The case of the Devon witches tried at Exeter in August 1682 is much like the Essex business. The informations are stuffed with grotesque horrors, yet it is hard to believe that the accused--three poor women from Bideford, two of them widows--had been convicted but for their own confessions, which are full of copious and minute details of their dealings with Satan. Going to their death, they were worried by Mr. H----, a nonconformist preacher and (as is evident) a very pestilent fellow. “Did you pass through the keyhole of the door, or was the door open?” was one query. The witch asserted that like other people she entered by the door, though “the devil did lead me upstairs.” Mr. H---- went on, “How do you know it was the devil?” “I knew it by his eyes,” she returned. Again, “Did you never ride over an arm of the sea on a cow?”--an exploit which the poor woman sturdily disclaimed. Mr. H----, a little dissatisfied, one fancies, prayed at them a while, after which two of the women were turned off the ladder. Mr. Sheriff tried his hand at the survivor: he was curious as to the shape or colour of the devil, and was answered that he appeared “in black like a bullock.” He again pressed her as to whether she went in “through the keyhole or the door,” but she alleged the more commonplace and (for a witch) unorthodox mode of entry, “and so was executed.” Between these two cases one occurred wherein the best legal intellect of the day was engaged--and with no better result. In March 1665, Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, were indicted at the Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds for bewitching certain people. Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, presided. “Still his name is of account.” To an earlier time he seemed a judge “whom for his integrity, learning, and law, hardly any age, either before or since, could parallel.” William Durant, an infant, was one victim; his mother had promised Amy Duny a penny to watch him, but she was strictly charged not to give him suck. To what end? queried the court reflecting on Amy’s age. The mother replied: firstly, Amy had the reputation of a witch, and secondly, it was a custom of old women thus to please the child, “and it did please the child, but it sucked nothing but wind, which did the child hurt.” The two women had a quarrel on the subject: Amy was enraged, and departed after some dark sayings, and the boy forthwith fell into “strange fits of swounding.” Dr. Jacob, of Yarmouth, an eminent witch-doctor, advised “to hang up the child’s blanket in the chimney-corner all day, and at night when she put the child to bed to put it into the said blanket, and if she found anything in it she should not be afraid, but throw it into the fire.” The blanket was duly hung up, and taken down, when a great toad fell out, which being thrown into the fire made (not unnaturally) “a great and horrible noise;” followed a crack and a flash, and--exit the toad! The court with solemn