{"product_id":"2940014928069","title":"POTTS'S DISCOVERY OF WITCHES","description":"INTRODUCTION.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWere not every chapter of the history of the human mind too precious\u003cbr\u003ean inheritance to be willingly relinquished,--for appalling as its\u003cbr\u003econtents may be, the value of the materials it may furnish may be\u003cbr\u003einestimable,--we might otherwise be tempted to wish that the miserable\u003cbr\u003erecord in which the excesses occasioned by the witch mania are\u003cbr\u003enarrated, could be struck out of its pages, and for ever cancelled.\u003cbr\u003eMost assuredly, he, who is content to take the fine exaggeration of\u003cbr\u003ethe author of _Hydriotaphia_ as a serious and literal truth, and who\u003cbr\u003ebelieves with him that \"man is a glorious animal,\" must not go to the\u003cbr\u003echapter which contains that record for his evidences and proofs. If he\u003cbr\u003eshould be in search of materials for humiliation and abasement, he\u003cbr\u003ewill find in the history of witchcraft in this country, from the\u003cbr\u003ebeginning to the end of the seventeenth century, large and abundant\u003cbr\u003ematerials, whether it affects the species or the individual. In truth,\u003cbr\u003ehuman nature is never seen in worse colours than in that dark and\u003cbr\u003edismal review. Childhood, without any of its engaging properties,\u003cbr\u003eappears prematurely artful, wicked and cruel[1]; woman, the victim of\u003cbr\u003ea wretched and debasing bigotry, has yet so little of the feminine\u003cbr\u003eadjuncts, that the fountains of our sympathies are almost closed; and\u003cbr\u003eman, tyrannizing over the sex he was bound to protect, in its helpless\u003cbr\u003edestitution and enfeebled decline, seems lost in prejudice and\u003cbr\u003esuperstition and only strong in oppression. If we turn from the common\u003cbr\u003eherd to the luminaries of the age, to those whose works are the\u003cbr\u003elandmarks of literature and science, the reference is equally\u003cbr\u003edisappointing;--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"The sun itself is dark\u003cbr\u003e    And silent as the moon\u003cbr\u003e    Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Footnote 1: Take, as an instance, the children of Mr. Throgmorton, of\u003cbr\u003eWarbois, for bewitching whom, Mother Samuels, her husband, and\u003cbr\u003edaughter, suffered in 1593. No veteran professors \"in the art of\u003cbr\u003eingeniously tormenting\" could have administered the question with more\u003cbr\u003econsummate skill than these little incarnate fiends, till the poor old\u003cbr\u003ewoman was actually induced, from their confident asseverations and\u003cbr\u003eplausible counterfeiting, to believe at last that she had been a witch\u003cbr\u003eall her life without knowing it. She made a confession, following the\u003cbr\u003estory which they had prompted, on their assurances that it was the\u003cbr\u003eonly means to restore them, and then was hanged upon that confession,\u003cbr\u003eto which she adhered on the scaffold. Few tracts present a more vivid\u003cbr\u003epicture of manners than that in which the account of this case of\u003cbr\u003ewitchcraft is contained. It is perhaps the rarest of the English\u003cbr\u003etracts relating to witchcraft, and is entitled \"The most strange and\u003cbr\u003eadmirable Discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys, arraigned,\u003cbr\u003econvicted, and executed at the last Assizes at Huntingdon, for the\u003cbr\u003ebewitching of the five daughters of Robert Throckmorton, Esquire, and\u003cbr\u003edivers other persons with sundrie Devilish and grievous torments. And\u003cbr\u003ealso for the bewitching to Death of the Lady Crumwell, the like hath\u003cbr\u003enot been heard of in this age. London, Printed by the Widdowe Orwin\u003cbr\u003efor Thomas Man and John Winnington, and are to be sold in Paternoster\u003cbr\u003eRowe at the Signe of the Talbot.\" 1593, 4to. My copy was Brand's, and\u003cbr\u003eformed Lot 8224 in his Sale Catalogue.]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe find the illustrious author of the Novum Organon sacrificing to\u003cbr\u003ecourtly suppleness his philosophic truth, and gravely prescribing the\u003cbr\u003eingredients for a witches' ointment;[2]--Raleigh, adopting miserable\u003cbr\u003efallacies at second hand, without subjecting them to the crucible of\u003cbr\u003ehis acute and vigorous understanding;[3]--Selden, maintaining that\u003cbr\u003ecrimes of the imagination may be punished with death;[4]--The detector\u003cbr\u003eof Vulgar Errors, and the most humane of physicians,[5] giving the\u003cbr\u003ecasting weight to the vacillating bigotry of Sir Matthew\u003cbr\u003eHale;[6]--Hobbes, ever sceptical, penetrating and sagacious, yet here\u003cbr\u003eparalyzed, and shrinking from the subject as if afraid to touch\u003cbr\u003eit;[7]--The adventurous explorer, who sounded the depths and channels\u003cbr\u003eof the \"Intellectual System\" along all the \"wide watered\" shores of\u003cbr\u003eantiquity, running after witches to hear them recite the Common Prayer\u003cbr\u003eand the Creed, as a rational test of guilt or innocence;[8]--The\u003cbr\u003egentle spirit of Dr. Henry More, girding on the armour of persecution,\u003cbr\u003eand rousing itself from a Platonic reverie on the Divine Life, to\u003cbr\u003eassume the hood and cloak of a familiar of the Inquisition;[9]--and\u003cbr\u003ethe patient and enquiring Boyle, putting aside for a while his\u003cbr\u003esearches for the grand Magisterium, and listening, as if spell-bound,\u003cbr\u003ewith gratified attention to stories of witches at Oxford, and devils\u003cbr\u003eat Mascon.[10]","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47074148057328,"sku":"2940014928069","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014928069_p0.jpg?v=1763617304","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014928069","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}