Julian Cox with her Face towards the ground, &c. His expressing of himself touching her Globes, and the Dogs smelling, &c. looks something humoursomely and ludicrously on it. But I must farther add, that I think it was only that his Fancy was tickled with the featness of the Phænomenon, not that he would be so wicked as to tell a Lie upon Oath, and that for nothing. Sic vita hominum est says Tully, ut ad maleficium nemo conetur sine spe atque emolumento accedere. But that those Half-witted People thought he Swore false I suppose was, because they imagined that what he told, implied that Julian Cox was turned into an Hare, which she was not, nor did, his Report imply any such real Metamorphosis of her Body, but that these ludicrous Dæmons exhibited to the sight of this Huntsman and his Dogs, the shape of an Hare, one of them turning himself into such a Form, and others hurrying on the Body of Julian near the same place, and at the same swiftness, but interposing betwixt that Hare-like Spectre and her Body, modifying the Air, so that the Scene there to the Beholders sight, was as if nothing but Air were there, and a shew of Earth perpetually suited to that where the Hare passed. As I have heard of some Painters that have drawn the Sky in an huge Landskip, so lively, that the Birds have flown against it, thinking it free Air, and so have fallen down. And if Painters and Juglers by the Tricks of Leger-de-main can do such strange Feats to the deceiving of the Sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible Spirits as far surpass them in all such præstigious doings, as the Air surpasses the Earth for subtilty.
And the like Præstigiæ may be in the Toad. It might be a real Toad (though actuated and guided by a Dæmon) which was cut in pieces, and that also which was whipt about, and at last snatcht out of sight (as if it had vanisht) by these Aerial Hocus-Pocus's. And if some Juglers have Tricks to take hot Coals into their Mouth without hurt, certainly it is no strange thing that some small attempt did not suffice to burn that Toad. That such a Toad, sent by a Witch, and crawling up the Body of the Man of the House as he sate by the Fire-side, was over-mastered by him and his Wife together, and burnt in the Fire. I have heard sometime ago credibly reported by one of the Isle of Ely. Of these Dæmoniack Vermin, I have heard other Stories also, as of a Rat that followed a Man some score of Miles, trudging through thick and thin along with him. So little difficulty is there in that of the Toad.
And that of Julian Cox's being seen to fly in at her own Chamber Window, there it no difficulty in it, if it be understood of her Familiar, the black Man, that had transformed himself into her shape. For there is no such unusual thing for Witches to appear either in their Astral Spirits, or by their Familiars, as if it were their very
