he saw everything. It was impossible for him to take a middle ground. He was an ardent man, always the last to give over the chase. One could no more stay him in the pursuit of any object, than he could avert the hand of death. His was not a well-balanced mind. Sometimes he was imposed upon by the simplest artifice; at others, he seemed to be hurried forward with the impetuosity of madness. His vanity, so much flattered by the deference shown him by the accusers, led him into the pursuit; his love of the church, which he supposed to be threatened, seemed to beckon him on; and the pride of opinion, which made him do many things that had need to be repented of, heated by the imaginative faculty, and assocated with a headlong will, whirled his reason around in convulsive circles, until it was dizzy almost to blindness!! But when we come to accuse him of violating his conscience, in the part that he took in that transaction-when we raise the cry of "priestcraft," and intimate that this worthy divine was willfully guilty of bloodshed-we speak more like atheists of the French Revolution school than like Christian historians. The divines of many of the churches were, doubtless, guilty of encouraging the delusion; but they were only fellow-laborers in the common field with the civil authority, with the people of the colony, with the young and old, the learned and ignorant. The fact that children of very tender age were the first to be afflicted with witches and the first to accuse, has puzzled the heads of many who have pondered upon this gloomy page of our history. How could they, it has been asked, have been so perverse and malignant as to perjure their souls for the sake of bringing ruin to the doors of the innocent? How could they have been ingenious enough to invent so many stories, with so many nice details, and such well-adjusted parts? But who does not know that childhood is the period, of all others in human life, for story-telling and romancing? Or what person, who has known anything of the subterfuges and deceitful artifices to which these little miniature actors of human nature are constantly resorting, has not formed his observation corresponding precisely with the declaration of Scripture, that we go astray as soon as we are born, speaking lies?" That curiosity and love of excitement so indigenous to the mind would of itself be VOL. III.NO. I. 5 motive enough to set them at work. An uninstructed child has very little care what may be his duty, if only the occasion presents itself of employing his faculties. He is a creature of fun, of impulse, of exploits. He feels and acts; but his moral sense is scarcely yet printed on the verge of his being. After some roguish boy or playful girl had once commenced the excitement, other children would believe what their less credulous neighbor had feigned, and terrified by the fears of their parents, perhaps, or vexed with troublesome dreams, or frightened at the sight of a black-plumaged bird, would fancy that the very air was filled with imps, that were working the will of some neighbor witch. It seems to be, therefore, the most natural thing in the world, that children should be the first to cry out that they were afflicted. Is any one shocked at this recital, as reflecting shame upon our ancestors? He ought not to make up an opinion unfavorable to their virtue, before considering care. fully the circumstances in which they were placed. It was a period among the darkest that ever had threatened the white population of New England with total destruction. They were in the midst of a gloomy forest. The shades of an inhospitable wilderness were around them. They might almost literally be said to make their home with the wild beasts. Tribes of implacable, savage men, who had the advantage of a minute acquaintance with all the modes of the warfare of the woods, whose hearts swelled with the sense of real or imagined wrongs, sought every opportunity to wreak their vengeance in burnings and scalpings. Pestilence was daily thinning their numbers. Famine was setting the marks of sorrow deep in the faces of the poorer classes; grim war was closing, like a fiery circle, around their borders. We cannot form an adequate idea of the terror with which all these exciting causes filled the public mind. It could not have been far short of delirium. The reader will be pleased to remember, too, that they were implicit believers in the Scriptures, which recognize the repeated interference of Satan in human affairs. For the religion taught in those writings they were ready to make every sacrifice. Perhaps they misapplied, but they were honest in the misapplication of, that text which says, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." At any rate, in their excited state of mind, it is not remarkable that, in turning to the Bible as their only refuge, they should find it to answer but darkly to the hasty glances of a troubled eye. They had always been a jealous people; particularly suspicious of the father of lies. What more natural, than that they should attribute much of this mischief to such a source? There is another question, somewhat delicate, to treat of, which cannot be omitted; that is to say was this series of persecutions peculiar to the religious tenets of the inhabitants? People have entertained various opinions upon this question. We will very briefly express our own, by the aid of a few historical examples. Few executions for this crime could be expected to occur under the ordering of the Romish Church, because the priesthood would, in limiting the punishment to the secular power, have given up something of prerogative, and also have lost that lucrative source of revenue, growing out of exorcism fees. But we are not to infer at all, that this superstition did not rage in the atmosphere of the Catholic church. So far from it, the delusion was encouraged, rather than checked, by many of the priests. In the year 1541, to gratify the fears of Henry VIII., a statute was passed against false prophecies, conjuration and witchcraft. But this statute made witchcraft punishable only when connected with its consequences. In the year 1562, another statute was passed, making witchcraft penal in itself, irrespective of its consequences. But this statute only made the offence punishable by the pillory. In 1562, the statute of Elizabeth was passed, but was not severe; but in the first year of James the First's reign, a statute was passed, declaring the crime to be felony, without benefit of clergy. Under this bloody act, in which the parliament submitted to the whims of the Sovereign, many executions took place in England; and under its sanction took place that awful tragedy in Massachusetts. Now, to show that this delusion is not peculiar to the dissenters, we have but to consider, that the Puritans who condemned their citizens to the halter, and the king who wrote with his own hand the statute under which these condemnations were had, were directly opposite in their religious views. The Puritans were a humble dissenting people, who had thrown off the oppressive burdens of tithes, and ecclesiastical monopolies, and left the land where they were born, from their horror of the odious features of the feudal system, and of the king, who was its representative. James, on the other hand, was a proud monarch, born to prerogative, a believer in the divine right of kings, a prop of the established church, and such a hater of the Puritans that he was determined (to use one of his not very classical expressions) "to harry them out of the land." There is a case in the English annals, of singular interest, called the case of the three witches of Warbois. An ingenious English writer, in speaking of it, says: enough record: for Sir Samuel Cromwell "Indeed, this story is matter of solemn having received the sum of forty pounds, as Lord of the Manor, out of the estates of the poor persons who suffered, turned it into a rent charge of 40 shillings a-year, for the endowment of an annual lecture on the subject of Witchcraft, to be preached by a Doctor of Divinity, or Bachelor of Queen's College. The accused were one Samuel and his wife, and their daughter. It seems that a daughmisfortune to see goodwife Samuel in a ter of a Mr. Throgmorton, who had the black net cap, and being of a vaporing turn, took it into her head to be afflicted at the sight of her, affirming that she was a witch. Miss Throgmorton was a romantic little lady, and introduced on the stage, to the great fright of her parents, nine imps, which, with the aid of two or three of her sisters, she made respond to her voice, and do a great many agreeable things. The names of seven of them were Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Blue, and three Smacks, who were cousins. One of the Smacks (of course the handsomest of the trio) manifests the gallant, lover-like traits of his character, by doing battle with the other spirits, for the love of the elder Miss Throgmorton. The following dialogue introduces Smack, fresh from the blood of the combat, to his delectable sweetheart: Lady. Whence come you, Mr. Smack, and what news do you bring? Pluck; the weapons, great cowl-staves— Smack. I come from fighting with the scene, a ruinous bakehouse in Dame Samuel's yard. Lady. And who got the mastery, I pray you? Smack. I have broken Pluck's head. Lady. I would he had broken thy neck. Smack. Is that the thanks I am to have have for my labors? Lady. Look you for thanks at my hand? with your dame for company; for you are I would you were all hanged up together, all nought." After this rebuff, Smack, like a sensi ble lover, retreats as fast as his limbs can carry him. Then enter the rest of the actor spirits, and go through their parts most tragically, limping, and screeching, and making exhibitions of bloody noses, to the utter discomfiture of reason and common sense. The girl was probably in love with some ideal divinity, and took this strange, fanciful way, of showing that her mind had passed under a temporary eclipse. It will be seen that the gentleman presiding over the trial of these poor people was acting under the authority of the English government, and under the sanction of the established church; and we mention it for the purpose of showing that these phenomena of which we are discoursing, are not peculiar, as some have pretended to suppose, to the puritan dissenters. We might make instance of a good many other cases, as that of Amy Roberts and Rose Callender, where the great and good Lord Hale was presiding justice, and that pattern of learning, Sir Thomas Brown, was called on the stand as a witness to sustain the prosecution, and overawe the jury by the splendor of his genius, and the authority of his name. We might recite the well-known fact, that the circumstances attendant on this trial were most affecting, and its consequences most fatal. But we do not wish to multi ply examples. Enough has been said to convince the unprejudiced, that irrespective of all religious tenets, in defiance of all monarchical and republican institutions, this morbid demon, Superstition, in an age of comparative mental darkness, has uplifted its unseemly form, as if from the earth, and after having wielded for a little while its iron sceptre, has melted into the dawn of a more auspicious day. All nations have shed innocent blood. France has persecuted for witchcraft. The New England colonies (among which Connecticut is to be named) have done the same, after the example set them by the laws and practice of the mother country. Scotland, Wales, Germany, Italy, Spain, all plead guilty to the indictment. Writers who ought to know better, have said that the Salem delusion was the most destructive of any which history records. Before we close, therefore, it is proper to allude to the visitation supposed to have been made by the Devil to the inhabitants of the little village of Mobea, in Elfland, a province in Sweden. It deserves to be mentioned the more, that a special tribunal was appointed, consisting of commissioners, to try these cases, just as a special court was ordained in Salem for a like purpose. In Salem, and in Mohea, the accusations both originated in the stories of roguish or silly children. The Swedish tale, however, in consonance with the character of that poetical people, is much more beautiful and imaginative than the sombre creations of the New England mind. Instead of a black man, with a large, grim-looking book, written all over with bloody characters, in place of the sacrament on the public common, his Satanic majesty is introduced in the guise of a Merry Andrew. The place of meeting is the Hartz forest, so consecrated by the classic fancy of Goethe; and the exercises, though sufficiently ghostly, are much more inviting than those that took place in Salem. The same reckless swearing, the same perversion of testimony, the same vindictive frenzy, characterized both. In the Swedish town seventy persons, of whom fifteen were children, were led to execution-a destruction of life more than three times greater than that which was made on a much larger extent of territory in New England. Such is a very imperfect sketch of one of the most interesting phenomena of our history. To the honor of New England men be it said, that they did what no other people have ever done: as soon as they saw their error, they made such atonement as they could, by asking the forgiveness of the sufferers, and by humbling themselves in fasting and prayer, at the feet of that Providence whom they had unwittingly offended. Let him who never bowed the knee to folly, nor worshiped an idol which his better reason taught him to dash to the earth, be the last to pity, and the first to condemn.. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MR. JUSTICE STORY. THE great men of a country form the most valuable part of its possessions. They are the sources of its truest pride, and from them are drawn its best claims to honor and remembrance. Without them, material prosperity has no dignity, and commands no respect. Without them, the history of a nation has nothing that quickens, elevates or inspires; nothing that kindles the mind with an emulating glow. It is a dead level of monotonous mediocrity, with no land-mark minds to arrest the eye, and stamp their own character upon the region around them. And in proportion to the value of great men should be our sense of their presence when living, and our memory of their services when dead. We should honor them by respect, by observance, by imitation, and by regret. We should gather up the fragments of their lives and conversation, that nothing may be lost. We should preserve and record all that was most striking in their minds and characters with religious care. Among the great men of our country, the subject of this biographical notice claims an honorable place. He was great in the extent of his capacity, in the vastness of his attainments, in his devotedness to duty, in his wide and various usefulness, in the elevation, purity and simplicity of his character, and in the moral thoughtfulness which pervaded his whole life. It is good for us to dwell upon the life, the services, of such a man. He deserves well of his country who diffuses among its people a knowledge of what he was and what he did. Joseph Story was born in Marblehead, in the State of Massachusetts, on the 18th day of September, 1779, and was the eldest child of a second marriage. His father, Dr. Elisha Story, was one of the Whigs of the Revolution, and formed one of the memorable band who destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. He served as surgeon in the Revolutionary army, and subsequently engaged in the practice of medicine, with distinguished success, till his death, which took place in 1805. His second wife, the mother of Mr. Justice Story, is still living, at a very advanced age, in the full possession of all her powers of mind and body, to feel grateful for the gift of such a son, and mourn over that decree of Providence which has called upon her to perform those last sad services for him, which, in the course of nature, he should have performed for her. His childhood and early youth passed by without any noticeable events. He was prepared for college in his native town, and entered Harvard University in 1795, half a year in advance. His collegiate life was, in all respects, highly honorable to him. He was a diligent and faithful student of the prescribed course, and found time, in addition, to range over a wide field of English literature. He fell into none of the moral dangers incident to the place, and to his period of life. His cordial, simple and affectionate nature made him a general favorite with his class-mates, among whom were Dr. Channing and Dr. Tuckerman-names so widely known and so highly honored-both of whom have gone before him "from sunshine to the sunless land." He was graduated, with distinguished honors, in 1798. The profession of the law had been his early and only choice, and immediately after leav ing college he entered upon its study, first at Marblehead, in the office of the late Chief Justice Sewall, and afterwards at Salem, in the office of Mr. Justice Putnam. He studied the law with vigorous assiduity, and that ardor of purpose which was so conspicuous a trait in his character through life. Having completed his probationary studies, he was admitted to the bar in 1801, and commenced the practice of the law in the town of Salem. The stormy politics of that period are fresh in the memory of many persons now living. The democratic party had triumphed in the national election, and seated its chief, Mr. Jefferson, in the Presidential chair, though many of the States, and Massachusetts among them, were still ruled by Federal majorities; and in these States the struggles for political supremacy were particularly vehement and impassioned. Mr. Story took his place in the ranks of the democratic party. The explanation of this step is to be found in his ardent temperament, his want of experience, his consequent over-estimate of the virtue of man, and ignorance of the disturbing influences of passion and selfishness. His democracy was the dream of a young and pure mind, glowing with visions of an ideal Commonwealth, which were to be realized by the removal of all restraints, and by leaving men free to indulge their natural impulses. He formed his judgment of these impulses by the generous promptings of his own breast; and were all men what he at that time imagined them to be, and what he himself was, democracy is the creed which the old would approve and the wise would embrace. The Federalists were at that time, as we have before said, the predominant party in Massachusetts, and nearly all the men of wealth and influence in Salem were of that political faith. Of course, the unpopular politics of Mr. Story exposed him to mortifications and neglects which were sufficiently wounding to his sensitive and sympathetic nature. Such, however, was the force of his industry, his capacity, his attention to business, and his cordial and attractive manners--so general was the conviction of the sincere conscientiousness of his views, that the rigor of political prejudice began gradually to be relaxed in his favor. He gathered around him good clients, and, what was better, good friends. In 1805, he was elected one of the Representatives of the town of Salem, in the Legislature of Massachusetts, to which office he was annually reëlected till his appointment to the bench. His professional reputation, his industry, his tact in the management of business, and his powers as a public speaker, soon made him the acknowledged leader of his party in the House of Representatives; and, in this capacity, he was called upon to defend the embargo policy of Mr. Jefferson, in 1808, against the resolutions of the Federal party, supported by a great weight of talent and influence, and especially by the distinguished abilities and honorable name of Christopher Gore, then in the fullness of his powers and at the height of his reputation. The gallant manner in which Mr. Story discharged this difficult trust extorted the admiration of his political opponents, and is still well remembered by many who witnessed his efforts. He was not, however, the slave of party, and the manly independence he showed, on more than one occasion, is a proof that the democracy of a former age was not, in all respects, like the democracy of our times. In 1806, a vacancy occurred in the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. The unrivaled legal eminence of Theophilus Parsons, at that time in extensive practice in Boston, made it highly desirable, on public grounds, that he should receive the appointment, and it was accordingly tendered to him. He consented to take it, but only upon condition that the salary should be made honorable and permanent, as the compensation previously allowed to the judges had been neither the one nor the other. The democratic party were then in power in Massachusetts, and it was well understood that the proposed change would encounter strong opposition from them, both because they were no friends to the judiciary, and because Mr. Parsons was peculiarly obnoxious to them, as an uncompromising Federalist, whose powerful talents were always at the service of his party, in the hour of need. But the proposition met the cordial approbation of Mr. Story. As a lawyer, he was able to appreciate the eminent legal abilities of Mr. Parsons and the important services which he would render to the State, in a judicial capacity. He generously waived all his political prepossessions, took charge of the proposed measure in the House of Representatives, and carried it successfully through, mainly by the force of his personal influence, and in spite of the opposition of his own party. The honorable spectacle of a leader of one political party exerting his talents and influence to elevate a leader of the opposite party to a station of power and honor, is not often witnessed, and should be esteemed in proportion to its rare occurrence. Nor did Mr. Story's magnanimous disdain of mere party considerations stop here. Mr. Parsons accepted the appointment of Chief Justice, and the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office was such as to satisfy the highest expectations of the bar and the public. But he found the salary insufficient for the support of his family, and in 1809 he came to the determination of resigning his seat upon the bench and resuming his lucrative practice at the bar, unless his salary were considerably increased. At this time, the democratic party had a majority in both branches of the Legisla ture of Massachusetts, and, like their loco-foco successors in the same State, |