[65] _Works_, IV, 400-401. [66] _Ibid._, IV, 296. [67] Selden, _Table Talk_ (London, 1689). The book is supposed to have been written during the last twenty years of Selden's life, that is, between 1634 and 1654. [68] Selden, _Table Talk_, _s. v._ "Witches." [69] Nor did Selden believe in possessions. See his essay on Devils in the _Table Talk_. [70] See article on Hobbes in _Dict. Nat. Biog._ [71] See, for example, Bishop Burnet's _History of his Own Time_ (Oxford, 1823), I, 172, 322-323. [72] _Leviathan_ (1651), 7. See also his _Dialogue of the Common Laws of England_, in _Works_ (ed. of London, 1750), 626: "But I desire not to discourse of that subject; for, though without doubt there is some great Wickedness signified by those Crimes, yet have I ever found myself too dull to conceive the nature of them, or how the Devil hath power to do many things which Witches have been accused of." See also his chapter on Dæmonology in the _Leviathan_, in _Works_, 384. [73] He continues, "Some doe maintaine (but how wisely let the wiser judge) that all Witchcraft spoken of either by holy writers, or testified by other writers to have beene among the heathen or in later daies, hath beene and is no more but either meere Cousinage [he had been reading Scot], or Collusion, so that in the opinion of those men, the Devill hath never done, nor can do anything by Witches." _The Witches of Northamptonshire, ..._ A 4. [74] Potts, _The Wonderfull Discoverie ..._, X 4 verso. [75] Fairfax, _A Discourse of Witchcraft_ (Philobiblon Soc.), 12. [76] _Ibid._, 20. [77] One notable instance must be mentioned. "H. F.," the narrator of the Essex affair of 1645 (_A true and exact Relation_) not only recognized the strong position of those who doubted, but was by no means extreme himself. "I doubt not," he wrote, "but these things may seeme as incredible unto some, as they are matter of admiration unto others.... The greatest doubt and question will be, whether it be in the power of the Devil to perform such asportation and locall translation of the bodies of Witches.... And whether these supernaturall works, which are above the power of man to do, and proper only to Spirits, whether they are reall or only imaginary and fained." The writer concludes that the Devil has power to dispose and transport bodies, but, as to changing them into animals, he thinks these are "but jugling transmutations." [78] _The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women bewitched in Yorkshire; ..._ (1658). [79] "Relation of a Memorable Piece of Witchcraft at Welton near Daventry," in Glanvill, _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (London, 1681), pt. ii, 263-268. [80] See above, pp. 179-180, for an expression about the persecution in 1645. [81] _Mercurius Democritus_, February 8-15, 1654. [82] 1648. This must be distinguished from _The Divels Delusion ..._, 1649, (see above, ch. IX, note 8), which deals with two witches executed at St. Alban's.