We now come to the time of Cotton Mather, whose name is a ‘household word’ in connection with witchcraft in Massachusetts. He was the son of Increase Mather, D.D., one of the early presidents of Harvard College, was born in 1633, studied at Harvard, and at the age of twenty was appointed co-pastor with his father at Boston. He begins his first witch story thus: ‘There dwells at this time, in the _south_ part of _Boston_, a sober and pious man, whose name is _John Goodwin_, whose _Trade_ is that of a _Mason_, and whose _Wife_ (to which a _Good Report_ gives a share with him in all the Characters of _Virtue_) has made him the Father of _six_ (now living) _Children_. Of these Children, all but the _Eldest_, who works with his Father at his Calling, and the _Youngest_, who lives yet upon the Breast of its mother, have laboured under the direful effects of a no less _palpable_ than stupendous WITCHCRAFT.’[128] As the reader will see that it is impossible to quote Cotton Mather very much at length, on account of his excessively rotund style, I must tell the story as briefly as possible. Sometimes these unhappy children would be by turns either deaf, dumb, or blind, or all three at once, their jaws be dislocated, and then close sharply with a loud snap. ‘They would bark at one another like _Dogs_, and again purr like so many _Cats_.... Yea they would _fly_ like _Geese_; and be carried with an incredible _Swiftness_ thro’ the _air_, having but just their _Toes_ now and then upon the ground, and their _Arms_ waved like the Wings of a _Bird_. One of them, in the House of a Kind Neighbour, _flew_ the length of the Room, about 20 foot, and flew into an Infant’s high armed Chair; none seeing her feet all the way touch the floor.’ Cotton Mather took the eldest daughter home to live with them, in order that he ‘might be furnished with _Evidence_ and _Argument_ as a Critical Eye Witness, to confute the Saducism of this debauched Age.’ For some days all went well, but on November 20 she was once more possessed. She tried to fly, to dive, her eyes sunk into her head, so that they thought they would never return to their normal position, and she complained that Goody Glover, a poor crazy Irish woman, had put an invisible but very potent chain round her leg. She could not read the Bible, but a Quaker book she was able to read, with the exception of the names of God and Christ. Queer books, like the ‘Oxford Jests’ and ‘Cambridge Jests,’ she could read well enough, but could only pronounce the words ‘Devils’ or ‘Witches’ with extreme difficulty.