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MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Proceedings on the Occasion of a Dinner to James Ware Bradbury.

MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Their "Archives of Maryland," volume five.

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.-" Commemorative Addresses, 1862-1887."

MASSACHUSETTS, COMMONWEALTH OF.-Official Report of the Trial of Thomas W. Piper for Murder; Public Documents for the year 1886; and the Manual of the General Court for 1888.

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL.-The Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Trustees.

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MASSACHUSETTS GRAND LODGE OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS.-Their Proceedings, as issued.

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Their Proceedings, Vol. II., Second Series.

MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.-Their publications, as issued. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.-The Twenty-third Annual Catalogue.

MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY.-Their Communications, as issued; and Triennial Catalogue and Directory, 1887.

MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED.-The Fortieth Annual Report.

MERRICK LIBRARY, BROOKFIELD.-One hundred and ninety-two numbers of magazines; and two hundred and seventy-five pamphlets.

MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Catalogue of their Library.

MUSEO MICHOACANO.--The "Anales," as issued.

MUSEO NACIONAL DE MÉXICO.-The "Anales," as issued.

NEWARK LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.-Their Forty-first Annual Report.

NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY.-Their publications, as issued.

NEW HAMPSHIRE, STATE OF.-Report of the Commissioners appointed to establish the true line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.-Thirty-five numbers of the "Transactions" and "Annals" of the Academy.

NEW YORK EVENING POST PRINTING COMPANY.-"The Nation," as issued. NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Their "Collections" for the year 1882. OHIO, STATE OF.-Eight volumes of Ohio State Documents, 1886-87.

PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY.-The
Twenty-first Annual Report.

PEABODY REPORTER COMPANY.-Their "Reporter," as issued.
PROVIDENCE ATHENEUM.-The Thirty-second Annual Report.

PERKINS INSTITUTION AND MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND.-
The Report of 1888.

REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENÆUM.-The One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Annual Report of the Directors.

RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.-Their Proceedings, 1887-88.

SAN FRANCISCO MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.-The Thirty-fifth Annual Report.

SEVENTH DAY ADVENT MISSIONARY SOCIETY.-Their" Signs of the Times," as issued.

SOCIÉTÉ DE GÉOGRAPHIE.-Their Bulletin, as issued.

SOCIÉTÉ NATIONALE DES ANTIQUAIRES DE FRANCE.-Their publications, as issued.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON.-Their Archæologia, Vol. L., Part 2. SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATING THE GOSPEL AMONG THE INDIANS AND OTHERS IN NORTH AMERICA.-Their Centennial History, 1787-1887.

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA.-Their Sixteenth Biennial Report; and their Record, as issued.

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN.-Their Proceedings, as issued. TRAVELERS' INSURANCE COMPANY.-The "Travelers' Record," as issued. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.-Ninety books; and fiftynine pamphlets.

WORCESTER COUNTY LAW LIBRARY.-Two books of early date.

WORCESTER COUNTY MECHANICS ASSOCIATION.-Twenty files of newspapers, in continuation.

WORCESTER FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.-Eight hundred and forty-nine books; thirteen hundred and thirty-one pamphlets; and one hundred and twenty files of newspapers.

WORCESTER LUNATIC HOSPITAL, TRUSTEES OF.-Their Fifth Annual Report. WORCESTER NATIONAL BANK.-The New York Evening Post, in continuation. WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE.-The Eighteenth Annual Report. YALE UNIVERSITY.-Two pamphlets.

NOTES ON THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT IN MASSACHUSETTS.

BY GEORGE H. MOORE.

THE Contemporary literature of witchcraft in Massachusetts was not copious, and its remains in the original publications are among the rarest of the rare "Americana" so eagerly sought by the diligent collectors of our day: the least valuable of them readily commanding a great price. I doubt whether any single library, even in Massachusetts, public or private, contains them all—and it is quite certain that some of these precious little volumes are not to be found. beyond the limits of the commonwealth.

The order and time of the composition and publication of these works are very important in the history of the witchcraft delusion. The Reverend Mr. Samuel Parris unquestionably told the truth, when, after all was done and the great reaction had put him on the defensive, he said that in the "dark and difficult dispensations" from which they had emerged: "We have been all or most of us of one mind for a time: and afterwards of differing apprehensions."—Calef: 57. The substantial unanimity of the magistrates and ministers at the outset gave fatal force to the popular delusion, in which they shared and do not seem to have faltered until their own hearths and homes were invaded or threatened by the malignant spirits whom they themselves had armed with the power to destroy. It has been claimed that many in both these "orders of men" were hostile to the proceedings from the beginning; but no record appears of any such opposition, and not a line or word of contemporary protest, or evidence that there was any, excepting the "very

high reflections upon the administration of public justice" for which William Milborne, "the Anabaptist Minister," was promptly arrested and held to bail, immediately after the first session of the Special Court and the execution of its first victim.

To-day (November 3, 1885) I have for the first time taken notice of the following paper, although it was printed in the N. E. Hist. Gen. Register so long ago as January, 1873, vol. xxvii., 55. It appears there as one of two manuscripts communicated by the late J. Wingate Thornton. He described it as "a copy of the writing sent out for signatures by persons opposed to the further prosecution of the suspected witches."

To the Grave and Juditious ye Generall Assembly of the Province of ye Massachusetts Bay in New-England the humble petitions of several Inhabitants of the Province afores may it please the honorable Assembly that whereas several persons of good fame and of unspotted reputation stand committed to several gaols in this Province upon suspistion of sundry acts of witchcraft only upon bare specter testimonie many whereof we cannot but in Charity Judge to be Innocent and are sensible of their great Affliction and if sd. specter testimonie pass for evidence have great grounds to fear that the Innocent will be condemned A woeful chain of consequences will undoubtedly follow besides the uncertaintie of ye exemption of any person from ye like accusation in ye said Province. -the serious consideration whereof we HAVE HUMBLY

upon

TENDERED TO YOU IN OUR HUMBLE ADDRESS IN ANOTHER

PAPER; such peculiar matter of fact therein asserted and we have sufficient testimonie ready to aver ye same: therefore request that ye validitie of specter Testimonie may be weighed in ye balance of your grace [grave] and solid Judgments it being the womb that hath brought forth inextricable damage and misirie to this Province and to order by your votes that no more credence be given thereto than the word of God alloweth by which means God will be glorified their Majesties honored and the Interest and welfare

of the Inhabitants of ye Province promoted and your Petistioners in duty boune shall dayly pray.1

This document is very important. It is evidently one of the papers for writing and publishing which William Milborne was arrested and held on the 25th of June, 1692, to answer at the next Superior Court. Already, as Calef tells us, "the Devil's Testimony, by the supposed Afflicted had so prevailed, as to take away the Life of one, and the Liberty of an Hundred, and the whole Country set into a most dreadful consternation;" and the ministers in and near Boston had given their advice, "ushered in with thanks for what was already done, and in conclusion, putting the Government upon a speedy and vigorous prosecution according to the Laws of God and the wholesome Statutes of the English Nation."-Calef: 153.

Sometime during the summer of 1692 the following pamphlet was printed in Boston:

"A Brief and True | Narrative of some Remarkable Passages Relating to sundry Persons | Afflicted by | Witchcraft at Salem Village: Which happened from the Nineteenth of March to the Fifth of April, 1692. | Collected by Deodat Lawson. | Boston, Printed for Benjamin Harris and are to be sold at his | Shop, over against the Old Meeting-House. 1692."

On the back of this title appears the following notice: "The Bookseller to the Reader.

The Ensuing Narrative being, a Collection of some Remarkables, in an Affair now upon the Stage, made by a credible Eye-Witness, is now offered unto the Reader, only as a Tast, of more that may follow in God's Time. If the Prayers of Good People may obtain this Favour of God, That the Misterious Assaults from Hell, now made upon so many of our Friends may be thoroughly Detected and

1 This document was directed against the spectre testimony-is it not probable that the other challenged the constitution of the Court? If not, wherein were "the very high reflections upon the administration of public justice"? 2 See Appendix: I.

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