whence coming and whither bound; in short, something to establish that the whole story was not the idle imagination of a man who might have been entirely deranged, and certainly was so at the time he made the admission.  John Lewis was presented to the vicarage of Brandiston, near Framlington, in Suffolk, 6th May, 1596, where he lived about fifty years, till executed as a wizard on such evidence as we have seen.  Notwithstanding the story of his alleged confession, he defended himself courageously at his trial, and was probably condemned rather as a royalist and malignant than for any other cause.  He showed at the execution considerable energy, and to secure that the funeral service of the church should be said over his body, he read it aloud for himself while on the road to the gibbet.

We have seen that in 1647 Hopkins’s tone became lowered, and he began to disavow some of the cruelties he had formerly practised.  About the same time a miserable old woman had fallen into the cruel hands of this miscreant near Hoxne, a village in Suffolk, and had confessed all the usual enormities, after being without food or rest a sufficient time.  “Her imp,” she said, “was called Nan.”  A gentleman in the neighbourhood, whose widow survived to authenticate the story, was so indignant that he went to the house, took the woman out of such inhuman hands, dismissed the witchfinders, and after due food and rest the poor old woman could recollect nothing of the confession, but that she gave a favourite pullet the name of Nan.  For this Dr. Hutchison may be referred to, who quotes a letter from the relict of the humane gentleman.

In the year 1645 a Commission of Parliament was sent down, comprehending two clergymen in esteem with the leading party, one of whom, Mr. Fairclough of Kellar, preached before the rest on the subject of witchcraft; and after this appearance of enquiry the inquisitions and executions went on as before.  But the popular indignation was so strongly excited against Hopkins, that some gentlemen seized on him, and put him to his own favourite experiment of swimming, on which, as he happened to float, he stood convicted of witchcraft, and so the country was rid of him.  Whether he was drowned outright or not does not exactly appear, but he has had the honour to be commemorated by the author of Hudibras:—­

     “Hath not this present Parliament
     A leiger 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.” [59]