let him try an experiment on the first bright boy he meets by asking, "Who got up Salem Witchcraft?" and, with a promptness that will startle him, he will receive the reply, "Cotton Mather." Let him try another boy with the quesion, "Who was Cotton Mather?" and the answer will come, "The man who was on horseback, and hung witches." An examination of the historical text-books used in our schools will show where these ideas originated. We have the latest editions of a dozen such manuals before us; but the following examples must suffice.

"Cotton Mather, an eccentric, but influential minister, took up the matter, and great excitement spread through the colony. Among those hanged was a minister named Burroughs, who had denounced the proceedings of Mather and his associates. At his execution Mather appeared among the crowd on horseback, and quieted the people with quotations from Scripture. Mather gloried in these judicial murders." QUACKENBOS's School History of the United States, 1868, pp. 138-140.

"Cotton Mather and other popular men wrote in its defence. Calef, a citizen of Boston, exposed Mather's credulity, and greatly irritated the minister. Mather called Calef a 'weaver turned minister,' a 'coal from hell,' and prosecuted him for slander.". -LOSSING'S Pictorial History of the United States, 1868, p. 106.

"Most of those who participated as prosecutors in the unrighteous work confessed their error; still there were some, the most prominent of whom was Cotton Mather, who defended their course to the last."ANDERSON'S School History of the United States, 1868, p. 57.

"The new authorities, under the influence of the clergy, of whom, in this particular, Cotton Mather was the leader, pursued a course which placed the accused in situations where they had need to be magicians not to be convicted of magic. Malice and revenge carried on the work which superstition began."-EMMA WILLARD'S History of the United States, 1868, p. 100.

We give two other extracts from more elaborate works.

"New England, at that time [1692], was unfortunate in having among her ministers a pedantic, painstaking, self-complacent, ill-balanced man called Cotton Mather; his great industry and verbal learning gave him undue currency, and his writings were much read. He was indefatigable in magnifying himself and his office. In an age

when light reading consisted of polemic pamphlets, it is easy to see that his stories of 'Margaret Rule's dire Afflictions' would find favor, and prepare the public mind for a stretch of credulity almost equal to his own."* ELLIOTT'S New England History, 1867, Vol. II. p. 43. "He incurred the responsibility of being its chief cause and promoter. In the progress of the superstitious fear, which amounted to frenzy, and could only be satisfied with blood, he neither blenched nor halted; but attended the courts, watched the progress of invisible agency in the prisons, and joined the multitude in witnessing the exccutions." QUINCY's History of Harvard University, Vol. I. p. 63.

Mr. Bancroft adopts substantially the views of Mr. Upham. Cotton Mather's "boundless vanity gloried in the assaults of evil angels upon the country." "To cover his own confusion, he got up a case of witchcraft in his own parish. Was Cotton Mather honestly credulous? He is an example how far selfishness, under the form of vanity and ambition, can blind the higher faculties, stupefy the judgment, and dupe consciousness itself." But we need not pause over Mr. Bancroft's second-hand and rhetorical statements.

Mr. Hildreth gave some attention to the original authorities, and saw that the wild assertions of Mr. Upham and Mr. Bancroft were untenable. It is to be regretted, that, with his candid and impartial methods of study, he did not go far enough to reach the whole truth. He says:§"The suggestion, that Cotton Mather, for purposes of his own, deliberately got up this witchcraft delusion, and forced it upon a doubtful and hesitating people, is utterly absurd. Mather's position, convictions, and temperament alike called him to serve, on this occasion, as the organ, exponent, and stimulator of the popular faith."

These views respecting Mr. Mather's connection with the Salem trials are to be found in no publication of a date prior to 1831, when Mr. Upham's "Lectures" were published.

*Mr. Elliott's authority for Margaret Rule's dire afflictions, which occurred late. in 1693, is Mather's "Memorable Providences," printed in 1689! How those afflietions should have prepared the public mind for the Salem delusion of 1692 the historian does not explain.

+ Hist. U. States, Vol. III. p. 85.

Hist. U. States, Vol. II. pp. 151, 152.

Ibid. p. 97.

The clergy of New England, indeed, soon after the delusion abated, and subsequently, had been blamed for fostering the excitement; and Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, father and son, being the most prominent clergymen in the colony, both stanch believers in the reality of witchcraft, and writers on the subject, were criticised more freely than any others. But these charges were very different from those we are to consider. Mr. Upham, in the Appendix to his second edition, printed in 1832, sets forth and maintains for his opinions the claim of originality, to which he is entitled. The accuracy of his statements respecting Mr. Mather's character had been questioned. Mr. Upham, in his reply, admits, that, previously to the investigation of the subject of his Lectures, "a shadow of a doubt had never been suggested respecting Mr. Mather's moral and Christian character." He adds: "It was with the greatest reluctance that such a doubt was permitted to enter my mind. It seemed incredible-nay, almost impossible-that a man who had been at the head of all the great religious operations of his day, who had been the instrument of so many apparent conversions, and who devoted so many hours and days and weeks of his life to fasting and prayer, could in reality be dishonest and corrupt. But when the evidence of the case required me to believe, that, in the transactions which I had undertaken to relate, his character did actually appear in this dark and disgraceful light, a regard for truth and justice compelled me to express my con victions."*

In this discussion we shall treat Mr. Upham's Lectures and History in the same connection, as the latter is an expansion and defence of the views presented in the former. In the History Cotton Mather appears more frequently and in a more unfavorable light than in the Lectures, and many of the allusions to him are not referred to in the Index. He comes in when we should least expect him, and always with evil purpose,plotting and counter-plotting, disappointed when the trials were over, - planning new excitement and other trials in Boston,- unrepentant when every

* Lectures, p. 284.

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body else had taken to the confessional, wrecked in utation almost before his career had commenced, and ing to his grave full of remorse and disappointment. Mr. Upham is never at a loss to know what Mr. Ma ther " contemplated" on any occasion,-what "he longed for, what "he would have been glad to have," what "he locked upon with secret pleasure," and what "he was secretly and cunningly endeavoring" to do. Mr. Peabody also knows when "Cotton Mather was in his element," and what "he enjoyed the great felicity of." We do not hope to follow these writers into the dark recesses of Mr. Mather's mind; but in the course of this investigation we shall take up some of their statements and examine them in the light of evidence that may be regarded as historical.

A few words touching the wide-spread belief in witchcraft prevalent in the seventeenth century may prepare some of our readers better to appreciate the events which are more particularly to come under our notice.

No nation, no age, no form of religion or irreligion, may claim an immunity from this superstition. The Reformers were as zealous in this matter as the Catholics. It is estimated that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries two hundred thousand persons were executed, mostly burned, in Europe, Germany furnishing one half of the victims, and England thirty thousand. Statutes against witchcraft were enacted in the reigns of Henry VI., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James I. Learning and religion were no safeguards against this delusion.

The "Familiar Letters" of James Howell, who, after the restoration of Charles II., was "Historiographer Royal," gives a frightful picture of the extent of the delusion in England. Under date of February 3, 1646, he writes: "We have multitudes of witches among us; for in Essex and Suffolk there were above two hundred indicted within these two years, and above the one half of them executed. I speak it with horror. God guard us from the Devil!"* Again, February 20, 1647: "Within the compass of two years, near upon three hundred

*Page 386, Edition of 1673.

witches were arraigned, and the major part of them executed, in Essex and Suffolk only. Scotland swarms with them now more than ever, and persons of good quality are executed daily."*

A general history of the witchcraft delusion and trials in England is a desideratum which we commend to the attention of English antiquaries. It would show that no New England man has any occasion to apologize for the credulity and superstition of his ancestors in the presence of an Englishman.

In New England, the' earliest witch execution of which any details have been preserved was that of Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, in June, 1648. Governor Winthrop presided at the trial, signed the death-warrant, and wrote the report of the case in his journal. No indictment, process, or other evidence in the case can be found, unless it be an order of the General Court of May 10, 1648, that, after the course taken in England for the discovery of witches, a certain woman, not named, and her husband, be confined and watched.† We give Governor Winthrop's record in full, with the exception of such parts as cannot be printed.

"June 4, 1648. At this court one Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was:

"1. That she was found to have a malignant touch, as many persons (men, women, and children), whom she stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure, were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness.

"2. She practising physic, and her medicines being such things as (by her own confession) were harmless, as anise-seed, liquors, etc., yet had extraordinary violent effect.

"3. She would use to tell such as would not make use of her physic that they would never be healed; and accordingly their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse, against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons.

"4. Some things which she foretold came to pass accordingly; other things she could tell of (as secret speeches, etc.) which she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of.

* Page 427.

† Mass. Rec., Vol. II. p. 242.