we never printed anything untill
now."

Hutchinson gives the explanation of this confession. What can be more
atrocious than the whole story, which is yet but the common story of
witch confessions?

"_Adv._ Then did not he confess this before the Commissioners, at the
Time of his Tryal?

"_Clerg._ No, but maintained his Innocence stoutly, and challenged
them to make Proof of such Things as they laid to his Charge. I had
this from a Person of Credit, who was then in Court, and heard his
Tryal. I may add, that tho' his Case is remembered better than others
that suffered, yet I never heard any one speak of him, but with great
Compassion, because of his Age and Character, and their Belief of his
Innocence: And when he came to his Execution, because he would have
Christian Burial, he read the Office himself, and that way committed
his own Body to the Ground, in sure and certain Hope of the
Resurrection to eternal Life.

"In the Notes upon those Verses that I quoted out of Hudibras, it is
said, that he had been a painful Preacher for many Years, I may add
for Fifty, for so long he had been Vicar of Brandeston in the County
of Suffolk, as appears by the Time of his Institution. That I might
know the present Sense of the Chief Inhabitants of that Place, I wrote
to Mr. Wilson, the Incumbent of that Town, and by his Means received
the following Letter from Mr. Rivett, a worthy Gentleman who lived
lately in the same Place, and whose Father lived there before him.

"'SIR,

"'In Answer to your Request concerning Mr. Lowes, my Father was always
of the opinion, that Mr. Lowes suffered wrongfully, and hath often
said, that he did believe, he was no more a Wizzard than he was. I
have heard it from them that watched with him, that _they kept him
awake several Nights together, and run him backwards and forwards
about the Room, until he was out of Breath: Then they rested him a
little, and then ran him again: And thus they did for several Days and
Nights together, till he was weary of his Life, and was scarce
sensible of what he said or did_. They swam him at Framlingham, but
that was no true Rule to try him by; for they put in honest People at
the same Time, and they swam as well as he."]

After the lapse of another half century, and at the very period when
the persecution against witches waxed hotter, and the public
prejudice had become only more inveterate, from the ingredient of
fanaticism having been largely thrown in as a