able to distinguish between an hypothesis and a proved conclusion; or, rather, the rule of presumptions was reversed, and men accepted the hypothesis as conclusive until it was disproved.  It was a perfectly rational and sufficient explanation in those days to refer some extraordinary event to some given supernatural cause, even though there might be no ostensible link between the two:  now, such a suggestion would be treated by the vast majority with derision or contempt.  On the other hand, the most trivial occurrences, such as sneezing, the appearance of birds of ill omen, the crowing of a cock, and events of like unimportance happening at a particular moment, might, by some unseen concatenation of causes and effects, exercise an incomprehensible influence upon men, and consequently had important bearings upon their conduct.  It is solemnly recorded in the Commons’ Journals that during the discussion of the statute against witchcraft passed in the reign of James I., a young jackdaw flew into the House; which accident was generally regarded as malum omen to the Bill.[1] Extraordinary bravery on the part of an adversary was sometimes accounted for by asserting that he was the devil in the form of a man; as the Volscian soldier does with regard to Coriolanus.  This is no mere dramatist’s fancy, but a fixed belief of the times.  Sir William Russell fought so desperately at Zutphen, that he got mistaken for the Evil One;[2] and Drake also gave the Spaniards good reason for believing that he was a devil, and no man.[3]

[Footnote 1:  See also D’Ewes, p. 688.]

[Footnote 2:  Froude, xii. 87.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid. 663.]

33.  This intense credulousness, childish almost in itself, but yet at the same time combined with the strong man’s intellect, permeated all classes of society.  Perhaps a couple of instances, drawn from strangely diverse sources, will bring this more vividly before the mind than any amount of attempted theorizing.  The first is one of the tricks of the jugglers of the period.

     “To make one danse naked.

“Make a poore boie confederate with you, so as after charms, etc., spoken by you, he unclothe himself and stand naked, seeming (whilest he undresseth himselfe) to shake, stamp, and crie, still hastening to be unclothed, till he be starke naked; or if you can procure none to go so far, let him onlie beginne to stampe and shake, etc., and unclothe him, and then you may (for reverence of the companie) seeme to release him."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Scott, p. 339.]

The second illustration must have demanded, if possible, more credulity on the part of the audience than this harmless entertainment.  Cranmer tells us that in the time of Queen Mary a monk preached a sermon at St. Paul’s, the object of which was to prove the truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation; and, after the manner of his kind, told the following little anecdote in support of it:—­“A maid of Northgate parish in Canterbury, in pretence to wipe her mouth, kept the host in her handkerchief; and, when she came home, she put the same into a pot, close covered, and she spitted in another pot, and after a few days, she looking in the one pot, found a little young pretty babe, about a shaftmond long; and the other pot was full of gore blood."[1]