am no more a witch than you are a wizard; and, if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.”  Hutchinson says that, in his day, there was a tradition among the people of Salem, and it has descended to the present time, that the manner of Mr. Noyes’s death strangely verified the prediction thus wrung from the incensed spirit of the dying woman.  He was exceedingly corpulent, of a plethoric habit, and died of an internal hemorrhage, bleeding profusely at the mouth.

We have no information relating to the execution of Elizabeth How.  Her gentle, patient, humble, benignant, devout, and tender heart bore her, no doubt, with a spirit of saint-like love and faith, through the dreadful scenes.  We cannot doubt, that, in death as in life, she forgave, prayed for, and invoked blessing upon her persecutors.  Neither has any thing come down in reference to the deportment of Sarah Wildes or Susanna Martin.  We may take it for granted, that the former was a patient and humble, but firm and faithful sufferer; and that the latter displayed the great energy of spirit, and probably the strength of language, for which she was remarkable.  Of the case of Rebecca Nurse we have more information.

The character, age, and position of this venerable matron created an impression, which called, to the utmost, all the arts and efforts of the prosecution to counteract.  Many who had gone fully and earnestly in support of the proceedings against others paused and hesitated in reference to her; and large numbers who had been overawed into silence before, bravely came forward in her defence.  The character of Nathaniel Putnam has been described.  He was a man of extraordinary strength and acuteness of mind, and in all his previous life had been proof against popular excitement.  The death of his brother Thomas, seven years before, had left him the head and patriarch of his great family:  as such, he was known as “Landlord Putnam.”  Entire confidence was felt by all in his judgment, and deservedly.  But he was a strong religionist, a life-long member of the Church, and extremely strenuous and zealous in his ecclesiastical relations.  He was getting to be an old man; and Mr. Parris had wholly succeeded in obtaining, for the time, possession of his feelings, sympathy, and zeal in the management of the Church, and secured his full co-operation in the witchcraft prosecutions.  He had been led by Parris to take the very front in the proceedings.  But even Nathaniel Putnam could not stand by in silence, and see Rebecca Nurse sacrificed.  A curious paper, written by him, is among those which have been preserved:—­

“NATHANIEL PUTNAM, Sr., being desired by Francis Nurse, Sr., to give information of what I could say concerning his wife’s life and conversation, I, the abovesaid, have known this said aforesaid woman forty years, and what I have observed of her, human frailties excepted, her life and conversation have been according to her profession; and she hath brought up a great