To the _Bezoar_ stone also was attribute_Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

the plague and other pestilential diseases; and Gesner has given it

an origin even more marvellous than the cures for which it has been

celebrated; "when the hart is sick," says he, "and hath eaten many

serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that

he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the very

eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many teares from which the

(Bezoar) stone is gendered."[367:I]

The _Belemnites_ or hag-stones, perforated flints hung up at the bed's

head, to prevent the night-mare, or in stables to secure the horses

from being hag-ridden, and their manes elf-knotted, were, at this

period, in common use. To one of the superstitious evils against which

it was held as a protective, Shakspeare alludes, in his _Romeo and

Juliet_, where Mercutio exclaims—

———— "This is that very Mab

_That plats the manes of horses in the night_."[368:A]

"It was believed," remarks Mr. Douce, commenting on this passage, "that

certain malignant spirits whose delight was to wander in groves and

pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed

in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the

night-time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped

on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to

the great annoyance of the poor animals and vexation of their masters.

These hags are mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop

of Paris in the thirteenth century. There is a very uncommon old print

by Hans Burgmair relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable

with a lighted torch; and, previously to the operation of entangling

the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying

asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare."[368:B]

The most copious account of the preservative and curative virtues

which credulity has ascribed to precious stones, is to be drawn from

the pages of Reginald Scot, who appears faithfully and minutely to

have recorded the superstitions of his day. "An Agat (they saie) hath

vertue against the biting of scorpions or serpents. It is written (but

I will not stand to it) that it maketh a man eloquent, and procureth

the favour of princes; yea, that the fume thereof dooth turn awaie

tempests. Alectorius is a stone about the bignesse of a beane, as

cleere as the christall, taken out of a cocks bellie which hath been

gelt or made a capon foure yeares. If it be held in ones mouth, it

assuageth thirst, it maketh the husband to love the wife, and the

bearer invincible:——Chelidonius is a stone taken out of a swallowe,

which cureth melancholie: howbeit, some authors saie, it is the hearbe

whereby the swallowes recover the sight of their yoong, even if

their eies be picked out with an instrument. Geranites is taken out

of a crane, and Draconites out of a dragon. But it is to be noted,

that such stones must be taken out of the bellies of the serpents,

beasts, or birds, (wherein they are) whiles they live: otherwise, they

vanish awaie with the life, and so they reteine the vertues of those

starres under which they are. Amethysus maketh a droonken man sober,

and refresheth the wit. The corall preserveth such as beare it from

fascination or bewitching, and in this respect they are hanged about

children's necks. But from whence that superstition is derived, and who

invented the lie, I knowe not: but I see how redie the people are to

give credit thereunto, by the multitude of coralls that waie emploied.

Heliotropius stancheth bloud, driveth awaie poisons, preserveth health:

yea, and some write that it provoketh raine, and darkeneth the sunne,

suffering not him that beareth it to be abused. Hyacinthus dooth all

that the other dooth, and also preserveth from lightening. Dinothera

hanged about the necke, collar, or yoke of any creature, tameth it

presentlie. A Topase healeth the lunatike person of his passion of

lunacie. Aitites, if it be shaken, soundeth as if there were a little

stone in the bellie thereof: it is good for the falling sicknesse, and

to prevent untimelie birth. Chalcedonius maketh the bearer luckie in

lawe, quickeneth the power of the bodie, and is of force also against

the illusions of the divell, and phantasticall cogitations arising of

melancholie. Corneolus mitigateth the heate of the mind, and qualifieth

malice, it stancheth bloudie fluxes. Iris helpeth a woman to speedie

deliverance, and maketh rainebowes to appeere. A Saphire preserveth

the members, and maketh them livelie, and helpeth agues and gowts, and

suffereth not the bearer to be afraid: it hath vertue against venome,

and staieth bleeding at the nose, being often put thereto. A Smarag is

good for the eiesight, and maketh one rich and eloquent. Mephis (as

Aaron and Hermes report out of Albertus Magnus) being broken into

powder, and droonke with water, maketh insensibilitie of torture.

Heereby you may understand, that as God hath bestowed upon these

stones, and such other like bodies, most excellent and woonderfull

vertues: so according to the abundance of humane superstitions and

follies; manie ascribe unto them either more virtues, or others than

they have."[370:A]

This passage has been closely imitated by Drayton, in the ninth Nymphal

of his Muse's Elysium[370:B]; he has made, however, some additions to

the catalogue, one of which we have already noticed, and another will

be shortly quoted.

Virtues of a kind equally miraculous were attributed to bones and

horns; thus Scot tells us, that a bone taken out of a carp's head

staunches blood; that the bone in a hare's foot mitigates the cramp,

and that the unicorn's horn is inestimable[370:C]; and were we to

enumerate the wonders performed by herbs, we might fill a volume. Many

of them, indeed, were considered of such potency as to render the

persons who rightly used them, either invisible or invulnerable, and,

therefore, to those who were engaged to fight a legal duel, an oath was

administered, purporting "that they had ne charme, ne herbe of vertue"

about them.

Several diseases were held to be incurable, by ordinary means; such as

wens, warts, the king's evil, agues, rickets, and ruptures; and the

remedies which were adopted present a most deplorable instance of human

folly. Tumours were to be dispelled by stroking them nine times with a

dead man's hand, and the evil by the royal touch, a miraculous power

supposed to have been first exercised by Edward the Confessor, and to

have been since hereditary in the royal line, at least to the period of

the decease of Queen Anne. Of the discharge of this important function

by the Confessor, and of its regal descent, our poet has left us a

pretty accurate description:—

"_Malcolm._ ——— Comes the king forth, I pray you?

_Doctor._ Ay, Sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,

That stay his cure: their malady convinces

The great assay of art; but, at his touch,

Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,

They presently amend.

_Macduff._ What's the disease he means?

_Mal._ 'Tis call'd the evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king;

Which often, since my here-remain in England,

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,

Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,

All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere despair of surgery, he cures;

Hanging a golden stamp[371:A] about their necks,

Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction."[371:B]

That Shakspeare had frequently witnessed Queen Elizabeth's exercise

of this extraordinary gift, is very probable; for it appears from

Laneham, that even on her visits to her nobility, she was in the habit

of exerting this sanative power. In his _Account of the Entertainment

at Kenelworth Castle_, he records "by her highness accustomed mercy and

charitee, nyne cured of the peynful and dangerous diseaz called the

King's Evil, for that kings and queens of this realm without oother

medsin (than by touching and prayer) only doo it."[371:C]

Most of the superstitious cures for warts and agues remain as articles

of popular credulity; but the mode of removing ruptures and the

rickets which prevailed at this period, and for some centuries before,

is now nearly, if not altogether extinct. A young tree was split

longitudinally, and the diseased child, being stripped naked, was

passed, with the head foremost, thrice through the fissure. The wounded

tree was then drawn together with a cord so as to unite it perfectly,

and as the tree healed, the child was to acquire health and strength.

The same result followed if the child crept through a stone perforated

by some operation of Nature; of stones of this kind there are some

instances in Cornwall, and Mr. Borlase tells us, in his History of that

County, that there was one of this description in the parish of Marden,

which had a perforation through it fourteen inches in diameter, and was

celebrated for its cures on those who ventured, under these complaints,

to travel through its healing aperture.

The doctrine of _sympathetic_ indications and cures was very prevalent

during the era of Elizabeth and James, and is repeatedly insisted upon

by the writers of that age. One of the most generally credited of

these was, that a murdered body bled upon the touch or approach of the

murderer; an idea which has not only been adopted by our elder bards as

poetically striking, but has been adduced, as a truth, by some of our

very grave writers in prose. Among the Dramatists it will be sufficient

to produce Shakspeare, who represents the corpse of Henry the Sixth as

bleeding on the approach of the Tyrant Richard:—

"O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds

Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;

For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood

From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;

Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural:"[372:A]

and Drayton seems to have been a firm believer in the same

preternatural effect; for he informs us in his forty sixth _Idea_, that,

"In making trial of a murther wrought,

If the vile actors of the heinous deed,

Near the dead body happily be brought,

Oft't hath been prov'd the breathless corps will bleed."[373:A]

Of the prose authorities, besides Lupton, and Sir Kenelm Digby

mentioned in the notes of the Variorum Edition of our author,

Lavaterus, Reginald Scot, and King James may be quoted, as reposing

an implicit faith in the miracle. The _first_ of these writers tells

us, in his English dress, of 1572, that "some men beeing slayne by

theeves, when the theeves come to the dead body, by and by there

gusheth out freshe blood, or else there is declaration by other tokens,

that the theefe is there present;" and he then adds, "touching these

and other such marvellous things there might be many histories and

testimonies alleaged. But whosoever readeth this booke, may call

to their remembraunce, that they have scene these and suche like

things themselves, or that they have heard them of their freends

and acquaintaunce and of such as deserve sufficient credit."[373:B]

The _second_, in 1584, justifying what he terms common experience,

says, "I have heard by credible report, and I have read many grave

authors constantlie affirme, that the wound of a man murthered

reneweth bleeding; at the presence of a deere freend, or of a mortall

enimie[373:C];" and the third, in 1603, asserts, that "in a secret

murther, if the dead carkasse bee at any time thereafter handled by

the murtherer, it will gush out of bloud, as if the bloud were crying

to the heaven for revenge of the murtherer, God having appointed that

secret supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret unnaturall

crime."[373:D]

The influence of sympathy or _affection_ as it was termed, at the

period of which we are writing, over the passions and feelings of the

human mind, is curiously, though correctly exemplified by the poet, in

the character of Shylock, who tells the Duke—

"Some men there are, love not a gaping pig;

Some, that are mad, if they behold a cat;

And others, when the bag-pipe sings i' the nose,

Cannot contain their urine; for _affection_,

Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood

Of what it likes and loaths."[374:A]

Another sympathy mentioned by Shakspeare, but of a nature wholly

superstitious, relates to the Mandrake, a vegetable, the root of which

was supposed to be endued with animal life, and to shriek so horribly

when drawn out of the ground, as to occasion madness, and even death,

in those who made the attempt:—

—————— "What with loathsome smells,

And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;

O! if I wake, shall I not be distraught?"[374:B]

exclaims Juliet; and Suffolk, in King Henry the Sixth, declares that

every joint of his body should curse and ban his enemies,

"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan."[374:C]

To avoid these dreadful effects, it was the custom of those who

collected this root, to compel some animal to be the instrument of

extraction, and consequently the object of punishment. "They doe

affyrme," says Bulleine, "that this herbe (the Mandragora) commeth of

the seede of some convicted dead men: and also without the death of

some lyvinge thinge it cannot be drawnen out of the earth to man's use.

Therefore they did tye some dogge or other lyving beast unto the roote

thereof wyth a corde, and digged the earth in compasse round about, and

in the meane tyme stopp'd their own eares for feare of the terrible

shriek and cry of this Mandrack. In whych cry it doth not only dye

itselfe, but the feare thereof kylleth the dogge or beast which pulleth

it out of the earth."[374:D]

One of the most fantastic sympathies which yet lingers in the

popular creed, is founded on the idea that when a person is seized

with a sudden shivering, some one is walking over his future grave.

"Probably," remarks Mr. Grose, "all persons are not subject to this

sensation; otherwise the inhabitants of those parishes, whose burial

grounds lie in the common foot-path, would live in one continual fit of

shaking."[375:A]

Of all the modes of sympathetic credulity, however, none was more

prevalent in the reign of James the First, than that which pretended

to the cure of wounds and diseases; no stronger proof, indeed, can be

given of the credulity of that age, than that Bacon was a believer

in the sympathetic cure of warts[375:B], and, with James and his

court, in the efficacy of Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder. To

this far-famed medicine, the secret of which King James obtained from

Sir Kenelm, it is said, by the Knight himself, in his Discourse on

Sympathy, that Mr. James Howel, the well-known author of the Letters,

was indebted for a cure, when his hand was severely wounded in

endeavouring to part two of his friends engaged in a duel. The King,

out of regard to Howel, sent him his own surgeon; but a gangrene being

apprehended, from the violence of the inflammation, the sufferer was

induced to apply to Sir Kenelm, of whose mode of treatment he had heard

the most wonderful accounts.

"I asked him," relates Digby, "for any thing that had the blood upon

it; so he presently sent for his garter, wherewith his hand was first

bound; and as I called for a bason of water, as if I would wash my

hands, I took a handfull of powder of vitriol, which I had in my study,

and presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought

me, I put it within the bason, observing in the interim, what Mr. Howel

did, who stood talking with a gentleman in a corner of my chamber,

not regarding at all what I was doing; but he started suddenly as if

he had found some strange alteration in himself. I asked him what he

ailed? 'I know not what ailes me; but I finde that I feel no more pain.

Methinks that a pleasing kinde of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold

napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation

that tormented me before.' I reply'd, 'Since then that you feel already

so good effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your

playsters; only keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper betwixt

heat and cold.' This was presently reported to the Duke of Buckingham,

and a little after to the king, who were both very curious to know the

circumstance of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the

garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire. It was

scarce dry, but Mr. Howel's servant came running that his master felt

as much burning as ever he had done, if not more: for the heat was such

as if his hand were twixt coles of fire. I answered, although that had

happened at present, yet he should find ease in a short time; for I

knew the reason of this new accident, and would provide accordingly;

for his master should be free from that inflammation, it may be before

he could possibly return to him: but in case he found no ease, I wished

him to come presently back again; if not, he might forbear coming.

Thereupon he went; and at the instant I did put again the garter into

the water, thereupon he found his master without any pain at all. To

be brief, there was no sense of pain afterward; but within five or six

dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and entirely healed."[376:A]

To this marvellous cure, which may in truth be attributed to the

dismission of the plasters, we may add that a similar sanative and

sympathetic power was conceived to subsist between the wounds and the

instrument which inflicted them. Thus anointing the weapon with a

salve, or stroking it in a peculiar manner, had an immediate effect

on the wounded person. "They can remedie," says Scot, "anie stranger,

and him that is absent, with that _verie sword_ wherewith they are

wounded. Yea, and that which is beyond all admiration, if they stroke

the sworde upwards with their fingers, the partie shall feele no paine:

whereas if they drawe their finger downewards thereupon, the partie

wounded shall feele intollerable paine."[377:A]

Independent of the superstitions which we have thus classed under

distinct heads, there remain several to be noticed, not clearly

referrible to any part of the above arrangement; but which cannot with

propriety be omitted. These may, therefore, be collected under the term

MISCELLANEOUS, which will be found to include many curious particulars,

in no slight degree illustrative of the subject under consideration.

In the _Tempest_, towards the close of the fourth act, the poet

represents Prospero and Ariel setting on spirits, in the shape of

hounds, to hunt Stephano and Trinculo, while, at the same time, a noise

of hunters is heard.[377:B] This species of diabolical or spectral

chase was a popular article of belief, and is mentioned or alluded to

in many of the numerous books which were written, during this period,

on devils and spectres. Lavaterus, treating of the various modes in

which spirits act, says, "heereunto belongeth those things which are

reported touching the _chasing or hunting of Divels_, and also of the

daunces of dead men, which are of sundrie sortes. I have heard of

some which have avouched, that they have seene them[377:C];" and in a

translation from the French of Peter de Loier's _Treatise of Spectres_,

published in 1605, a chase of this kind is mentioned under the

appellation of _Arthur's Chace_, "which many," observes this writer,

"believe to be in France, and think that it is a kennel of black dogs,

followed by unknown huntsmen, with an exceeding great sound of horns,

as if it was a very hunting of some wild beast."[377:D]

Of a chase of this supernatural description, Boccacio, in the

fourteenth century, made an admirable use in his terrific tale of

Theodore and Honoria; a narrative which has received new charms and

additional horrors from the masterly imitation of Dryden; and in our

own days the same impressive superstition has been productive of a like

effect in the spirited ballad of Burger.

The hell-hounds of Shakspeare appear to be sufficiently formidable;

for, not merely commissioned to hunt their victims, they are ordered,

likewise, as goblins, to

———————— "grind their joints

With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews

With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,

Than pard, or cat o'mountain.

Hark, (_exclaims Ariel_) they roar.

_Prospero._ Let them be hunted soundly."[378:A]

The punishments which our poet has assigned to sinners in the infernal

regions, are most probably founded on the fictions of the monks, who,

not content with the infliction of mere fire as a source of torment,

condemn the damned to suffer the alternations of heat and cold; to

experience the cravings of extreme hunger and thirst, and to be driven

by whirlwinds through the immensity of space. In correspondence with

these legendary horrors, are the descriptions attributed to Claudio in

_Measure for Measure_, and to the Ghost in _Hamlet_:—

"_Claudio._ Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot:

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To _bathe in fiery floods_, or to reside,

_In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice_;

To be _imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world_; or to be worse than worst

Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts

Imagine howling!—'tis too horrible!"[379:A]

————— "I am thy father's spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;

And, for the day, _confined to fast in fires_,

Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,

Are burnt and purg'd away."[379:B]

Imagery somewhat similar to this may be found in the vulgar Latin

version of Job xxiv. 19.[379:C], and in the Inferno and Purgatorio of

Dante[379:D]; but Shakspeare had sufficient authorities in his own

language. An old homily, quoted by Dr. Farmer, speaking of the pains

of hell, says "the fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth

lighte; the seconde is passying cold, that yf a greate hylle of fyre

were cast therein, it shold torne to yce[379:E];" and Chaucer, in his

_Assemblie of Foules_, describing the situation of souls in hell,

declares that

—— "breakers of the lawe, sothe to saine,

And lickerous folke, after that they been dede

_Shall whirle about the world_, alway in paine

Till many a world be passed."[379:F]

The same doctrine is taught in that once popular and curious old work

_The Shepherd's Calendar_, which so frequently issued from the presses

of Wynkyn De Worde, Pynson, and Julian Notary. Among the torments of

the damned, the first enumerated

——— "is fire so hote to rekenne

That no manere of thynge may slekenne,

The secunde is colde as seith some

That no hete of fire may over come;"

and Lazarus, describing the punishment of the ENVIOUS, says,—"I have

seen in hell a flood frozen as ice, wherein the _envious_ men and women

were plunged unto the navel; and then suddenly came over them a right

cold and a great wind, that grieved and pained them right sore, and

when they would evite and eschew the wonderful blasts of the wind,

they plunged into water with great shouts and cries, lamentable to

hear[380:A];" and again in the eighteenth chapter of the same work, it

is related, as the reward of them that keep the ten commandments of the

Devil, that

—— "a _great froste_ in a water rounes

And after a _bytter wynde_ comes

Whiche gothe through the soules with yre."

In the _Songes and Sonnets_, also, by Lord Surrey, and others, which

were first published in 1557, the pains of hell are depicted as

partaking of the like vicissitude:—

"The soules that lacked grace

Which lye in bitter paine,

Are not in suche a place,

As foolish folke do faine;

Tormented all with _fyre_,

And boyle in leade againe—

Then cast in _frozen pites_,

To _freze_ there certein howres."[380:B]

Hunger and thirst, as forming part of the sufferings of the damned,

are alluded to by Chaucer in his Parson's Tale[381:A], and by Nash in

one of his numerous pamphlets: "Whether," says he, speaking of hell,

"it be a place of horror, stench, and darkness, where men see _meat,

but can get none, and are ever thirsty_."[381:B]

Heywood in his _Hierarchie of Angels_[381:C], and Milton in his

_Paradise Lost_, have adopted Claudio's description of the infernal

abode with regard to the interchange of heat and cold; the picture

which the latter has drawn completely fills up the outline of

Shakspeare:—

"Beyond —— a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms

Of whirlwind and dire hail——

Thither by harpy-footed furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions, all the damn'd

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,

From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire."[381:D]

The Platonic doctrine or superstition relative to the harmony of the

spheres, and of the human soul, was a favourite embellishment, both

in prose and poetry, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Spenser, Shakspeare, Hooker, Milton, have all adopted it as a mode of

illustration, and it forms, in the works of our great Dramatist, one of

his most splendid and beautiful passages:

"How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of musick

Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica: Look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

_There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins:

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it_."[382:A]

The opinion of Plato, as expressed in the tenth book of his

_Republic_[382:B] and in his _Timæus_, represents the music of the

spheres as so rapid, sweet, and variously inflected, as to exceed all

power in the human ear to measure its proportions, and consequently

it is not to be heard of man, while resident in this fleshly mould.

The same species of harmony is averred by Hooker[382:C] and Shakspeare

to reside in the human soul; but, says the latter, "whilst this muddy

vesture of decay doth grossly close this musick in, we cannot hear

it:" that is, whilst the soul is immured in the body, it is neither

conscious of its own harmony, nor of that existing in the spheres; but

no sooner shall it be freed from this incumbrance, and become a _pure

spirit_, than it shall be sensible both to its _own concord of sweet

sounds_, and to that _diapason_ or concentus which is addressed by the

nine muses or syrens to the Supreme Being,

"That undisturbed song of _pure concent_,

Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne,

To _Him_ that sits thereon."[382:D]

Of the various superstitions relative to the _Moon_, which prevailed in

the days of Shakspeare, a few are still retained. The most common is

that founded on the idea of a human creature being imprisoned in this

beautiful planet. The culprit was generally supposed to be the sinner

recorded in Numbers, chap. xv. v. 32., who was found gathering sticks

upon the sabbath day; a crime to which Chaucer has added the iniquity

of theft; for he describes this singular inhabitant as

"Bearing a bush of thornes on his backe,

Which for his _theft_ might clime no ner the heven."[383:A]

The Italians, however, appropriate this luminary for the residence of

Cain, and one of their early poets even speaks of the planet under the

term of _Caino e le spine_.[383:B] Shakspeare, with his usual attention

to propriety of character, attributes a belief in this superstition to

the monster Caliban:

"_Calib._ Hast thou not dropped from heaven?

_Steph._ Out o'the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man in the

moon, when time was.

_Cal._ I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee;

My mistress shewed me thee, thy dog and bush."[383:C]

The influence of the moon over diseases bodily and intellectual; its

virtue in all magical rites; its appearances as predictive of evil

and good, and its power over the weather and over many of the minor

concerns of life, such as the gathering of herbs, the killing of

animals for the table, &c. &c. were much more firmly and universally

accredited in the sixteenth century than at present; although we must

admit, that traces of all these credulities may still be found; and

that in medical science, the doctrine of lunar influence still, and to

a certain extent, perhaps with probability, exists.

Shakspeare addresses the moon as the "sovereign mistress of true

melancholy[383:D];" tells us, that when "she comes more near to the

earth than she was wont," she "makes men mad[383:E];" and that, when

she is "pale in her anger—rheumatic diseases do abound."[384:A] He

tells us, also, through the medium of Hecate, that

"Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vaporous drop profound"

of power to compel the obedience of infernal spirits[384:B]; and that

its eclipses[384:C], its sanguine colour[384:D], and its apparent

multiplication[384:E], are certain prognostics of disaster.

To kill hogs, to collect herbs, and to sow seed, when the moon was

increasing, was deemed a most essential observance; the bacon was

better, the plants more effective, and the crops more abundant in

consequence of this attention. Implicit confidence was also placed

in the new moon as a prognosticator of the weather, according to its

position, or the curvature of its horns; and it was hailed by blessings

and supplications; the women especially, both in England and Scotland,

were accustomed to curtesy to the new moon, and on the first night of

its appearance the unmarried part of the sex would frequently, sitting

astride on a gate or stile, invoke its influence in the following

curious terms:—

"All hail to the Moon, all hail to thee,

I prithee good Moon declare to me,

This night who my husband shall be."

The credulity of the country was particularly directed at this period,

including the close of the sixteenth century, and the beginning of the

seventeenth century, towards the numerous relations of the existence

of MONSTERS of various kinds; and Shakspeare, who more than any other

poet, availed himself of the superstitious follies of his time, hath

repeatedly both introduced, and satirized, these objects, as articles

of, and exciters of the popular belief. His Caliban, a monster of his

own creation, and, poetically considered, one of the most striking

products of his imagination, will be noticed at length in another

place, and we shall here confine ourselves to his description of the

monsters which, as objects of historical record, had lately become the

theme of credulous wonder, and general speculation.

Othello, in his speech before the senators, familiarly alludes to

—— "the Cannibals that each other eat,

The _Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders_:"[385:A]

and Gonzaga, in the _Tempest_, exclaims:

"Who would believe that there were mountaineers,

_Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them

Wallets of flesh_? or that there were such _men,

Whose heads stood in their breasts_."[385:B]

These monsters, and many others, which had been described in the

editions of Maundeville's Travels, published by Wynkyn De Worde

and Pynson in 1499-1503, &c. were revived, with fresh claims to

belief, by the voyagers and natural historians of the poet's age.

In 1581, Professor Batman printed his "Doome, warning all men to

the judgemente," in which not only the _Anthropophagi, who eat

man's flesh_, are mentioned, but various other races, such as the

_Œthiopes_ with four eyes, the _Hippopodes_, with their nether parts

like horses, the _Arimaspi_ with one eye in the forehead, &c. &c., and

to these he adds "men called _Monopoli_, who _have no head, but a face

in their breaste_."[385:C] In 1596 these marvels were corroborated by

Sir Walter Ralegh's _Discoverie of Guiana_[385:D], an empire, which, he

affirms, was productive of a similar generation; and Hackluyt, in 1598,

tells us that, "on that branch which is called Caora, are a nation of

a people _whose heades appeare not above their shoulders_: they are

reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouthes in

the middle of their breasts."

With the mere English scholar, classical authority was given to these

tales by Philemon Holland's Translation of Pliny's Natural History in

1601, where are the following descriptions both of the _Anthropophagi_

and of the men _whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders_:—"The

Anthropophagi or eaters of man's flesh whom we have placed about the

North pole, tenne daies journey by land above the river Borysthenes,

use to drinke out of the sculs of men's heads, and to weare the

scalpes, haire and all, in steed of mandellions or stomachers before

their breasts."[386:A] "The Blemmyi, by report, have no heads, but

mouth and eies both in their breast[386:B];" and again, "beyond these

westward, some there bee without heads standing upon their neckes, who

carrie eies in their shoulders."[386:C]

It is, also, very probable that the attention of Shakspeare was

still further drawn to these headless monsters by the labours of the

engraver; for in Este's edition of Maundeville's Travels, an attempt

is made to delineate one of these deformities, who is represented with

the eyes, nose, and mouth situated on the breast and stomach; and in a

translation of Ralegh's Guiana into Latin, by Hulse, in 1599, a similar

plate is given.[386:D]

That our author viewed this partiality in the public mind for wonders

and strange spectacles, with a smile of contempt, and was willing to

seize an opportunity for ridiculing the mania, appears evident from a

passage in his _Tempest_, where Trinculo, discovering Caliban extended

on the ground, supposes him to be a species of fish, and observes,

"Were I in England now (as once I was) and had but this _fish_

painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver:

there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a

man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will

lay out ten to see a dead Indian."[387:A]

_Wild Indians_, _curious fishes_, and _crocodiles_, seem to have been

singularly numerous in London at this epoch, having been brought

thither by several of our enterprising navigators; and by those who

crowded from every part of the country to view them, many superstitious

marvels were connected with their natural history. Of _three_ or

_four savages_ which Frobisher took in his first voyage, one, we are

told, "for very choler and disdain bit his tong in twaine within

his mouth: notwithstanding he died not thereof, but lived untill he

came in Englande, and then he died of colde, which he had taken at

sea[387:B];" the survivors, there is every reason to suppose, were

exhibited; for in the year 1577, there was entered on the books of the

Stationers' Company, "A description of the portrayture and shape of

those strange kinde of people which the worthie Mr. Martin Fourbosier

brought into England in Ao 1576[387:C];" and Mr. Chalmers relates,

that "Lord Southampton, and Sir Francis Gorges, engaging in voyages of

discovery, sent out, in 1611, two vessels under the command of Harlie,

and Nicolas, who sailed along the New England coast, where they were

sometimes well, and often ill, received, by the natives; and returned

to England, in the same year, with _five savages_, on board. In 1614,

Captain Smith carried out to New England one of those savages, named

_Tantum_; Captains Harlie and Hopson transported, in the same year, two

others of those savages, called _Epenow_, and _Manawet_; one of those

savages adventured to the European continent; and the _fifth Indian_,

of whom no account is given, we may easily suppose died in London, and

was exhibited for a show."[387:D]

We learn from a publication of Churchyard's in 1578, that Frobisher's

crew found a "_straunge fish_ dead, that had been caste from the

sea on the shore, who had a boane in his head like an Unicorne,

which they brought awaye, and presented to our Prince, when thei

came home[388:A];" and from the Stationers' Books, that, in 1604, an

account was printed "of a monstrous _fish_, that appeared in the form

of a woman from her waist upward, seene in the sea."[388:B] That the

credulity of the public in Elizabeth's days was remarkably great in

swallowing the most marvellous details in natural history, is proved

by a curious scene in the "City Match" of Jasper Mayne, which, though

first acted in 1639, refers to the age of Elizabeth, as to a period

fertile in these wondrous exhibitions. A set of knaves are described

as _hanging out the picture of a strange fish_, which they affirm is

the _fifth_ they have shown; and the following dialogue takes place

relative to the inscription on the place which included the monster:—

"_Holland._ Pray, can you read that? Sir, I warrant

That tells where it was caught, and what fish 'tis.

_Plotwell._ _Within this place is to be seen,

A wonderous fish. God save——the Queen._

_Hol._ Amen! She is my customer, and I

Have sold her bone-lace often.

_Bright._ Why the Queen? 'Tis writ the King.

_Plot._ That was to make the rhime.

_Bright._ 'Slid, thou did'st read it as twere some picture of

An _Elizabeth-fish_."[388:C]

A boy is then introduced, who sings a song upon the fish, commencing

with these lines:

"We show no monstrous _crocodile_,

Nor any prodigy of Nile;"[389:A]

which again alludes to the monster-loving propensities of good Queen

Bess's subjects; for Batman in his work upon Bartholome, published in

1582, says,—"Of late years there hath been brought into England, the

cases or skinnes of such _crocodiles_, to be seene, and much money

given for the sight thereof; the policy of strangers," he adds, in

the spirit of Shakspeare, "laugh at our folly, either that we are too

wealthy, or else that we know not how to bestow our money[389:B];" and

Bullokar, in his _English Expositor_ of 1616, confirms the charge by

telling us, that a dead _crocodile_, "but in perfect forme," and nine

feet long, had lately been exhibited in London, a fact to which he

annexes the following tradition:—"It is written," he remarks, "that

he will weep over a man's head when he hath devoured the body, and

then he will eat up the head too. Wherefore—crocodiles tears signifie

such tears as are fained, and spent only with intent to deceive or doe

harme."[389:C] Of this superstition Shakspeare has made a poetical use

in two of his dramas: Margaret in _Henry VI._ Part 2. complains that

Gloucester beguiles the king,

—————— "as the mournful crocodile

With sorrow snares relenting passengers:"[389:D]

and Othello, execrating the supposed duplicity of Desdemona, exclaims,

"If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,

Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile."[389:E]

Many superstitions relative to the DYING, existed at this time, among

all ranks of people, and a few of these have been preserved by our

poet. One of the most general was built on the belief, that Satan, or

some of his infernal host, watched the death-bed of every individual,

and, if impenitence or irreligion appeared, immediately took possession

of the soul. The death-scene of Cardinal Beaufort is an admirable

exemplification of this appalling idea; Henry is appealing to the

Almighty in behalf of the agonised sinner, and utters the following

pious petition:—

"O thou eternal Mover of the heavens,

Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!

O, beat away the busy meddling fiend

That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,

And from his bosom purge this black despair!"[390:A]

The powerful delineation of this scene from the pencil of Sir Joshua

Reynolds, in which the "meddling fiend" is personified in all his

terrors, must be considered in strict accordance with the credulity of

the age; for "in an ancient manuscript book of devotions," relates Mr.

Douce, "written in the reign of Henry VI., there is a prayer addressed

to Saint George, with the following very singular passage: 'Judge

for me whan the moste hedyous and damnable dragons of helle shall be

redy to take my poore soule and engloute it in to theyr infernall

belyes'[390:B];" and the books on demonology and spirits, written in

the reigns of Elizabeth and James, clearly prove that this relic of

popish superstition was still a portion of the popular creed.

Another singular conception was, that it was necessary in the agonies

of death, to

"Pluck—men's pillows from below their heads,"[390:C]

in order that they might die the easier; a practice founded on the

ridiculous supposition that, if pigeons' feathers formed a part of the

materials of the pillow, it was impossible the sufferer should expire

but in great misery, and that he would probably continue to struggle

for a prodigious length of time in exquisite torture.

It was common at this period, and the practice, indeed, continued

until the middle of the last century, to consider WELLS and FOUNTAINS

as peculiarly sacred and holy, and to visit them as a species of

pilgrimage, or for the healing virtues which superstition had fondly

attributed to them. Many of these wells, which had been much frequented

in London, during the days of Fitzstephen, were closed, or neglected,

when Stowe wrote[391:A]; but in the _country_ the habit of resorting

to such springs, and for purposes similar to those which existed in

papal times, was generally preserved. Bourne, who published in 1725,

speaks in language peculiarly descriptive of this superstitious regard

for wells and fountains, not only as it was observed in ancient times,

but at the period in which he lived. "In the dark ages of popery,"

he says, "it was a custom, if any _well_ had an awful situation, and

was seated in some lonely melancholy vale; if its water was clear and

limpid, and beautifully margin'd with the tender grass; or if it was

look'd upon, as having a medicinal quality; to gift it to some _Saint_,

and honour it with his name. Hence it is that we have at this day wells

and fountains called, some _St. John's, St. Mary Magdalen's, St. Mary's

Well, &c._

"To these kind of wells, the common people are accustomed to go, on a

summer's evening, to refresh themselves with a walk after the toil of

the day, to drink the water of the fountain, and enjoy the pleasing

prospect of shade and stream.

"Now this custom (though, _at this time of day_, very commendable, and

harmless, and innocent) seems to be the remains of that superstitious

practice of the Papists, of paying adoration to wells and fountains;

for they imagined there was some holiness and sanctity in them, and so

worshipped them."[392:A]

It was in the north especially, where Mr. Bourne resided, that wells

of this description were most frequently to be found, possessing the

advantages of a romantic situation, and preserved with care through

the influence of the traditionary legends of the neighbouring village;

for these retreats were supposed to be the haunts of fairies and good

spirits who were accustomed to meet

—————— "in dale, forest, or mead,

By paved fountain, or by rushy brook."[392:B]

At these wells offerings were frequently made, either owing to the

conceived sanctity of the place, or from gratitude for imagined

benefit received through the waters of the spring; and as those who

had recourse to these fountains were usually of the lower class,

small pieces of money were given, or even _rags_ suspended on the

trees or bushes which overhung the stream; whence these fountains

in many places obtained the name of _Rag-wells_. One thus termed is

mentioned, by Mr. Brand, as still exhibiting these tributary shreds at

the village of Benton near Newcastle; Mr. Pennant records two at Spey

and Drachaldy in Scotland; and Mr. Shaw tells us, that in the province

of Moray _pilgrimages to wells_ are not yet obsolete.[393:A] In many

places in the North, indeed, there are wells still remaining which were

manifestly intended for the refreshment of the way-worn traveller, and

are yet held in veneration. We have seen some of these with ladles of

brass affixed to the stone-work by a chain, a convenience probably as

ancient as the Anglo-Saxon era.

Several traditions of a peculiarly superstitious hue, have been

cherished in this country with regard to the _bird-tribe_, and most of

them have been introduced by our great poet as accessory either to the

terrible, or the pathetic. The ominous croaking of the raven and the

crow have been already mentioned, and we shall therefore, under the

present head, merely advert to a few additional notices relative to the

_owl_ and the _ruddock_, the former the supposed herald of horror and

disaster, the latter the romantic minister of charity and pity.

To the fearful bodings of the clamorous owl, which we have already

introduced when treating of omens, may now be added a superstition

which formerly rendered this unlucky bird the peculiar dread of mothers

and nurses. It was firmly believed, that the screech-owl was in the

habit of destroying infants by sucking out their blood and breath as

they laid in the cradle. "Lamiæ," observes Lavaterus, "are things that

make children afrayde. Lamiæ are also called _Striges_. _Striges_ (as

they saye) are unluckie-birds, whiche sucke out the blood of infants

lying in their cradles. And hereof some men will have witches take

their name, who also are called [393:B]_Volaticæ_." This credulity

relative to the Strix or screech-owl may be traced to Ovid[394:A], and

is alluded to by Shakspeare in the following lines:—

"We talk of goblins, _owls_, and elvish sprites;

If we obey them not, this will ensue,

They'll _suck out breath_, and pinch us black and blue."[394:B]

Another strange legend in the history of the owl is put into the mouth

of the hapless Ophelia:—

"Well, God 'ield you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter;"[394:C]

a metamorphosis of which Mr. Douce has given us the origin; he tells

us that it is yet a common story among the vulgar in Gloucestershire,

and is thus related:—"Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they

were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop

immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but

was reprimanded by her daughter, who insisting that the piece of dough

was too large, reduced it to a very small size. The dough, however,

immediately afterwards began to swell, and presently became of a

most enormous size. Whereupon the baker's daughter cried out 'Heugh,

heugh, heugh,' which owl-like noise, probably induced our Saviour for

her wickedness to transform her into that bird." He adds that this

story was often related to children, in order to deter them from such

illiberal behaviour to poor people.[394:D]

The partiality shown to the _ruddock_ or _red-breast_ seems to have

been founded on the popular ballad of _The Children in the Wood_, and

the play of _Cymbeline_. The charitable office, however, which these

productions have ascribed to _Robin_, has an earlier origin than their

date; for in Thomas Johnson's _Cornucopia_, 4to. 1596, it is related

that "the robin redbrest if he find a man or woman dead, will cover all

his face with mosse, and some thinke that if the body should remaine

unburied that he would cover the whole body also."[395:A] It is highly

probable that this anecdote might give birth to the burial of the

babes, whom no one heeded,

"Till _Robin-red-breast_ painfully

Did _cover them with leaves_;"

for, according to Dr. Percy[395:B], this pathetic narrative was built

upon a play published by Rob. Yarrington in 1601. It is likewise

possible that the same passage occasioned the beautiful lines in the

play of _Cymbeline_, performed about 1606, where Arviragus, mourning

over Imogen, exclaims—

—————— "With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack

The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor

The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the _ruddock_ would,

With charitable bill—bring thee _all this_;

Yea, and furr'd _moss_ besides, when flowers are none,

To winter-ground thy corse."[395:C]

These interesting pictures of the red-breast would alone be sufficient

to create an affectionate feeling for him; the attachment however has

been ever since kept alive by delineations of a similar kind. In our

author's time Drayton, Webster, and Dekker, have all alluded to this

pleasing tradition: the first in his _Owl_ 1604—

"Cov'ring with moss the deads unclosed eye,

The little _red-breast_ teacheth charitie;"[395:D]

the second in his Tragedy, called _The White Devil, or Vittoria

Corombona_, 1612—

"Call for the _robin red-breast_ and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men;"[396:A]

and the third in one of his pamphlets printed in 1616—"They that

cheere up a prisoner but with their sight, are _Robin red-breasts_ that

bring strawes in their bils to cover a dead man in extremitie."[396:B]

Some wonderful properties relative to an imaginary gem, called a

_carbuncle_, formed likewise a part of the popular creed. It was

supposed to be the most transparent of all the precious stones, and

to possess a native intrinsic lustre so powerful as to illuminate the

atmosphere to a considerable distance around it. It was, therefore,

very appositely adopted by the writers of romance, as an ornament

and source of light for their subterranean palaces, and almost all

our elder poets have gifted it with a similar brilliancy; thus

Chaucer, in his _Romaunt of the Rose_[396:C]; Gower, in his _Confessio

Amantis_[396:D]; Lydgate, in his _Description of King Priam's

Palace_[396:E]; and Stephen Hawes, in his _Pastime of Pleasure_[396:F],

have all celebrated it as a kind of second sun, and the most valuable

of earthly products. Chaucer, more particularly, mentions it as so

clear and bright,—

"That al so sone as it was night,

Men mightin sene to go for nede

A mile, or two in length and brede,

Such light ysprange out of that stone."

That this fiction was credited in the days of Elizabeth and James, may

be conceded, not only from the familiar allusions of the poets, but

from the philosophic writers on the superstitions of the age. To the

_unborrowed_ light of the carbuncle, Shakspeare has referred in _King

Henry the Eighth_, where the Princess Elizabeth is prophetically termed,

—————— "a gem

To lighten all this isle;"[397:A]

and in Titus Andronicus, (if that play can be deemed his,) upon the

discovery of Bassianus slaughtered in a pit;

"_Martius._ Upon his bloody finger he doth wear

A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,

——like a taper in some monument;"[397:B]

He also mentions this "rich jewel" by way of comparison in

Coriolanus[397:C]; appropriates it as an ornament to the wheels of

Phœbus's chariot in Cymbeline[397:D]; and in the Player's speech in

Hamlet, the eyes of Pyrrhus are said to be "like carbuncles."[397:E]

Drayton describes this fabled stone with nearly as much precision as

Chaucer; he calls it

"——— that admired, mighty stone,

The _carbuncle_ that's named;

Which from it such a flaming light

And radiancy ejecteth,

That in the very darkest night

The eye to it directeth."[397:F]

A modern poet, remarkable for his powers of imagination, has

beautifully, and very happily availed himself of these marvellous

attributes, in describing the magnificent palace of Shedad, a passage

which we shall transcribe, as it leads to an illustrative extract from

a writer of Shakspeare's age:

"Here self-suspended hangs in air,

As its pure substance loathed material touch,

The living carbuncle;

Sun of the lofty dome,

Darkness has no dominion o'er its beams;

Intense it glows, an ever-flowing tide

Of glory, like the day-flood in its source."

"I have no where seen," says Mr. Southey in a note on these lines, "so

circumstantial an account of its (the carbuncle's) wonderful properties

as in a passage of Thuanus, quoted by Stephanius in his notes to

Saxo-Grammaticus.

"Whilst the King was at Bologna, a stone, wonderful in its species and

nature, was brought to him from the East Indies, by a man unknown, who

appeared by his manners to be a Barbarian. It sparkled as though all

burning, with an incredible splendour; flashing radiance, and shooting

on every side its beams, it filled the surrounding air to a great

distance with a light scarcely by any eyes endurable. In this also

it was wonderful, that being most impatient of the earth, if it was

confined, it would force its way, and immediately fly aloft; neither

could it be contained by any art of man in a narrow place, but appeared

only to love those of ample extent. It was of the utmost purity,

stained by no soil nor spot. Certain shape it had none, for its figure

was inconstant, and momentarily changing, and though at a distance it

was beautiful to the eye, it would not suffer itself to be handled

with impunity, but hurt those who obstinately struggled with it, as

many persons before many spectators experienced. If by chance any part

of it was broken off, for it was not very hard, it became nothing

less."[398:A]

An account equally minute, and in terms nearly similar, occurs in

Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, and both were probably taken

from the same source, the writings of Fernel or Fernelius. This

physician died in 1558; and his description, as copied by Scot,

contributed, no doubt, to prolong the public credulity in this kingdom;

though the English philosopher attempts to explain the phenomenon by

supposing that actual flame was concentrated and burning in the centre

of the gem.

"Johannes Fernelius writeth of a strange stone latelie brought out

of India, which hath in it such a marvellous brightnes, puritie and

shining, that therewith the aire round about is so lightned and

cleared, that one may see to read thereby in the darknes of night. It

will not be conteined in a close roome, but requireth an open and free

place. It would not willingly rest or staie here belowe on the earth,

but alwaies laboureth to ascend up into the aire. If one presse it

downe with his hand, it resisteth, and striveth verie sharplie. It is

beautifull to behold, without either spot or blemish, and yet verie

unpleasant to taste or feele. If any part thereof be taken awaie, it

is never a whit diminished, the forme thereof being inconstant, and at

everie moment mutable."[399:A]

The carbuncle was believed to be an animal substance generated in

the body of a serpent, to possess a sexual distinction, the males

having a star-formed burning nucleus, while the females dispersed

their brilliancy on all sides in a formless blaze; and, like other

transparent gems, to have the power of expelling evil spirits.

While on the subject of superstitious notions relative to luminous

bodies, we may remark, that in the age of Shakspeare, the wandering

lights, termed _Will-o-wisp_ and _Jack-o-Lantern_, were supposed by the

common people to be occasioned by demons and malignant fairies, with

the view of leading the benighted traveller to his destruction. "Many

tymes," says Lavaterus, "candles and small fiers appeare in the night,

and seeme to run up and downe;—those fiers some time seeme to come

togither, and by and by to be severed and run abroade, and at the last

to vanish clean away. Somtime these fiers go alone in the night season,

and put such as see them, as they travel by night, in great fear. But

these things, and many suche lyke, have their natural causes: _and

yet I will not denye, but that many tymes Dyvels delude men in this

manner_."[400:A]

Stephano, in the _Tempest_, attributes this phenomenon to the agency

of a mischievous fairy: "Monster, your fairy, which, you say, is a

harmless fairy, has done little better than _played the Jack with

us_."[400:B]

Various causes have been assigned for the appearance of the _ignis

fatuus_; modern chemistry asserts it to be occasioned by hydrogen gas,

evolving from decaying vegetables, and the decomposition of pyritic

coal; and when seen hovering on the surface of burial grounds, to

originate from the same gas in a higher state of volatility, through

the agency of phosphoric impregnation.

The _partial_ view which we have now taken of the superstitions of

the country, as they existed in the age of Shakspeare, will, in part,

demonstrate how great was the credulity subsisting at this period; how

well calculated were many of these popular delusions for the purposes

of the dramatic writer, and how copiously and skilfully have these been

moulded and employed by the great poet of our stage. A considerable

portion also of the manners, customs, and diversions of the country,

which had been necessarily omitted in the preceding chapters, will be

found included in this sketch of a part of the popular creed, and will

contribute to heighten the effect of a picture, which can only receive

its completion through the mutual aid of various subsequent departments

of the present work.

FOOTNOTES:

[315:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 496.

[316:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 255, 256. Winter's Tale, act ii.

sc. 1.

[317:A] "Of Ghostes and spirites walking by nyght, and of strange

noyses, crackes, and sundry forewarnynges, whiche commonly happen

before the death of menne, great slaughters, and alterations of

kyngdomes. One Booke, Written by Lewes Lavaterus of Tigurine. And

translated into Englyshe by R. H." Printed at London by Henry

Benneyman, for Richard Watkyns, 1572. Vide p. 14. and 49.

[317:B] Lavaterus, p. 21.

[318:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1580, p. 152, 153.

[318:B] Vide Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 172.

[318:C] Spectator, No. 419., vol. vi. p. 118. of Sharpe's edition. See

also Nos. 12. 110. and 117.

[319:A] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 242, 243.

[321:A] Bourne's Antiquities of the Common People apud Brand, p. 113,

118, 119, 120, 122, 123.

[321:B] Seasons, Winter, line 617.

[322:A] Pleasures of Imagination, book i.

[322:B] The Remains of Henry Kirke White, vol. i. p. 311.

[323:A] Gay, in his Trivia, notices, at some length, the prognostications

attendant on these days, and which equally apply to ancient and to

modern times:—

"All superstition from thy breast repel;

Let cred'lous boys and prattling nurses tell

How if the _Festival of Paul_ be _clear_,

_Plenty_ from lib'ral horn shall strow the _year_:

When the dark skies dissolve in _snow_ and _rain_,

The lab'ring _kind_ shall _yoke_ the _steer_ in _vain_;

But if the threat'ning _winds_ in tempest roar,

Then _war_ shall bathe her wasteful sword in gore.

How if, on _Swithen_'s feast the welkin lours,

And ev'ry penthouse streams with hasty show'rs,

_Twice twenty days_ shall clouds their fleeces drain,

And wash the pavements with _incessant rain_:

Let no such vulgar tales debase thy mind,

Nor _Paul_, nor _Swithin_, rule the _clouds_ and _wind_."

[324:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 453. Midsummer-Night's Dream,

act iv. sc. 1. Buchanan also beautifully records the same traditionary

imagery:

"Festa Valentino rediit lux——

Quisque sibi sociam jam legit ales avem.

Inde sibi dominam per sortes quærere in annum

Mansit ab antiquis mos repetitus avis;

Quisque legit dominam, quam casto observet amore,

Quam nitidis sertis obsequioque colat:

Mittere cui possit blandi munuscula Veris."

[325:A] Bourne's Antiquities apud Brand, p. 253.

[326:A] Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 252, 253.

[326:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 281. Mr. Gay has more

distinctly recorded this ceremony in the following lines:—

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind

Their paramours with mutual chirpings find;

I early rose, just at the break of day,

Before the sun had chas'd the stars away;

Afield I went, amid the morning dew,

To milk my kine (for so should housewives do),

_Thee First_ I spied, and _the first swain we see_

In spite of fortune _shall our true Love be_."

[327:A] "Et vere ad Valentini festum à viris habent fœminæ; munera, et

alio temporis viris dantur." Moresini Deprav. Relig. 160.

[327:B] Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 258.—"I have

found unquestionable authority," remarks Mr. Brand, "to evince that the

custom of chusing Valentines was a sport practised in the houses of the

gentry in England as early as the year 1476." Brand apud Ellis, vol. i.

p. 48.

The authority alluded to by Mr. Brand, is a letter, in Fenn's Paston

Letters, vol. ii. p. 211., dated February 1476.

[328:A] Survey of London, 1618, p. 159.

[328:B] Ibid.

[328:C] Vide Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 317.

[329:A] "L'origine de ce feu que tant de nations conservent encore, et

qui se perd dans l'antiquité, est très simple. C'etoit un feu de joie

allumé au moment où l'année commençoit; car la première de toutes les

Annes, la plus ancienne donc on ait quelque connoissance, s'ouvroit au

mois de Juin.—

"Ces feux-de-joie étoient accompagnés en même tems de Vœux et de

sacrifices pour la prospérité de peuples et des biens de la terre: on

dansoit aussi autour de ce feu; car ya-t-il quelque fête sans danse? et

les plus agiles santoient par dessus. En se retirant, chacun empartoit

un tison plus ou moins grand, et le reste étoit jetté au vent, afin

qu'il emportât tout malheur comme il emportoit ces cendres." Hist.

d'Hercule, p. 203.

[329:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 249. act ii. sc. 3.

[329:C] Jonson's Works, act i. sc. 6.

[329:D] Beaumont and Fletcher's Works apud Colman.

[330:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 281. Britannia's

Pastorals, book ii. song 2.

[330:B] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 299.

[330:C] Ibid. p. 285.

[331:A] Bourne's Antiquities, p. 301.

[331:B] Stowe also mentions, that bonefires and rejoicings were

observed on the Eve of St. Peter and Paul the Apostles; he gives

likewise a curious account of the _Marching Watches_ which had been

regularly kept on Midsummer-Eve, time out of mind, by the citizens of

London and other large towns; but these had ceased before the age of

Shakspeare, the last having been appointed by Sir John Gresham, in

1548, though an attempt was made to procure their revival, by John

Montgomery in 1585, who published a book on the subject, dedicated to

Sir Thos. Pullison, then Lord Mayor; this offer however did not succeed.

[332:A] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 285.

[332:B] Queenhoo-Hall, vol. i. p. 136.

[333:A] Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 103.

[333:B] Jonson's Works, fol. edit. vol. i.

[334:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 359. act iii. sc. 4.

[334:B] Bourne's Antiquities, p. 320, 321.

[334:C] Vide Job, chap. xxxiii. v. 22, 23.

[335:A] Opera et Dies, vol. i. 246.

[335:B] Dionys. in Cælest. Hierarch. cap. ix. x.

[335:C] Calv. Lib. Instit. I. c. xiv. It is worthy of remark, that

Reginald Scot, from whose _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, p. 500., this

account of the hierarchy of Dionysius is taken, has brought forward

a passage from his kinsman Edward Deering, which broaches the same

doctrine as that held by Bishop Horsley in the last sermon which

he ever wrote. "If you read Deering," says Scot, "upon the first

chapter to the Hebrues, you shall see this matter (the angelic theory

of Dionysius) notablie handled; where he saith, _that whensoever

archangell is mentioned in the Scriptures it signifieth our saviour

Christ, and no creature_." p. 501.—Now in the sermon alluded to by

Horsley, the text of which is Dan. iv. 17., he affirms, that the term

"Michael," or "Michael the Archangel," wherever it occurs, is nothing

more than a name for our Saviour. Vide Sermons, vol. ii. p. 376.

[337:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght; p. 160, 161.

[338:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 505, 506.

[338:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 109. Henry IV. Part ii. act ii.

sc. 4.

[338:C] Ibid. vol. xii. p. 36. Henry IV. Part ii. act i. sc. 2.

[338:D] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 94, 95. Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. sc. 3.

[338:E] Ibid. vol. x. p. 149.

[339:A] Book iv. line 677.

[340:A] Sermons, vol. ii. p. 412. 415, 416.

[341:A] Vide Brady's Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 180.

[341:B] Brand's Appendix to Bourne's Antiquities, p. 382.

[341:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 205. act ii. sc. 1.

[342:A] Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 229.

[343:A] Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 221.

[343:B] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 238.

[344:A] Scott's Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 221, 222.

[346:A] The powers of description which Burns has evinced in one of the

stanzas, while relating the effects of this spell, are truly great:—

"A wanton widow Leezie was

As canty as a kittlen;

But och! that night, among the shaws,

She got a fearfu' settlin!

She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn,

An' owre the hill gaed scrievin,

Where three lairds lands met at a burn,

To dip her left sark-sleeve in,

Was bent that night.

_Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays

As thro' the glen it wimpl't;

Whyles round a rocky scar it strays;

Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;

Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,

Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;

Whyles cookit underneath the braes,

Below the spreading hazle,

Unseen that night._

Among the brachens, on the brae,

Between her an' the moon,

The deil, or else an outler quey,

Gat up an' gae a croon:

Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool;

Near lav'rock-height she jumpit,

But mist a fit, an' in the pool,

Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,

Wi' a plunge that night."

[347:A] Burns's Works, Currie's edit. vol. iii. p. 126. et seq.

[347:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. p. 472-474.

[348:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 87.

[348:B] See Beaumont and Fletcher apud Colman.

It would appear from the passage just quoted from Shakspeare, that he

considered St. Withold as commanding this _female_ incubus to alight

from those _she_ was riding and tormenting; but Fuseli and Darwin, in

their delineations, appear to have mounted a _male_ fiend, or incubus,

on _her_ back, who descending from his steed, sate on the breasts of

those whom _he_ had selected for his victims. The personifications

of the painter and the modern poet are forcibly drawn and highly

terrific:—

"So on his NIGHTMARE through the evening fog

Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;

Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd,

Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.

—— Such as of late amid the murky sky

Was mark'd by FUSELI'S poetic eye;

Whose daring tints, with SHAKSPEARE'S happiest grace,

Gave to the airy phantom form and place—

Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,

Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;

While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,

Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.

—— Then shrieks of captur'd towns, and widow's tears,

Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers,

The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,

The trackless desert, the cold starless night,

And stern-eye'd Murderer with his knife behind,

In dread succession agonize her mind.

O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,

Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;

In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,

And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes:

In vain she _wills_ to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;

The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP.

—— On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape

Erect, and balances his bloated shape;

Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,

And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries."

Botanic Garden, 4to. edit. p. 101-103.

[350:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 203-205.

[351:A] The Dutchesse of Malfy, act iii. sc. 3. Vide Ancient British

Drama, vol. iii. p. 526.

[351:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 418, 419.

[352:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 16. Hamlet, act i. sc. 1.

[352:B] Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 315. Julius Cæsar, act ii. sc. 2.

[353:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 127. Macbeth, act ii. sc. 3.

[354:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 82, 83. Act ii. sc. 4.

[354:B] Ibid. vol. xi. p. 317. First Part of King Henry IV. act iii.

sc. 1.

[354:C] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 202, 203. Third Part of King Henry VI. act

v. sc. 6.

[355:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 448. Troilus and Cressida, act

v. sc. 3.

[355:B] Ibid. vol. xx. p. 225. Act v. sc. 1.

[355:C] Ibid. vol. xv. p. 395. Act iv. sc. 4.

[355:D] Familiar Letters, edit. 1726. p. 247.

[355:E] Lady of the Lake, p. 348.

[356:A] Lady of the Lake, p. 106. 347.

[357:A] Lady of the Lake, p. 348.

[358:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 28. Act i. sc. 2.

[358:B] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 506. Act v. sc. 3.

[359:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites, 1572. p. 79.

[359:B] Vide Grose's Provincial Glossary, article Popular

Superstitions, p. 282, 283.

[360:A] Grant's Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of

Scotland, vol. i. p. 259-261.

[361:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 459.

[362:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites, p. 77-79.

[362:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 169. Act iv. sc. 2.

[362:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 279.

[362:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. p. 230. Act iv. sc. 10.

[363:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 336.

[363:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiii. p. 152. First Part of King Henry

VI. act v. sc. 3.

[363:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 279.

[364:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 230. 270.

[364:B] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 231.

[365:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 247.

[365:B] Ibid. p. 245.

[366:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 265, 266.

[366:B] See Whalley's Works of Ben Jonson.

[366:C] Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 465.

[367:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 41. Act ii. sc. 1.

[367:B] De Quadrup. Ovip., p. 65.

[367:C] Batman uppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum,

1582, fol. article Botrax.

[367:D] A Green Forest, or a Natural History, 1567.

[367:E] Secrete Wonders of Nature, 4to. 1569.

[367:F] First Book of Notable Things, 4to.

[367:G] Topsell's History of Serpents, 1608. fol., p. 188. and Fuller's

Church History, p. 151.

[367:H] Printed by Copland, but without date, 12mo.

[367:I] Quoted by Batman on Bartholome, L. xviii. c. 30.

[368:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 59. Act i. sc. 4.

[368:B] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 180, 181.

[370:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 293-295.

[370:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 465.

[370:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 305.

[371:A] This _golden stamp_ was the coin called an angel, from the

figure which it bore, and was worth ten shillings.

[371:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 242, 243. Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3.

[371:C] Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i.: and Scot,

speaking of the pretensions of the French monarchs to cure the evil,

observes of Elizabeth's practice, that "if the French king use it no

woorsse than our Princesse doth, God will not be offended thereat: for

hir majestie onelie useth godlie and divine praier, with some almes,

and referreth the cure to God and to the physician," p. 304., a report

which reflects great credit on her majesty's judgment and good sense.

[372:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiv. p. 285. Richard the Third, act i.

sc. 2.

[373:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 405.

[373:B] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 80.

[373:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 303.

[373:D] The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince James, fol. edit.

1616. p. 136. The Dæmonologie was first printed at Edinburgh in 1597,

and next in London, 1603, 4to.

[374:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 344. Merchant of Venice, act

iv. sc. 1.

[374:B] Ibid. vol. xx. p. 208. Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. 3.

[374:C] Ibid. vol. xiii. p. 297. Act iii. sc. 2.

[374:D] Bulwarke of Defence against Sickness, fol. 1579, p. 41.

[375:A] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 291.

[375:B] Vide Bacon's Natural History, Century x. No. 997, 998.

[376:A] Digby's Discourse upon the Sympathetic Powder, p. 6.

[377:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 280.

[377:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 146.

[377:C] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 96.

[377:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 146. note 3.

[378:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 147.

[379:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 303-305.

[379:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 78.

[379:C] "Ad nimium calorem transeat ab aquis nivium." In the paraphrase

on Genesis, by Cedmon the Saxon poet, the same imagery may be found.

Of this venerable poet and monk, who flourished in the seventh century,

Mr. Turner has given us a very interesting account, together with a

version of some parts of his paraphrase. One of these is a picture of

the infernal regions, in which he says,—

"There comes at last

the eastern wind,

the _cold frost_

mingling with the fires."

Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, 2d edit.

4to. 1807, vol. ii. p. 309. et seq.

[379:D] Infer. c. iii. 86. Purgat. c. iii. 31.

[379:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 305, note 9.

[379:F] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 330.

[380:A] Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 534. 598.

[380:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 424.

[381:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 149.—"The mesere of helle

shalbe in defaute of mete and drink. For God sayth thus by Moyses: They

shal be wasted with honger, &c."

[381:B] Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil, 1595.

[381:C] Folio, 1635. p. 345.

[381:D] Paradise Lost, book ii. l. 587, et seq.

[382:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 374.

[382:B] Εκ πασῶν δε, &c. De Republ. lib. x. p. 520, Lugd. 1590. Vide

Todd's Milton, vol. vii. p. 53.

[382:C] "Such, notwithstanding, is the force there of (musical

harmony), and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man

which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think,

that the soul itself by nature is or hath in it harmony."—Fifth Book

of Ecclesiastical Polity, published singly in 1597.

[382:D] Todd's Milton, vol. vii. p. 53.

[383:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 296. col. 1.

[383:B] Dante's Inferno, cant. xx.

[383:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 89, 90.

[383:D] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 222. Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 9.

[383:E] Ibid. vol. xix. p. 409. Othello, act v. sc. 2.

[384:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 361. Midsummer-Night's Dream,

act ii. sc. 2.

[384:B] Ibid. vol. x. p. 194. Macbeth, act iii. sc. 5.

[384:C] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 195. 342. Lear, act i. sc. 2.; vol. xix. p.

499. Othello, act v. sc. 2.

[384:D] Ibid. vol. xi. p. 83. Richard the Second, act ii. sc. 4.

[384:E] Ibid. vol. x. p. 480. K. John, act iv. sc. 2.

[385:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 271.

[385:B] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 114.

[385:C] Doome, p. 389.

[385:D] The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of

Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden Citie of Manoa, which

the Spaniards call El Dorado. Performed in 1595, by Sir W. Ralegh.

Imprinted at London by Rob. Robinson, 1596.

[386:A] The Historie of the World. Commonly called, The Natural

Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. Translated into English by Philemon

Holland, Doctor in Physicke. London, printed by Adam Islip. 1601. vol.

i. p. 154. book vii. chap. 2.

[386:B] Holland's Pliny, vol. i. p. 96. book v. chap. 8.

[386:C] Ibid. p. 156.

[386:D] The title of this work is, _Brevis et admiranda Descriptio

Regni Gvianæ, auri abundantissimi, in America_. It is accompanied by a

map, engraved by _Hondius_, on which are drawn men hunting, with their

heads beneath their shoulders.

[387:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 83. Act i. sc. 2.

[387:B] Frobisher's _First Voyage for the Discoverie of Cataya_. 4to.

1578.

[387:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 83, note 9.

[387:D] Chalmers's Apology, p. 586.

[388:A] Prayse and Reporte of Maister Martyne Forboisher's Voyage to

Meta Incognita, &c. bl. l. 12mo. 1578. Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv.

p. 83. note 7.

[388:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 83. note 7.—The existence of

_mermaids_ has, within these few years, been asserted by numerous

testimonies; some of which are so clear, minute, and respectable,

as to stagger the most sceptical. It is not only possible, but from

the evidence alluded to it appears indeed somewhat probable, that a

creature partially resembling the human form exists in the ocean, and

occasionally, though rarely, approaches so near the shore as to become

an object of wonder and superstitious horror. The sea round the Isle

of Man was formerly reputed to abound in these monsters, which were

conceived to be of two kinds, the one malignant, the other benevolent

and kind.

[388:C] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 377, 378.

[389:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 379.

[389:B] Batman upon Bartholome, p. 359.

[389:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 449. note 5.

[389:D] Ibid. vol. xiii. p. 268. Act iii. sc. 1.

[389:E] Ibid. vol. xix. p. 449.

[390:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiii. p. 306. Act iii. sc. 3.

[390:B] Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 20.

[390:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 135. Timon of Athens, act iv.

sc. 3.

[391:A] Stowe's Survey of London, p. 18. edit. of 1618.

[392:A] Bourne's Antiquities apud Brand, p. 90.

[392:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 356.—A fountain of this

hallowed and mysterious nature, has been described by Mr. Southey in

language most graphically and beautifully descriptive:—

"There is a fountain in the forest call'd

The fountain of the Fairies; when a child,

With most delightful wonder I have heard

Tales of the Elfin tribe that on its banks

Hold midnight revelry. An ancient oak,

The goodliest of the forest, grows beside,

Alone it stands, upon a green grass plat,

By the woods bounded like some little isle.

It ever hath been deem'd their favourite tree,

They love to lie and rock upon its leaves,

And bask them in the moon-shine. Many a time

Hath the woodman shown his boy where the dark round

On the green-sward beneath its boughs, bewrays

Their nightly dance, and bade him spare the tree.

Fancy had cast a spell upon the place

And made it holy; and the villagers

Would say that never evil thing approached

Unpunished there. The strange and fearful pleasure

That fill'd me by that solitary spring,

Ceas'd not in riper years; and now it woke

Deeper delight, and more mysterious awe."

Joan of Arc, vol. i. b. i. p. 126.

[393:A] Bourne's Antiquities apud Brand, p. 94, 95.

[393:B] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 6.

[394:A] Fast. lib. vi.

[394:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 383, 384. Comedy of Errors, act

ii. sc. 2.

[394:C] Hamlet, act 4. sc. 5.

[394:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 280. note 3.

[395:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 577. note 5.

[395:B] Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 171. 4to. edit.

[395:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 576.

[395:D] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 408.

[396:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. iii. p. 41.

[396:B] Villanies discovered by lanthorn and candle light, chap.

xv.—For some modern tributes to the supposed charity of this domestic

little bird, I refer my readers to the first volume of Literary Hours,

3d. edit. p. 65. et seq.

[396:C] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 179.

[396:D] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 177.

[396:E] Description of King Priam's Palace, lib. ii.

[396:F] Vide Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 229.

[397:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 84. Act ii. sc. 3.

[397:B] Ibid. vol. xxi. p. 56.

[397:C] Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 39. Act i. sc. 4.

[397:D] Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 632. Act v. sc. 5.

[397:E] Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 151. Act ii. sc. 2.

[397:F] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 465.

[398:A] Thalaba the Destroyer, vol. i. p. 39-41. edit. 1801.

[399:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 306.

[400:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 51.

[400:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 142, 143. Act iv. sc. 1.

Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age · 第 12 / 20 章

To the _Bezoar_ stone also was attributed great potency in expelling