tory. He settled satisfactorily all claims arising
out of the rebuilding of London after the great fire; he found himself
unable to help Bunyan, whom he considered to have been unjustly
imprisoned, thereby, according to Campbell, being entitled to some of
the credit attaching to the production of _The Pilgrim's Progress_. On
the failure of his health he retired from the bench in 1676. It may be
of interest to quote Campbell's opinion of his conduct of the present
trial. 'I wish to God,' says that author, 'I could as successfully' (as
he has done in Bunyan's case) 'defend the conduct of Sir Matthew Hale in
a case to which I most reluctantly refer, but which I dare not, like
Bishop Burnet, pass over unnoticed--I mean the famous trial before him,
at Bury St. Edmunds, for witchcraft. I fostered a hope that I should
have been able, by strict inquiry, to contradict, or mitigate, the
hallucination under which he is generally supposed to have then
laboured, and which has clouded his fame--even in some degree impairing
the usefulness of that bright example of Christian piety which he has
left for the edification of mankind. But I am much concerned to say,
that a careful perusal of the proceedings and of the evidence shows that
upon this occasion he was not only under the influence of the most
vulgar credulity, but that he violated the plainest rules of justice,
and that he really was the murderer of two innocent women.... Had the
miserable wretches, indicted for witchcraft before Sir Matthew Hale,
pleaded guilty, or specifically confessed the acts of supernatural
agency imputed to them, or if there had been witnesses who had given
evidence, however improbable it might be, to substantiate the offence, I
should hardly have regarded the Judge with less reverence because he
pronounced sentence of death upon the unhappy victims of superstition,
and sent them to the stake, or the gibbet. But they resolutely persisted
in asserting their innocence, and there was not only no evidence against
them which ought to have weighed in the mind of any reasonable man who
believed in witchcraft, but during the trial the imposture practised by
the prosecutors was detected and exposed.' 'Hale's motives were most
laudable; but he furnishes a memorable instance of the mischiefs
originating from superstition. He was afraid of an acquittal or of a
pardon, lest countenance should be given to a disbelief in witchcraft,
which he considered tantamount to a dis