act seems to have given general satisfaction to the community, and at the time gave rise to several droll essays and poems upon the subject, which are to be found in the Gentleman's Magazine and other periodicals of that day. But, although numbers rejoiced at the repeal of the obnoxious statutes which had so long continued on the statute book, to the terror of antient females, there were others who contemplated the measure with some alarm, and anticipated strange work from the circumstance of the devil being thus fairly let loose.

t

In April 1751, at Tring in Herts, a publican giving out that he was bewitched by one Osborne and his wife, harmless people above 70, had it cried at several market towns that they were to be tried by ducking on April 22, which occasioned a vast concourse. The parish officers having removed the old couple from the workhouse

Jan.

into the church for security, the mob missing them, broke the workhouse walls, pulled down the pales, and demolished part of the house, and seizing the governor, threatened to drown him, and fire the town, having straw in their hands for that purpose. The poor witches were at length, for public safety, delivered up, stripped naked by the mob, their thumbs tied to their toes, then dragged two miles, and thrown into a muddy stream. After much ducking and ill usage, the old woman was thrown quite naked on the bank almost choked with mud, and expired in a few minutes. The man also shortly afterwards expired. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder against six of the ringleaders, one of whom was afterwards tried, convicted, and hanged in chains. This affair seems to have excited much interest throughout the country at the time.

22 June, 1760. At a General Quarter Sessions for Leicester, two persons, concerned in ducking for witches all the poor old women in Glen and Burton Overy, were sentenced to stand in the pillory twice, and to be in gaol one month.

28 Nov. 1762. A number of people surrounded the house of John Pritchers of West Langdon in Kent, and under a notion of his wife having bewitched a boy 13 years old, dragged her out by violence, and compelled her to go to the boy's father about a mile from her own, where they forced her into the room where the boy was, seratched her arms and face in a most cruel manner to draw blood, and they threatened to swim her, but some people of condition interfering, the poor woman's life was happily preserved; and the persons concerned in carrying on the imposture, particularly one Beard and Ladd's wife, being carried before a Magistrate, and compelled to make satisfaction to the unhappy injured woman, the mob dispersed, and the country, that was every where in tumult, again quieted. The boy pretended to void needles and pins from his body, and his father and mother upheld the deceit, and collected large sums of those whose compassion was excited.

15 Nov. 1775. Nine old women were burned at Kaleck in Poland, charged with having bewitched and rendered unfruitful the lands belonging to a gentleman in the Palatinate.

1830.]

Midwife, Man-Midwife, Accoucheur.

1 July, 1776. A woman at Earls Shilton in Leicestershire, being sometime previously seized with an uncommon disorder, her friends took it into their heads that she was bewitched by a poor old creature in the neighbourhood who could scarce crawl. To this miserable object the diseased, her husband, and son (a soldier), went and threatened to destroy her if she did not instantly suffer blood to be drawn from her body, bless the woman, and remove her disorder. Hesitating a little, the son drew his sword, and pointing it to her breast, swore he would plunge it into her heart if she did not instantly comply, which being consented to, they all returned home, seemingly satisfied; but the part not being relieved, they raised a mob, seized the old woman, dragged her to a pond, cruelly plunged her in to the waist, and were proceeding to practise some of the ancient expedients, when, fortunately for her, she was rescued from their hands by the humanity of the neighbouring gentlemen.

T

(To be continued.)

Jan. 11.

Mr. URBAN, ODD, in the last edition of John son's Dictionary, speaks thus of the word Man-midwife:

"MAN-MIDWIFE, n. s. A strange compound, denoting the man who discharges the office of a Midwife. It is now frequently converted into the finical Accoucheur. Bishop Hall may be considered as giving rise in some degree to the present expression :

This Man was not their Midwife.

Bp. Hall, Hon. of the Marr. Clergy. p. 100." The Sermon of Bishop Hall, here referred to, was published in 1620. The earliest date at which I have found the word Man-midwife, is 1637, when it was employed in the preface to "the Expert Midwife." It is used as a verb, to manmidwife, in "Wolveridge's Speculum Matricis," 1669.

The dissection of this "strange compound" has afforded no liule amusement to those writers whose delight it has been to vituperate and hold up to derision the Physicians and Surgeons who have engaged in this branch of medical practice. Your old Correspondent, Philip Thicknesse, was not contented with words only, but strove, by pictorial embellishments, to make his sarcasms more effective. He pre

29

fixed, therefore, to one of his philippics, an engraving representing a personage, half man and half woman; the male half grasping a lever, and the female presenting to view a pap-boat.

66

This strange compound" was early objected to, and numerous attempts have been made to fix upon a word less objectionable than this barbarisin. Dr. Maubray, a man of infinite pedantry and self-conceit, coined a long word from the Greek, to designate the man who gives aid to females in childbirth, and this whole sentence he very felicitously, as he imagined, comprized in the sesquipedalian compound, Androboethogynist, which appellation he took to himself, and bestowed upon his obstetrical brethren*.

Douglas, a Surgeon, who published in 1736, says, it is absurd to call men, wives; and not much less so, to use the word Midwife, when the officiating person is either a widow or a maid! He adds, "the French express it very beautifully by the word Accoucheur, and I shall always express it by the word Midman, which though not so neat as the French, yet is much better than the absurd word complained of." The female practitioners Douglas denominates "Midwomen, which includes Maids, Wives, and Widows." Subsequently, Douglas applied the word Accoucheur in a proposed dedication to his brother: "To that accurate Anatomist, and consummate ACCOUCHEUR, Dr. James Douglas, Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, &c." This is the first time that the word was so employed in England.

Chapman defends the expression Manmidwife. Midwifery, he contends, is expressive of practice not by, but upon a wife, and therefore he asserts that Manmidwife, and Manmidwifery, are words not chargeable with incongruity.

This explanation of the meaning of the word Midwifery, is not inconsistent with the derivation of the word as suggested by Todd. Johnson says, "Midwife is derived both by Skinner and Junius, from mid or meed, a reward, and piy, Saxon." Todd, in addition says, "the interpretation of this

Female Physician, 1730.

+ State of Midwifery in London and Westminster.

Reply to Douglas's Short Account, &c. 1737.

Anecdotes of the Rev. Thomas Hatch.

etymology, which Verstegan also gives, is a woman of meed, deserving recompence.' But this seems a forced meaning. May not the word be more naturally derived from the Saxon preposition med, with, and pif, wife, implying the wife or woman, who is attendant upon, that is with the woman in childbirth?" But if this be the de

rivation, it would apply equally, whether your Obituary of May, 1828, vol.