.INTRODUCTION ggxi~c

H. N. IHB,
H. N. 146,

discourse in a leamed fashion on the influence of the stars.
'Charles the 2d)" he says, fell with few or no prognosticks or
omens praeceeding his death, unlesse we recur to the comet of
1680, which is remote, or to the strange fisches mentioned,
supra page 72, or the vision of blew bonnets, page 74,' but
these are all conjecturall vide, supra Holwell's prophecies in
his Catastrophe Mundi,' and so on. In 1683 we were
allarumed with ane strange conjunction was to befall in it
of 2 planets, Saturn and Jupiter in Leo. Our w inter
was rather like a spring for mildnes. If it be to be
nscrybed tp this conjunction I know not: In the case of
comets there was less room for scepticism. In December
1680, la formidable comet appeared at Edinburgh,~ In
discoursing on this comet he remarks that Dr. Bainbridge
observed the comet of 1618 to be verticall to London,
and to passe over it in the morning, so it gave England
and Scotland in their ch'ill wars a sad wype with its taill.
They seldom shine in wain, though they proceed from ex-
halations and other natural causes.'

Lnuder relates several trials for witchcraft in much
detail, and they evidentl)' gave him some uneasiness. Some
of the women commonly confessed and implicated other
pcrsons, In one such case the women, who aU10ng other
persons, accused the parish minister, said that the devil
sometimes transformed them in bees, ia crows, and they
flew to such and such remote places which was impossible
for the de%-il to doe, to rarefv the substance of their body
into so sma11 a mattcr thir confessions made many
intelligent sober persons stumble iiiuch w'hat faith was to
hc ndhibite to tlieiii." Ia another case from Haddington a
\oman confessed and accused five others and a man. ~Lauder
ww the man etamineci and tested by pricking, He sa)'s,

P. 74, i. of his ats. For the vision of b\ue bonnets, compare H. O., p. 142,
and Wodrow's Ilistor iv. 180.