WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND.

T must be a source of sincere gratification to every Christian, and every man of intelligence, that the modern delusion of spirit-rapping is so fast wending its way to that tomb of oblivion, from which it will only be resuscitated by the pen of the historian. At such a time it may not be uninteresting to look for a moment at a picture of a kindred delusion, which is now only amongst the things that were, as given by an olden writer. As a story of witchcraft, without any poetry in it, without anything to amuse the imagination, or interest the fancy, but hard, prosy, accompanied with all that is wretched, pitiful, and withering, perhaps the well-known story of New England witchcraft surpasses anything else upon record.

The prosecutions continued with little intermission, principally at Salem, during the greater part of the year 1692. The accusations were of the most vulgar and contemptible sort-invisible pinchings and blows; fits, with the blasting and mortality of cattle; and wains stuck fast in the ground or losing their wheels. A conspicuous figure in nearly the whole of these stories was what they named the "spectral sight;" in other words, that the profligate accusers first feigned for the most part of the injuries they received, and next saw the figures and action of the persons who inflicted them when they were invisible to every one else. Hence, the miserable prosecutors gained the power of gratifying the wantonness of their malice, by pretending that they suffered by the hand of any one whose name first presented itself, or against whom they bore an ill will. The persons so charged, though unseen by any but the accuser, and who, in their corporal presence, were at a distance of many miles, and were doubtless wholly unconscious of the mischief that was hatching against them, were immediately taken up and cast into prison. And what was more monstrous and incredible, there stood at the bar a prisoner on trial for his life, while the witnesses were permitted to swear that his spectre had haunted them, and afflicted

them with all manner of injuries. The poor prosecuted wretch stood astonished at what was alleged against him, was utterly overwhelmed with the charges, and knew not what to answer; all of which were interpreted as so many presumptions of his guilt. Ignorant as they were, they were unhappy and unskilful in their defence; and if they spoke of the devil, as it was natural, it was instantly caught at as a proof how familiar they were with the fiend that had seduced them to their damnation.

The first specimen of this sort of accusation, in the present instance, was given by one Paris, minister of a church at Salem, in the end of the year 1691, who had two daughters, one nine years old, the other eleven, that were afflicted with fits and convulsions. The first person fixed on as the mysterious author of what was seen, was Tituba, a female in the family, and she was harassed by her master into a confession of unlawful practices and spells. The girls then fixed on Sarah Good, a female known to be the victim of a morbid melancholy, and Osborne, a poor man that had for a considerable time been bed-rid, as persons whose spectres had perpetually haunted and tormented them, and Good was twelve months after hanged on this accusation.

A person who was one of the first to fall under the imputation, was one George Burroughs, also a minister at Salem. He had, it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he had used ill in their lifetime, and consequently it was whispered that he had murdered them. This man was accustomed foolishly to vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and this was brought as a proof that he dealt with the devil. Two women, who were witnesses against him, interpreted their tes timony with exclaiming, that they saw the ghosts of the murdered wives present (who had promised them they would come), though no one else in the court saw them; and this was taken in evidence. Burroughs conducted himself in a very injudicious way on his trial, but when he came to be hanged, made so impressive a speech on the ladder, with protestations of innocence, as melted many of the spectators into tears.

In such a town as Salem, the second in point of importance in the colony, such accusations spread with wonderful rapidity. Many were seized with fits, exhibited frightful contortions of their limbs and features, and became a fearful spectacle to the bystanders. They were asked to assign the cause of all this, and they supposed, or pretended to suppose, some neighbor, already solitary and afflicted, and on that account in ill odor with the townspeople, scowling upon them, threatening and tormenting them. Presently, persons, specially gifted with the "special sight," formed a class by themselves, and were sent about at the public expense, from place to place, that they might see what no one else could see. The prisons were filled with persons accused. The utmost horror was entertained, as of a calamity which, in such a degree, had never visited that part of the world. It happened, most unfortunately, that Baxter's Certainty of the World of Spirits had been published but the year before; a number of copies had been sent out to New England. There seemed a strange coincidence and sympathy between vital Christianity in its most honorable sense, and the fear of the devil, who appeared to be "come down unto them with great wrath." Mr. Increase Mather and Mr. Cotton Mather, his son, two clergymen of highest reputation in their neighborhood, by the solemnity and awe with which they treated the subject, and the earnestness and zeal which they displayed, gave a sanction to the lowest superstition and virulence of the ignorant.

All the forms of justice were brought forward on these occasions. There was no lack of judges and grand juries, and petty juries, and executioners, and still less of prosecutors and witnesses. The first person that was hanged was on the 10th of June; five more on the 19th of July, five on the 19th of August, and eight on the 22d of September. Multitudes confessed that they were witches, for this appeared the only way for the accused to save their lives. Husbands and children fell down on their knees and implored their wives and mothers to own their guilt. Many were tortured by being tied neck and heels together, till they

confessed what was suggested to them. It is remarkable, however, that no one persisted in her confession at the place of execution.

The most interesting story that occurred in this affair was that of Giles Cory and Martha his wife. The woman was tried on the 9th of September, and hanged on the 22d. In the interval, on the 16th, the husband was brought up for trial. He said he was not guilty; but being asked how he would be tried, he refused to go through the customary form, and say, "By God and my country." He observed that of all that had been tried, not one had as yet been pronounced not guilty; and he resolutely refused, in that mode, to undergo a trial. The judge directed, therefore, that, according to the barbarous mode prescribed in the mother country, he should be laid on his back, and pressed to death with weights gradually accumulated on the upper surface of his body, a proceeding which had never yet been resorted to by the English in North America. The man persisted in his resolution, and remained mute till he expired.

The whole of this dreadful tragedy was kept together by a thread. The spectreseers, for a considerable time, prudently restricted their accusations to persons of ill repute, or otherwise of no consequence in the community. By-and-by, however, they lost sight of this caution, and pretended they saw the figures of some person well connected, and of unquestioned honor and reputation, engaged in acts of witchcraft. Immediately the whole fell through in a moment. The leading inhabitants presently saw how unsafe it would be to trust their reputation and their lives to the mercy of these profligate accusers. Of fifty six bills of indictment that were offered to the grand jury, on the 3d of January, 1693, twenty-six only were found true bills, and thirty thrown out. On the twenty-six bills that were found, three persons only were pronounced guilty by the petty jury, and these three received their pardon from the government. The prisons were thrown open; fifty confessed witches, together with two hundred persons imprisoned on suspicion, were set at liberty, and no more accusations were heard of.

The "afflicted," as they were technically termed, recovered their health; the "spectral sight" was universally scouted; and men began to wonder how they could ever have been the victims of so horrible a delusion.

OUR OLD GRANDMOTHER. BLESSED be the children who have an oldfashioned grandmother. As they hope for length of days let them love and honor her, for we can tell them they will never find

another.

There is a large old kitchen somewhere in the past, and an old-fashioned fireplace therein, with its smooth old jambs of stone -smooth with many knives that had been sharpened there-little fingers that have clung there. There are andirons too-the old andirons, with rings in the top, wherein many temples of flame have been builded, with spires and turrets of crimson. There is a broad hearth, worn by feet that have been torn and bleeding by the way, or been made "beautiful," and now walk upon floors of tessellated gold. There are tongs in the corner, wherewith we grasped a coal, and "blowing for a little life," lighted our first candle; there is a shovel, wherewith were drawn forth the glowing embers in which we saw our first fancies, and dreamed our first dreams-the shovel with which we stirred the sleepy logs, till the sparks rushed up the chimney as if a forge were in blast below, and wished we had so many lambs, so many marbles, or so many somethings that we coveted; and so it was we wished our first wishes.

There is a chair-a low, rush-bottomed chair; there is a little wheel in the corner, a big wheel in the garret, a loom in the chamber. There are chests full of linen and yarn, and quilts of rare patterns, and samplers in frames.

And everywhere and always the dear old wrinkled face of her whose firm, elastic step, mocks the feeble saunter of her children's children-the old-fashioned grandmother of twenty years ago. She, the very providence of the old homestead-she who loved us all, and said she wished there was more of us to love, and took all the children

in the glen for grandchildren beside. A great expansive heart was hers, beneath that woollen gown, or that more stately bombazine, or that sole heirloom of silken texture.

We can see her to-day, those mild blue eyes, with more of beauty in them than time could touch, or death do more than hidethose eyes that held both smiles and tears within the faintest call of every one of us, and soft reproof, that seemed not passion but regret. A white tress has escaped from beneath her snowy cap; she has just restored a wandering lamb to its mother, and lengthened the tether of a vine that was straying over a window, as she came in, and plucked a four-leaved clover for Ellen. She sits down by the little wheel; a tress is running through her fingers from the distaff's dis hevelled head, when a small voice cries,

"Grandma!" from the old red cradle, and "Grandma!" Tommy shouts from the top of the stairs.

Gently she lets go the thread, for her patience is almost as beautiful as her charity, and she touches the little red back in a moment, till the young voyager is in a dream again, and then directs Tommy's unavailing attempts to harness the cat. The tick of the clock runs faint and low; she opens the mysterious door, and proceeds to wind it up. We are all on tiptoe, and we beg in a breath to be lifted up, one by one, and look in for the hundredth time upon the tin cases of the weights, and the poor lonely pendulum, which goes to and fro by its little dim window, and never comes out in the world, and our petitions are all granted, and we are all lifted up, and we all touch with a finger the wonderful weights, and the music of the little wheel is resumed.

Was Mary to be married, or Jane to be wrapped in a shroud? So meekly did she fold the white hands of the one upon her still bosom, that there seemed to be a prayer in them there; and so sweetly did she wreathe the white rose in the hair of the other, that one would not have wondered had more roses budded for company.

How she stood between us and apprehended harm; how the rudest of us softened beneath the gentle pressure of her faded and

What treasures of story fell from those old lips, of good fairies and evil, of the old times when she was a girl; and we wondered if ever-but then she couldn't be handsomer or dearer, not but that she ever was "little." And then when we begged her to sing! "Sing us one of the old songs you used to sing for mother, grandma."

"Children, I can't sing," she always said; and mother used to lay her knitting softly down, and the kitten stopped playing with the yarn upon the floor, and the clock ticked lower in the corner, and the fire died down to a glow, like an old heart that is neither chilled nor dead, and grandmother sang. To be sure it wouldn't do for the parlor and the concert-room now-a-days, but then it was the old kitchen, and the old-fashioned grandmother, and the old ballad, in the dear old times; and we can hardly see to write for the memory of them, though it is a hand's breadth to the sunset.

Well, she sang. Her voice was feeble and wavering, like a fountain just ready to fall, but then how sweet-toned it was; and it became deeper and stronger; but it couldn't grow sweeter. What "joy of grief" it was to sit there around the fire, all of us, except Jane, who clasped a prayer to her bosom, and her thoughts we saw, when the hall door was opened a moment by the wind; but then we were not afraid, for wasn't it her old smile she wore ?-to sit there around the fire, and weep over the woes of the "Babes in the Wood;" who lay down side by side in the great solemn shadows; and how strangely glad we felt when the robinredbreast covered them with leaves, and last of all, when the angels took them out of the night into the day everlasting.

We may think what we will of it now, but the song and the story heard around the

Then she sings an old lullaby she sang to mother-her mother sang to her; but she does not sing it through, and falters ere 'tis done. She rests her head upon her hands, and all is silent in the old kitchen. Something glitters down between her fingers and the firelight, and it looks like rain in the soft sunshine. The old grandmother is thinking when she first heard the song, and of the voice that sang it, when a lighthaired and light-hearted girl she hung around that mother's chair, nor saw the shadows of the years to come.

O the days that are no more! What spell can we weave to bring them back again? What words can we unsay, what deeds undo, to set back, just this once, the ancient clock of time!

So all our little hands were forever clinging to her garments, and staying her as if from dying, for long ago she had done living for herself, and lived alone in us. But the old kitchen wants a presence to-day, and the rush-bottomed chair is tenantless.

How she used to welcome us when we were grown, and came back once more to the homestead.

We thought we were men and women, but we were children there. The old-fashioned grandmother was blind in the eyes, but she saw with her heart as she always did. We threw our long shadows through the opened door, and she felt them as they fell over her form, and she looked dimly up and saw tall shapes in the doorway, and she says:

"Edward I know, and Lucy's voice I can hear, but whose is that other? It must be Jane's" for she had almost forgotten the folded hands. "Oh, no, not Jane, for she -let me see, she is waiting for me, isn't she?" and the old grandmother wandered and wept.