to procure their conviction. Never was a more unequal contest. On the one side was a relentless antagonist, armed with wealth, influence, learning, and accomplishments, and whose family connections gave him an unlimited power in the county; and on the other, six helpless persons, whose sex, age, and poverty were almost sufficient for their condemnation, without any evidence at all. Yet, owing to the magnanimous firmness of the judge, whose name, deserving of immortal honour, I regret has not been preserved, these efforts were frustrated, and the women accused delivered from the gulph which yawned before them. The disappointment he experienced in this instance, in being defrauded, as he thought, of a conviction for which he had strained every nerve and sinew, and in not being allowed to render the forest of Knaresborough as famous as that of Pendle, cast a gloom of despondency over the remaining days of this admirable poet, who has left a narration of the whole transaction, of most singular interest and curiosity, yet unpublished. The MSS. now in my possession, and which came from Mr. Bright's collection, consists of seventy-eight closely-written folio pages. It is entitled "A Discourse of Witchcraft, as it was enacted in the family of Mr. Edward Fairfax, of Fuystone, coun. Ebor, 1621." From page 78 to 144 are a series of ninety-three most extraordinary and spirited sketches, made with the pen, of the witches, devils, monsters, and apparitions referred to in the narrative. Y 2 _a_. "_Master Heyber._"] This was Thomas Hayber, or Heber, of Marton, in Craven, Esquire, who was buried at Marton, 7th February, 1633. He was the ancestor of Bishop Reginald Heber and the late Richard Heber, Esq. Y 3 _a_. "_The said Iennet Preston comming to touch the dead corpes, they bled fresh bloud presently._"] On the popular superstition of touching the corpse of a murdered person, as an ordeal or test for the discovery of the innocence or guilt of suspected murderers, the reader cannot better be referred than to the very learned and elaborate essay in Pitcairne's _Criminal Trials_, vol. iii. p. 182-189. Amongst the authors there quoted, Webster is omitted, who, (see _Displaying of supposed Witchcraft_, p. 304,) discusses the point at considerable length, and with an earnest and implicit faith singularly at variance with his enlightened scepticism in other matters. But there were regions of superstition in which even this Sampson of logic became imbecile and powerless. The rationale of the bleeding of a murdered corpse at the touch of the murderer is given by Sir Kenelm Digby with his usual force and spirit: