will, upon a rod, dog, or anything else, presently convey them thither; yea, into any room of a man's house. But she saith, it is not the substance of their bodies, but their spirit [that] assumeth such form and shape as go into such rooms. She also saith that the devil (after he begins to suck) will make a pap or dug in a short time, and the matter which he sucks is blood. And saith that their devils can cause foul weather and storms, and so did at their meetings. She also saith that when her devil did come to suck her pap, he usually came to her in the likeness of a cat, sometimes of one colour and sometimes of another. And that since this trouble befel her, her spirit hath left her, and she never saw him since." One cannot read this farrago of revolting absurdities without instinctively feeling that no uneducated woman could have dictated it; that it must have been prepared and dressed up for her to attach her mark, and that all she did was to make the cross to it, in fear, peradventure, of impending tortures. It is at least satisfactory to know that all these examinations of the poor women by legal, ecclesiastic, and regal authorities had a beneficial result. Strong presumption was afforded that the chief witness, the boy Robinson, had been suborned to accuse the prisoners falsely; and they were accordingly discharged. The boy afterwards confessed that he was suborned. The story excited, at the time, so much interest in the public, that in the following year, 1634, was acted and published a play entitled "The Witches of Lancashire," which Steevens cites in illustration of Shakspeare's witches. _Dr. Whitaker's Whalley._ [Reference is probably made here to Heywood and Broome's play of "The late Lancashire Witches" (London, 1634, quarto). There was a much later play entitled "The Lancashire Witches," by Shadwell (London, 1682)]. THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES OF 1633-4. Sir Wm. Pelham writes, May 16, 1634, to Lord Conway:--"The greatest news from the country is of a huge pack of witches, which are lately discovered in Lancashire, whereof, 'tis said, 19 are condemned, and that there are at least 60 already discovered, and yet daily there are more revealed: there are divers of them of good ability, and they have done much harm. I hear it is suspected that they had a hand in raising the great storm, wherein his Majesty [Charles I.] was in so great danger at sea in Scotland." The original is in the State Paper Office.[131] LANCASHIRE WITCH-FINDERS.