mblers are
every day taught to perform; others seem more than natural; but it was a
time of great credulity. * * * The printed account was published with a
Preface by Mr. Baxter. * * * It obtained credit sufficient, together
with other preparatives, to dispose the whole country to be easily
imposed upon, by the more extensive and more tragical scene, which was
presently after acted at Salem and other parts of the county of Essex."
After mentioning several works published in England, containing
"_witch-stories_," witch-trials, etc., he proceeds: "All these books
were in New England, and the conformity between the behavior of
Goodwin's children, and most of the supposed be-witched at Salem, and
the behavior of those in England, is so exact, as to leave no room to
doubt the stories had been read by the New England persons themselves,
or had been told to them by others who had read them. Indeed this
conformity, instead of giving suspicion, was urged in confirmation of
the truth of both. The Old England demons and the New being so much
alike."

It thus appears that the opinion was entertained, in England and this
country, that the notoriety given to the case of the Goodwin children,
especially by Mather's printed account of it, had an efficient influence
in bringing on the "tragical scene," shortly afterwards exhibited at
Salem. This opinion is shown to have been correct, by the extraordinary
similarity between them--the one being patterned after the other. The
Salem case, in 1692, was, in fact, a substantial repetition of the
Boston case, in 1688. On this point, we have the evidence of Cotton
Mather himself.

The Rev. John Hale of Beverly, who was as well qualified as any one to
compare them, having lived in Charlestown, which place had been the
residence of the Goodwin family, and been an active participator in the
prosecutions at Salem, in his book, entitled, _A modest Enquiry into
the nature of Witchcraft_, written in 1697, but not printed until 1702,
after mentioning the fact that Cotton Mather had published an account of
the conduct of the Goodwin children, and briefly describing the
manifestations and actions of the Salem girls, says: [_p. 24_] "I will
not enlarge in the description of their cruel sufferings, because they
were, in all things, afflicted as bad as John Goodwin's children at
Boston, in the year 1689, as he, that will read Mr. Mather's book on
_Remarkable Providences_, p. 3. &c., may read part of what t