Note 14 — GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE

A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds ... 1664 (London, 1682), pp. 55-56. This report is reprinted in Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647 ff., and (in part) in H. L. Stephen’s State Trials Political and Social (1899), I, 209 ff. See also Hutchinson, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, chap. viii. (1718, pp. 109 ff.; 2d ed., 1720, pp. 139 ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft, II., 261 ff. Hale’s opinion was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure. It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches ... Assizes holden for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon, Aug. 14, 1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger North’s comments on the Exeter case, see p. 192, below. A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact, concerning Witches & Witchcraft, Part I (London, 1693), contains “A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in preserving us from the Power and Malice of Evil Angels. Written by Sir Matt. Hale at Cambridge 26 Mar. 1661. Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St. Edmund’s Bury.” The date is wrong (1661 should be 1664), but the trial is identified with that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of the Collection in the following words: “There is a Relation of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit.” The date of the trial is given as “the Tenth day of March, 1664” on the title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page 1 as “the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of ... Charles II.” On page 57 the year is misprinted “1662.” Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665, but 16 Charles II. corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664—Jan. 29, 1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just mentioned must not be confused with Hale’s Motives to Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels, which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), Part II, pp. 67 ff.