to the great toe of the left foot, and draw them through a river or pond; if they floated, as they would be likely to do, while their heavier limbs were thus sustained and upborne by the rope, it was considered as conclusive proof of their guilt.  This monster was encouraged and sanctioned by the government; and he procured the death, in one year and in one county, of more than three times as many as suffered in Salem during the whole delusion.  He and his exploits are referred to in the following lines, from that storehouse of good sense and keen wit, Butler’s “Hudibras:”—­

    “Hath not this present Parliament
    A leiger to the Devil sent,
    Fully empowered to treat about
    Finding revolted witches out? 
    And has he not within a year
    Hanged threescore of them in one shire?”

The infatuated people looked upon this Hopkins with admiration and astonishment, and could only account for his success by the supposition, which, we are told, was generally entertained, that he had stolen the memorandum-book in which Satan had recorded the names of all the persons in England who were in league with him!

The most melancholy circumstance connected with the history of this creature is, that Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy—­names dear and venerable in the estimation of all virtuous and pious men—­were deceived and deluded by him:  they countenanced his conduct, followed him in his movements, and aided him in his proceedings.

At length, however, some gentlemen, shocked at the cruelty and suspicious of the integrity of Hopkins, seized him, tied his thumbs and toes together, threw him into a pond, and dragged him about to their hearts’ content.  They were fully satisfied with the result of the experiment.  It was found that he did not sink.  He stood condemned on his own principles; and thus the country was rescued from the power of the malicious impostor.

Among the persons whose death Hopkins procured, was a venerable, gray-headed clergyman, named Lewis.  He was of the Church of England, had been the minister of a congregation for more than half a century, and was over eighty years of age.  His infirm frame was subjected to the customary tests, even to the trial by water ordeal:  he was compelled to walk almost incessantly for several days and nights, until, in the exhaustion of his nature, he yielded assent to a confession that was adduced against him in Court; which, however, he disowned and denied there and at all times, from the moment of release from the torments, by which it had been extorted, to his last breath.  As he was about to die the death of a felon, he knew that the rites of sepulture, according to the forms of his denomination, would be denied to his remains.  The aged sufferer, it is related, read his own funeral service while on the scaffold.  Solemn, sublime, and affecting as are passages of this portion of the ritual of the Church, surely it was never performed