My Uncle has of late become the sole Discourse of all the country; for a man respected As master of a govern'd family; The house (as if the ridge were fix'd below, And groundsills lifted up to make the roof), All now's turn'd topsy turvy In such a retrograde, preposterous way As seldom hath been heard of, I think never. The good man In all obedience kneels unto his Son; He, with an austere brow, commands his Father. The Wife presumes not in the Daughter's sight Without a prepared curtsey; the Girl, she Expects it as a duty, chides her mother, Who quakes and trembles at each word she speaks; And what's as strange, the Maid, she domineers O'er her young Mistress, who is awed by her. The Son, to whom the Father creeps and bends, Stands in as much fear of the groom, his Man! All in such rare disorder, that in some As it breeds pity, and in others wonder, So in the most part laughter. It is thought This comes by WITCHCRAFT! THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES OF 1612. King James VI. of Scotland, in 1594 (nine years before he ascended the English throne as James I.), wrote and published his disgracefully credulous and cruel treatise, entitled "Dæmonologie," containing statements as to the making of witches, and their practice of witchcraft, which, _if true_, would only prove their revealer to be deep in the councils of Satan, and a regular member or attendant of assemblages of witches. The royal witch-hater held that, as witchcraft is an act of treason against the prince, the evidence of barnes [children] or wives [weak women], or ever so defamed persons [_i.e._, of character however infamous], may serve for sufficient witnesses against them; for [he asks], who but witches can be provers, and so witnesses of the doings of witches? Besides evidence, "there are two other good helps that may be used for their trial; the one is the finding of their _mark_, and then trying the insensibleness thereof; the other is floating on the water" [or drowning], &c. Having thus opened the door by admitting the loosest evidence and the most absurd tests for the most unjust convictions, the royal fanatic adds, that all witches [_i.e._, persons thus convicted] ought to be put to death, without distinction of age, sex, or rank. This "British Solomon" ascended the English throne in 1603, and, as might have been expected, witch-finders soon plied their infamous vocation with success. The wild and desolate parts of the parish of Whalley furnished a fitting scene for witch assemblies, and it was alleged that such meetings were held at Malkin Tower, in Pendle Forest, within that parish. At the assizes at Lancaster in the autumn of 1612, twenty persons, of whom sixteen were women of various ages, were committed for trial, and most of them tried for witchcraft. Their names were--1. Elizabeth Southerne, widow, _alias_ "Old Demdike" (aged eighty or more); 2.