the rarity of humor in seventeenth-century court rooms!
Not only was the explanation received seriously, but it was, says the
court reporter, afterwards found to be true.

In the mean time expert opinion had been called in. It is hard to say
whether Dr. Browne had been requisitioned for the case or merely
happened to be present. At all events, he was called upon to render his
opinion as a medical man. The name of Thomas Browne is one eminent in
English literature and not unknown in the annals of English medicine and
science. More than twenty years earlier he had expressed faith in the
reality of witchcraft.[14] In his _Commonplace Book_, a series of
jottings made throughout his life, he reiterated his belief, but uttered
a doubt as to the connection between possession and witchcraft.[15]

We should be glad to know at what time Browne wrote this deliverance;
for, when called upon at Bury, he made no application of his principles
of caution. He gave it as his opinion that the bewitchment of the two
girls was genuine. The vomiting of needles and nails reminded him very
much of a recent case in Denmark. For the moment the physician spoke,
when he said that "these swounding Fits were Natural." But it was the
student of seventeenth-century theology who went on: they were
"heightened to a great excess by the subtilty of the Devil, co-operating
with the Malice of these which we term Witches, at whose Instance he
doth these Villanies."

No doubt Browne's words confirmed the sentiment of the court room and
strengthened the case of the prosecution. But it will not be overlooked
by the careful reader that he did not by any means commit himself as to
the guilt of the parties at the bar.

When the judge found that the prisoners had "nothing material" to say
for themselves he addressed the jury. Perhaps because he was not
altogether clear in his own mind about the merits of the case, he
refused to sum up the evidence. It is impossible for us to understand
why he did not carry further the tests which had convinced Kelyng of the
fraud, or why he did not ask questions which would have uncovered the
weakness of the testimony. One cannot but suspect that North's criticism
of him, that he had a "leaning towards the Popular" and that he had
gained such "transcendent" authority as not easily to bear
contradiction,[16] was altogether accurate. At all events he passed over
the evidence and went on to declare that there were two problems bef