her-wit and
single-minded sincerity of Reginald Scot could only have vivified and
informed them.[19]

[Footnote 18: In the epistle to his kinsman Sir Thomas Scot, prefixed
to his _Discoverie_, he observes:--

"I see among other malefactors manie poore old women conuented before
you for working of miracles, other wise called witchcraft, and
therefore I thought you also a meet person to whom I might commend my
booke."--And he then proceeds, in the following spirited and gallant
strain, to run his course against the Dagon of popular superstition:--

"I therefore (at this time) doo onelie desire you to consider of my
report, concerning the euidence that is commonlie brought before you
against them. See first whether the euidence be not friuolous, &
whether the proofs brought against them be not incredible, consisting
of ghesses, presumptions, & impossibilities contrarie to reason,
scripture, and nature. See also what persons complaine vpon them,
whether they be not of the basest, the vnwisest, & most faithles kind
of people. Also may it please you to waie what accusations and crimes
they laie to their charge, namelie: She was at my house of late, she
would haue had a pot of milke, she departed in a chafe bicause she had
it not, she railed, she curssed, she mumbled and whispered, and
finallie she said she would be euen with me: and soone after my child,
my cow, my sow, or my pullet died, or was strangelie taken. Naie (if
it please your Worship) I haue further proofe: I was with a wise
woman, and she told me I had an ill neighbour, & that she would come
to my house yer it were long, and so did she; and that she had a marke
aboue hir waste, & so had she: and God forgiue me, my stomach hath
gone against hir a great while. Hir mother before hir was counted a
witch, she hath beene beaten and scratched by the face till bloud was
drawne vpon hir, bicause she hath beene suspected, & afterwards some
of those persons were said to amend. These are the certeinties that I
heare in their euidences.

"_Note also how easilie they may be brought to confesse that which
they neuer did, nor lieth in the power of man to doo_: and then see
whether I haue cause to write as I doo. Further, if you shall see that
infidelitie, poperie, and manie other manifest heresies be backed and
shouldered, and their professors animated and hartened, by yeelding to
creatures such infinit power as is wrested out of Gods hand, and
attributed to witches: finalli