Discovery of Witches The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster   By: Thomas Potts (fl. 1612-1618)

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Remains Historical & Literary Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester

Published by the Chetham Society.

Vol. VI.

Printed for the Chetham Society. M.DCCC.XLV.

[Illustration: THE CHETHAM SOCIETY]

Council.

EDWARD HOLME, ESQ., M.D., PRESIDENT. REV. RICHARD PARKINSON, B.D., CANON OF MANCHESTER, VICE PRESIDENT. THE HON. & VERY REV. WILLIAM HERBERT, DEAN OF MANCHESTER. GEORGE ORMEROD, ESQ., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., SEDBURY PARK. SAMUEL HIBBERT WARE, ESQ., M.D., F.R.S.E., EDINBURGH. REV. THOMAS CORSER, M.A. REV. GEORGE DUGARD, M.A. REV. C.G. HULTON, M.A. REV. J. PICCOPE, M.A. REV. F.R. RAINES, M.A., F.S.A., MILNROW PARSONAGE, NEAR ROCHDALE. JAMES CROSSLEY, ESQ. JAMES HEYWOOD, ESQ., F.R.S. WILLIAM LANGTON, ESQ., TREASURER. WILLIAM FLEMING, ESQ., M.D., HON. SECRETARY.

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POTTS'S DISCOVERY OF WITCHES

In the County of Lancaster,

Reprinted from the Original Edition of 1613.

With an Introduction and Notes, by JAMES CROSSLEY, ESQ.

Printed for the Chetham Society. M.DCC.XLV. Manchester: Printed by Charles Simms and Co.

INTRODUCTION.

Were not every chapter of the history of the human mind too precious an inheritance to be willingly relinquished, for appalling as its contents may be, the value of the materials it may furnish may be inestimable, we might otherwise be tempted to wish that the miserable record in which the excesses occasioned by the witch mania are narrated, could be struck out of its pages, and for ever cancelled. Most assuredly, he, who is content to take the fine exaggeration of the author of Hydriotaphia as a serious and literal truth, and who believes with him that "man is a glorious animal," must not go to the chapter which contains that record for his evidences and proofs. If he should be in search of materials for humiliation and abasement, he will find in the history of witchcraft in this country, from the beginning to the end of the seventeenth century, large and abundant materials, whether it affects the species or the individual. In truth, human nature is never seen in worse colours than in that dark and dismal review. Childhood, without any of its engaging properties, appears prematurely artful, wicked and cruel[1]; woman, the victim of a wretched and debasing bigotry, has yet so little of the feminine adjuncts, that the fountains of our sympathies are almost closed; and man, tyrannizing over the sex he was bound to protect, in its helpless destitution and enfeebled decline, seems lost in prejudice and superstition and only strong in oppression. If we turn from the common herd to the luminaries of the age, to those whose works are the landmarks of literature and science, the reference is equally disappointing;

"The sun itself is dark And silent as the moon Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."