Table of Contents

FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER I.

FAIRIES.

The wealth of Shakespeare’s luxuriant imagination and glowing language seems to have been poured forth in the graphic accounts which he has given us of the fairy tribe. Indeed, the profusion of poetic imagery with which he has so richly clad his fairy characters is unrivalled, and the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” holds a unique position in so far as it contains the finest modern artistic realization of the fairy kingdom. Mr. Dowden, in his “Shakspere Primer” (1877, pp. 71, 72) justly remarks: “As the two extremes of exquisite delicacy, of dainty elegance, and, on the other hand, of thick-witted grossness and clumsiness, stand the fairy tribe and the group of Athenian handicraftsmen. The world of the poet’s dream includes the two—a Titania, and a Bottom the weaver—and can bring them into grotesque conjunction. No such fairy poetry existed anywhere in English literature before Shakspere. The tiny elves, to whom a cowslip is tall, for whom the third part of a minute is an important division of time, have a miniature perfection which is charming. They delight in all beautiful and dainty things, and war with things that creep and things that fly, if they be uncomely; their lives are gay with fine frolic and delicate revelry.” Puck, the jester of fairyland, stands apart from the rest, the recognizable “lob of spirits,” a rough, “fawn-faced, shock-pated little fellow, dainty-limbed shapes around him.” Judging, then, from the elaborate account which the poet has bequeathed us of the fairies, it is evident that the subject was one in which he took a special interest. Indeed, the graphic pictures he has handed down to us of

show how intimately he was acquainted with the history of these little people, and what a complete knowledge he possessed of the superstitious fancies which had clustered round them. In Shakespeare’s day, too, it must be remembered, fairies were much in fashion; and, as Johnson remarks, common tradition had made them familiar. It has also been observed that, well acquainted, from the rural habits of his early life, with the notions of the peasantry respecting these beings, he saw that they were capable of being applied to a production of a species of the wonderful. Hence, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[1] has so aptly written, “he founded his elfin world on the prettiest of the people’s traditions, and has clothed it in the ever-living flowers of his own exuberant fancy.” Referring to the fairy mythology in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” it is described by Mr. Keightley[2] as an attempt to blend “the elves of the village with the fays of romance.” His fairies agree with the former in their diminutive stature—diminished, indeed, to dimensions inappreciable by village gossips—in their fondness for dancing, their love of cleanliness, and their child-abstracting propensities. Like the fays, they form a community, ruled over by the princely Oberon and the fair Titania. There is a court and chivalry; Oberon would have the queen’s sweet changeling to be a “knight of his train, to trace the forests wild.” Like earthly monarchs, he has his jester, “that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow.”

Of the fairy characters treated by Shakespeare may be mentioned Oberon, king of fairyland, and Titania, his queen. They are represented as keeping rival courts in consequence of a quarrel, the cause of which is thus told by Puck (“Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” ii. 1):

Oberon first appears in the old French romance of “Huon de Bourdeaux,” and is identical with Elberich, the dwarf king of the German story of Otuit in the “Heldenbuch.” The name Elberich, or, as it appears in the “Nibelungenlied,” Albrich, was changed, in passing into French, first into Auberich, then into Auberon, and finally became our Oberon. He is introduced by Spenser in the “Fairy Queen” (book ii. cant. i. st. 6), where he describes Sir Guyon:

And in the tenth canto of the same book (stanza 75) he is the allegorical representative of Henry VIII. The wise Elficleos left two sons,

“Oboram, King of Fayeries,” is one of the characters in Greene’s “James the Fourth.”[3]

The name Titania for the queen of the fairies appears to have been the invention of Shakespeare, for, as Mr. Ritson[4] remarks, she is not “so called by any other writer.” Why, however, the poet designated her by this title, presents, according to Mr. Keightley,[5] no difficulty. “It was,” he says, “the belief of those days that the fairies were the same as the classic nymphs, the attendants of Diana. The fairy queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania.” In Chaucer’s “Merchant’s Tale” Pluto is the king of faerie, and his queen, Proserpina, “who danced and sang about the well under the laurel in January’s garden.”[6]

In “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4) she is known by the more familiar appellation, Queen Mab. “I dream’d a dream to-night,” says Romeo, whereupon Mercutio replies, in that well-known famous passage—

this being the earliest instance in which Mab is used to designate the fairy queen. Mr. Thoms[7] thinks that the origin of this name is to be found in the Celtic, and that it contains a distinct allusion to the diminutive form of the elfin sovereign. Mab, both in Welsh and in the kindred dialects of Brittany, signifies a child or infant, and hence it is a befitting epithet to one who

Mr. Keightley suggests that Mab may be a contraction of Habundia, who, Heywood says, ruled over the fairies; and another derivation is from Mabel, of which Mab is an abbreviation.

Among the references to Queen Mab we may mention Drayton’s “Nymphidia:”

Ben Jonson, in his “Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althrope,” in 1603, describes as “tripping up the lawn a bevy of fairies, attending on Mab, their queen, who, falling into an artificial ring that there was cut in the path, began to dance around.” In the same masque the queen is thus characterized by a satyr.

Like Puck, Shakespeare has invested Queen Mab with mischievous properties, which “identify her with the night hag of popular superstition,” and she is represented as

The merry Puck, who is so prominent an actor in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” is the mischief-loving sprite, the jester of the fairy court, whose characteristics are roguery and sportiveness. In his description of him, Shakespeare, as Mr. Thoms points out, “has embodied almost every attribute with which the imagination of the people has invested the fairy race; and has neither omitted one trait necessary to give brilliancy and distinctness to the likeness, nor sought to heighten its effect by the slightest exaggeration. For, carefully and elaborately as he has finished the picture, he has not in it invested the ‘lob of spirits’ with one gift or quality which the popular voice of the age was not unanimous in bestowing upon him.” Thus (ii. 1) the fairy says:

The name “Puck” was formerly applied to the whole race of fairies, and not to any individual sprite—puck, or pouke, being an old word for devil, in which sense it is used in the “Vision of Piers Plowman:”

The Icelandic puki is the same word, and in Friesland and Jutland the domestic spirit is called Puk by the peasantry. In Devonshire, Piskey is the name for a fairy, with which we may compare the Cornish Pixey. In Worcestershire, too, we read how the peasantry are occasionally “poake-ledden,” that is, misled by a mischievous spirit called poake. And, according to Grose’s “Provincial Glossary,” in Hampshire they give the name of Colt-pixey to a supposed spirit or fairy, which, in the shape of a horse, neighs, and misleads horses into bogs. The Irish, again, have their Pooka,[8] and the Welsh their Pwcca—both words derived from Pouke or Puck. Mr. Keightley[9] thinks, also, that the Scottish pawkey, sly, knowing, may belong to the same list of words. It is evident, then, that the term Puck was in bygone years extensively applied to the fairy race, an appellation still found in the west of England. Referring to its use in Wales, “there is a Welsh tradition to the effect that Shakespeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the Priory of Brecon.” It is even claimed that Cwm Pwcca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the original scene of the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream.”[10]

Another of Puck’s names was Robin Goodfellow, and one of the most valuable illustrations we have of the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” is a black-letter tract published in London, 1628, under the title of “Robin Goodfellow: His Mad Pranks, and Merry Jests, full of honest mirth, and is a fit medicine for melancholy.”[11] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,[12] speaking of Robin Goodfellow, says, “there can be no doubt that in the time of Shakespeare the fairies held a more prominent position in our popular literature than can be now concluded from the pieces on the subject that have descended to us.” The author of “Tarlton’s News out of Purgatory,” printed in 1590, assures us that Robin Goodfellow was “famosed in every old wives chronicle for his mad merry pranks;” and we learn from “Henslowe’s Diary” that Chettle was the writer of a drama on the adventures of that “merry wanderer of the night.” These have disappeared; and time has dealt so harshly with the memory of poor Robin that we might almost imagine his spirit was still leading us astray over massive volumes of antiquity, in a delusive search after documents forever lost; or, rather, perhaps, it is his punishment for the useless journeys he has given our ancestors, misleading night-wanderers, “and laughing at their harm.”[13] He is mentioned by Drayton in his “Nymphidia:”

“hob being the familiar or diminutive form of Robert and Robin, so that Hobgoblin is equivalent to Robin the Goblin. i.e., Robin Goodfellow.”[14] Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” alludes to him thus: “A bigger kinde there is of them, called with us hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows, that would, in superstitious times, grinde corne for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work.” Under his name of Robin Goodfellow, Puck is well characterized in Jonson’s masque of “Love Restored.”[15]

Another epithet applied to Puck is “Lob,” as in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where he is addressed by the fairy as

With this we may compare the “lubber-fiend” of Milton, and the following in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle” (iii. 4): “There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil’s mark about her, that had a giant to be her son, that was called Lob-lye-by-the-Fire.” Grimm[17] mentions a spirit, named the “Good Lubber,” to whom the bones of animals used to be offered at Manseld, in Germany. Once more, the phrase of “being in,” or “getting into Lob’s pound,” is easy of explanation, presuming Lob to be a fairy epithet—the term being equivalent to Poake-ledden or Pixy-led.[18] In “Hudibras” this term is employed as a name for the stocks in which the knight puts Crowdero:

It occurs, also, in Massinger’s “Duke of Milan” (iii. 2), where it means “behind the arras:”

The allusion by Shakespeare to the “Will-o’-the-Wisp,” where he speaks of Puck as “sometime a fire,” is noticed elsewhere, this being one of the forms under which this fairy was supposed to play his midnight pranks.

Referring, in the next place, to the several names of Shakespeare’s fairies, we may quote from “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 3), where Mrs. Page speaks of “urchins, ouphes, and fairies”—urchin having been an appellation for one class of fairies. In the “Maydes’ Metamorphosis” of Lyly (1600), we find fairies, elves, and urchins separately accommodated with dances for their use. The following is the urchin’s dance:

In “The Tempest” (i. 2) their actions are also limited to the night:

The children employed to torment Falstaff, in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 4), were to be dressed in these fairy shapes.

Mr. Douce regards the word urchin, when used to designate a fairy, as of Celtic origin, with which view Mr. Thoms[19] compares the urisks of Highland fairies.

The term ouphe, according to Grimm, is only another form of the cognate elf, which corresponds with the Middle High-German ulf, in the plural ulve. He further proves the identity of this ulf with alp, and with our English elf, from a Swedish song published by Asdwiddson, in his “Collection of Swedish Ballads,” in one version of which the elfin king is called Herr Elfver, and in the second Herr Ulfver.

The name elf, which is frequently used by Shakespeare, is the same as the Anglo-Saxon alf, the Old High-German and the Middle High-German ulf. “Fairies and elvs,” says Tollet, “are frequently mentioned together in the poets without any distinction of character that I can recollect.”

The other fairies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed probably owe their appellations to the poet himself.

How fully Shakespeare has described the characteristics of the fairy tribe, besides giving a detailed account of their habits and doings, may be gathered from the following pages, in which we have briefly enumerated the various items of fairy lore as scattered through the poet’s writings.

Beauty, then, united with power, was one of the popular characteristics of the fairy tribe. Such was that of the “Fairy Queen” of Spenser, and of Titania in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream.” In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 8), Antony, on seeing Cleopatra enter, says to Scarus:

In “Cymbeline” (iii. 6), when the two brothers find Imogen in their cave, Belarius exclaims:

And he then adds:

The fairies, as represented in many of our old legends and folk-tales, are generally noticeable for their beauty, the same being the case with all their surroundings. As Sir Walter Scott,[21] too, says, “Their pageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination could conceive of what were accounted gallant and splendid. At their processions they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere earthly parentage. The hawks and hounds which they employed in their chase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board was set forth with a splendor which the proudest kings of the earth dared not aspire to, and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite music.”

Mr. Douce[22] quotes from the romance of “Lancelot of the Lake,” where the author, speaking of the days of King Arthur, says, “En celui temps estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentre-mettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues et jeunesse et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient.”

“This perpetual youth and beauty,” he adds, “cannot well be separated from a state of immortality;” another characteristic ascribed to the fairy race. It is probably alluded to by Titania in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1):

And further on (ii. 1), when speaking of the changeling’s mother, she says:

Again, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver (iii. 1)—

—an indication that she was not so herself. The very fact, indeed, that fairies “call themselves spirits, ghosts, or shadows, seems to be a proof of their immortality.” Thus Puck styles Oberon “king of shadows,” and this monarch asserts of himself and his subjects—

Fletcher, in the “Faithful Shepherdess,” describes (i. 2)—

Ariosto, in his “Orlando Furioso” (book xliii. stanza 98) says:

An important feature of the fairy race was their power of vanishing at will, and of assuming various forms. In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” Oberon says:

Puck relates how he was in the habit of taking all kinds of outlandish forms; and in the “Tempest,” Shakespeare has bequeathed to us a graphic account of Ariel’s eccentricities. “Besides,” says Mr. Spalding,[23] “appearing in his natural shape, and dividing into flames, and behaving in such a manner as to cause young Ferdinand to leap into the sea, crying, ‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!’ he assumes the forms of a water nymph (i. 2), a harpy (iii. 3), and also the Goddess Ceres (iv. 1), while the strange shapes, masquers, and even the hounds that hunt and worry the would-be king and viceroys of the island, are Ariel’s ‘meaner fellows.’” Poor Caliban complains of Prospero’s spirits (ii. 2):

That fairies are sometimes exceedingly diminutive is fully shown by Shakespeare, who gives several instances of this peculiarity. Thus Queen Mab, in “Romeo and Juliet,” to which passage we have already had occasion to allude (i. 4), is said to come

And Puck tells us, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), that when Oberon and Titania meet,

Further on (ii. 3) the duties imposed by Titania upon her train point to their tiny character:

And when enamoured of Bottom, she directs her elves that they should—

We may compare, too, Ariel’s well-known song in “The Tempest” (v. 1):

Again, from the following passage in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 4) where Mrs. Page, after conferring with her husband, suggests that—

it is evident that in Shakespeare’s day fairies were supposed to be of the size of children. The notion of their diminutiveness, too, it appears was not confined to this country,[25] but existed in Denmark,[26] for in the ballad of “Eline of Villenskov” we read:

Again, various stories are current in Germany descriptive of the fairy dwarfs; one of the most noted being that relating to Elberich, who aided the Emperor Otnit to gain the daughter of the Paynim Soldan of Syria.[27]

The haunt of the fairies on earth are generally supposed to be the most romantic and rural that can be selected; such a spot being the place of Titania’s repose described by Oberon in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1):[28]

Titania also tells how the fairy race meet

In “The Tempest” (v. 1), we have the following beautiful invocation by Prospero:

Their haunts, however, varied in different localities, but their favorite abode was in the interior of conical green hills, on the slopes of which they danced by moonlight. Milton, in the “Paradise Lost” (book i.), speaks of

The Irish fairies occasionally inhabited the ancient burial-places known as tumuli or barrows, while some of the Scottish fairies took up their abode under the “door-stane” or threshold of some particular house, to the inmates of which they administered good offices.[29]

The so-called fairy-rings in old pastures[30]—little circles of a brighter green, within which it was supposed the fairies dance by night—are now known to result from the out-spreading propagation of a particular mushroom, the fairy-ringed fungus, by which the ground is manured for a richer following vegetation. An immense deal of legendary lore, however, has clustered round this curious phenomenon, popular superstition attributing it to the merry roundelays of the moonlight fairies.[31] In “The Tempest” (v. 1) Prospero invokes the fairies as the “demy-puppets” that

In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), the fairy says:

Again, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Anne Page says:

And once in “Macbeth” (v. 1), Hecate says:

Drayton, in his “Nymphidia” (l. 69-72), mentions this superstition:

Cowley, too, in his “Complaint,” says:

And again, in his ode upon Dr. Harvey:

Pluquet, in his “Contes Populaires de Bayeux,” tells us that the fairy rings, called by the peasants of Normandy “Cercles des fées,” are said to be the work of fairies.

Among the numerous superstitions which have clustered round the fairy rings, we are told that when damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings, apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it considered safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies’ power.[32] The “Athenian Oracle” (i. 397) mentions a popular belief that “if a house be built upon the ground where fairy rings are, whoever shall inhabit therein does wonderfully prosper.”

Speaking of their dress, we are told that they constantly wore green vests, unless they had some reason for changing their attire. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 4) they are spoken of as—

And further on (v. 4):

The fairies of the moors were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed garments, whence the epithet of “Elfin-grey.”[33]

The legends of most countries are unanimous in ascribing to the fairies an inordinate love of music; such harmonious sounds as those which Caliban depicts in “The Tempest” (iii. 2) being generally ascribed to them:

In the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 3), when Titania is desirous of taking a nap, she says to her attendants:

And further on (iii. 1) she tells Bottom:

The author of “Round About our Coal Fire”[34] tells us that “they had fine musick always among themselves, and danced in a moonshiny night, around, or in, a ring.”

They were equally fond of dancing, and we are told how they meet—

and in the “Maydes’ Metamorphosis” of Lyly, the fairies, as they dance, sing:

As Mr. Thoms says, in his “Three Notelets on Shakespeare” (1865, pp. 40, 41), “the writings of Shakespeare abound in graphic notices of these fairy revels, couched in the highest strains of poetry; and a comparison of these with some of the popular legends which the industry of Continental antiquaries has preserved will show us clearly that these delightful sketches of elfin enjoyment have been drawn by a hand as faithful as it is masterly.”

It would seem that the fairies disliked irreligious people: and so, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), the mock fairies are said to chastise unchaste persons, and those who do not say their prayers. This coincides with what Lilly, in his “Life and Times,” says: “Fairies love a strict diet and upright life; fervent prayers unto God conduce much to the assistance of those who are curious hereways,” i.e., who wish to cultivate an acquaintance with them.

Again, fairies are generally represented as great lovers and patrons of cleanliness and propriety, for the observance of which they were frequently said to reward good servants, by dropping money into their shoes in the night; and, on the other hand, they were reported to punish most severely the sluts and slovenly, by pinching them black and blue.[35] Thus, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Puck says:

In “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Pistol, speaking of the mock fairy queen, says:

and the fairies who haunt the towers of Windsor are enjoined:

In Ben Jonson’s ballad of “Robin Goodfellow”[36] we have a further illustration of this notion:

In “Round About our Coal Fire,” we find the following passage bearing on the subject: “When the master and mistress were laid on the pillows, the men and maids, if they had a game at romps, and blundered up stairs, or jumbled a chair, the next morning every one would swear ’twas the fairies, and that they heard them stamping up and down stairs all night, crying, ‘Waters lock’d, waters lock’d!’ when there was no water in every pail in the kitchen.” Herrick, too, in his “Hesperides,” speaks of this superstition:

While the belief in the power of fairies existed, they were supposed to perform much good service to mankind. Thus, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Oberon says:

the object of their blessing being to bring peace upon the house of Theseus. Mr. Douce[37] remarks that the great influence which the belief in fairies had on the popular mind “gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel these imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the fairies’ benedictions entirely into their own hands;” a proof of which we have in Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath:”

Macbeth, too (v. 8), in his encounter with Macduff, says:

In the days of chivalry, the champion’s arms were ceremoniously blessed, each taking an oath that he used no charmed weapon. In Spenser’s “Fairy Queen” (book i. canto 4) we read:

Fairies were amazingly expeditious in their journeys. Thus, Puck goes “swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow,” and in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” he answers Oberon, who was about to send him on a secret expedition:

Again, the same fairy addresses him:

Once more, Puck says:

It was fatal, if we may believe Falstaff in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5) to speak to a fairy: “They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.”

Fairies are accustomed to enrich their favorites; and in “A Winter’s Tale” (iii. 3) the shepherd says: “It was told me I should be rich by the fairies;”[38] and in “Cymbeline” (v. 4), Posthumus, on waking and finding the mysterious paper, exclaims:

At the same time, however, it was unlucky to reveal their acts of generosity, as the shepherd further tells us: “This is fairy gold, boy; and ’twill prove so; up with’t, keep it close, home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy.”

The necessity of secrecy in fairy transactions of this kind is illustrated in Massinger and Field’s play of “The Fatal Dowry,” 1632 (iv. 1),[39] where Romont says:

Among the many other good qualities belonging to the fairy tribe, we are told that they were humanely attentive to the youthful dead.[40] Thus Guiderius, in “Cymbeline,” thinking that Imogen is dead (iv. 2), says:

there having been a popular notion that where fairies resorted no noxious creature could be found.

In the pathetic dirge of Collins a similar allusion is made:

It seems, however, that they were also supposed to be malignant; but this, “it may be,” says Mr. Ritson, “was merely calumny, as being utterly inconsistent with their general character, which was singularly innocent and amiable.” Thus, when Imogen, in “Cymbeline” (ii. 2), prays on going to sleep,

it must have been, says Mr. Ritson,[43] the incubus she was so afraid of.

Hamlet, too, notices this imputed malignity of the fairies (i. 1):

That the fairies, however, were fond of indulging in mischievous sport at the expense of mortals is beyond all doubt, the merry pranks of Puck or Robin Goodfellow fully illustrating this item of our fairy-lore. Thus, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1) this playful fairy says:

A fairy, in another passage, asks Robin:

We have already mentioned how Queen Mab had the same mischievous humor in her composition, which is described by Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4):

Another reprehensible practice attributed to the fairies was that of carrying off and exchanging children, such being designated changelings.[45] The special agent in transactions of the sort was also Queen Mab, and hence Mercutio says:

And “she is so called,” says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, “because it was her supposed custom to steal new-born babes in the night and leave others in their place.” Mr. Steevens gives a different interpretation to this line, and says, “It does not mean that she was the midwife to the fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men in their dreams, those children of an idle brain.”

CHAPTER II.

WITCHES.

In years gone by witchcraft was one of the grossest forms of superstition, and it would be difficult to estimate the extent of its influence in this and other countries. It is not surprising that Shakespeare should have made frequent allusions to this popular belief, considering how extensively it prevailed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the religious and dramatic literature of the period being full of it. Indeed, as Mr. Williams[46] points out, “what the vulgar superstition must have been may be easily conceived, when men of the greatest genius or learning credited the possibility, and not only a theoretical but possible occurrence, of these infernal phenomena.” Thus, Francis Bacon was “not able to get rid of the principles upon which the creed was based. Sir Edward Coke, his contemporary, the most acute lawyer of the age, ventured even to define the devil’s agents in witchcraft. Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Matthew Hale, in 1664, proved their faith—the one by his solemn testimony in open court, the other by his still more solemn sentence.” Hence, it was only to be expected that Shakespeare should introduce into his writings descriptions of a creed which held such a prominent place in the history of his day, and which has made itself famous for all time by the thousands of victims it caused to be sent to the torture-chamber, to the stake, and to the scaffold. Thus he has given a graphic account of the celebrated Jeanne D’Arc, the Maid of Orleans, in “1 Henry VI.,” although Mr. Dowden[47] is of opinion that this play was written by one or more authors, Greene having had, perhaps, a chief hand in it, assisted by Peele and Marlowe. He says, “It is a happiness not to have to ascribe to our greatest poet the crude and hateful handling of the character of Joan of Arc, excused though to some extent it may be by the occurrence of view in our old English chronicles.”

Mr. Lecky,[48] too, regards the conception of Joan of Arc given in “1 Henry VI.” as “the darkest blot upon the poet’s genius,” but it must be remembered that we have only expressed the current belief of his day—the English vulgar having regarded her as a sorceress, the French as an inspired heroine. Talbot is represented as accusing her of being a witch, serving the Evil One, and entering Rouen by means of her sorceries (iii. 2):

Further on (v. 3) she is made to summon fiends before her, but she wishes them in vain, for they speak not, hanging their heads in sign of approaching disaster.

But she adds:

Finally, convicted of practising sorcery, and filling “the world with vicious qualities,” she was condemned to be burned. Her death, however, Sir Walter Scott[49] says, “was not, we are sorry to say, a sacrifice to superstitious fear of witchcraft, but a cruel instance of wicked policy, mingled with national jealousy and hatred. The Duke of Bedford, when the ill-starred Jeanne fell into his hands, took away her life in order to stigmatize her memory with sorcery, and to destroy the reputation she had acquired among the French.”

The cases of the Duchess of Gloucester and of Jane Shore, also immortalized by Shakespeare, are both referred to in the succeeding pages.