pursued a lucrative trade in witch-hunting for
some years with much applause and success. His indiscriminating
accusations at last excited either the alarm or the indignation
of his townspeople, if we may believe the tradition suggested
in the well-known verses of Butler, who has no authority,
apparently, for his insinuation ('Hudibras,' ii. 3), that this
eminent _Malleus_ did not die 'the common death of all men.'
However it happened, his death is placed in the year 1647. An
Apology shortly before had been published by him in refutation
of an injurious report gaining ground that he was himself
intimately allied with the devil, from whom he had obtained a
memorandum book in which were entered the names of all the
witches in England. It is entitled 'The Discovery of Witches; in
Answer to several Queries lately delivered to the Judge of Assize
for the County of Norfolk; and now published by Matthew Hopkins,
Witchfinder, for the Benefit of the whole Kingdom. Printed for R.
Royston, at the Angel in Inn Lane, 1647.'[147] It is, indeed,
sufficiently probable that, confident of the increasing coolness,
and perhaps of the wishes, of the magistrates, the mob, ever
ready to wreak vengeance upon a disgraced favourite who has long
abused the public patience, retaliated upon Hopkins a method of
torture he had frequently inflicted upon others.[148]

[147] Quoted by Sir W. Scott from a copy of this 'very rare
tract' in his possession.

[148] Dr. Francis Hutchinson (Historical Essay), referring to
the verses of Samuel Butler, says that he had often heard
that some persons, 'out of indignation at the barbarity [of
the witchfinder], took him and tied his own thumbs and toes,
as he used to tie others; and when he was put into the water,
he himself swam as they did.' But whether the usual fate upon
that event awaited him does not appear. The verses in
question are the following:--

'has not he, within a year,
Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire,

* * * * *

Who after prov'd himself a witch,
And made a rod for his own breech?'

The Knight's Squire on the same occasion reminds his master
of the more notorious of the devil's tricks of that and the
last age:--

'Did not the devil appear to Martin
Luther in Germany for certain,
And would have gull'd him with a trick
But Mart was too, too politic?
Did he