family influence or eminent reputation.  They had now proved that they had no partiality and no favoritism, but were equally ready to bring to light and to justice any of their own circle who might fall into the snare of the Evil One, and become confederate with him.  No dramatic artist, no cunning impostor, ever contrived a more ingenious plot; and no actors ever carried one out better than Mary Warren and the afflicted children.

Giles Corey incurred hostility, perhaps, because his deposition relating to his wife did not come up to the mark required.  It is also highly probable, that, though incensed at her conduct at the time, reflection had brought him to his senses; and that the circumstances of her examination and commitment to prison produced a re-action in his mind.  If so, he would have been apt to express himself very freely.  His examination took place April 19th, in the meeting-house at the Village.  The girls acted their usual part, charging him, one by one, with having afflicted them, and proving it on the spot by tortures and sufferings.  After they had severally got through, they all joined at once in their demonstrations.  The report made by Parris says, “All the afflicted were seized now with fits, and troubled with pinches.  Then the Court ordered his hands to be tied.”  The magistrates lost all control of themselves, and flew into a passion, exclaiming, “What! is it not enough to act witchcraft at other times, but must you do it now, in face of authority?” He seems to have been profoundly affected by the marvellousness of the accusations, and the exhibition of what to him was inexplicable in the sufferings of the girls; and all he could say was, “I am a poor creature, and cannot help it.”—­“Upon the motion of his head again, they had their heads and necks afflicted.”  The magistrates, not having recovered their composure, continued to pour their wrath upon him, “Why do you tell such wicked lies against witnesses?”—­“One of his hands was let go, and several were afflicted.  He held his head on one side, and then the heads of several of the afflicted were held on one side.  He drew in his cheeks, and the cheeks of some of the afflicted were sucked in.”  Goody Bibber was on hand, and played her accompaniment.  She also uttered malignant charges against him, and “was suddenly seized with a violent fit.”  One of Bibber’s statements was that he had called her husband “damned devilish rogue.”  Through all this outrage, Corey was firm in asserting his innocence.  His language and manner were serious, and solemnized by a sense of the helplessness of his situation and the wicked falsehoods heaped upon him.  His disagreement with his wife about the witchcraft proceedings being well known, the accusers endeavored to make it out that they had often quarrelled.  But he insisted that the only difference which had before existed between them was a conflict of opinion on one point.  In his family devotions, he used this expression, “living to God and dying to