But, the chief superstition annexed to this branch of omens, was founded on the idea, that lights and fires, commonly called corpse-candles and tomb-fires, preceded deaths and funerals; an article of belief which was equally prevalent among the Celtic and Teutonic nations; and was cherished therefore with the same credulity in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as in Scandinavia, Germany, and England. In this island, during the sixteenth century, it was generally credited by the common people, that when a person was about to die, a pale flame would frequently appear at the window of the room in which he was laid, and, after pausing there for a moment, would glide towards the church-yard, minutely tracing the path where the future funeral was to pass, and glowing brightly, for a time, on the spot where the body was to be interred. Sometimes, however, instead of lights, a procession was seen by the dim light of the moon: "there have bin seene some in the night," says the English Lavaterus, "when the moone shin'd, going solemnlie with the corps, according to the custome of the people, or standing before the dores, as if some bodie were to be caried to the church to burying."[359:A] In Northumberland the fancied appearance of the corpse-light was termed seeing the Waff (the blast or spirit) of the person whose death was to take place.

In Wales this superstition was formerly so general, especially in the counties of Cardigan, Caermarthen, and Pembroke, that scarcely any individual was supposed to die without the previous signal of a corpse-candle. Mr. Davis, a Welshman, in a letter to Mr. Baxter, observes, that "they are called candles, from their resemblance, not of the body of the candle, but the fire; because that fire doth as much resemble material candle-lights, as eggs do eggs: saving that in their journey, these candles are sometimes visible, and sometimes disappear; especially if any one comes near to them, or in the way to meet them. On these occasions they vanish, but presently appear again behind the observer, and hold on their course. If a little candle is seen, of a pale or bluish colour, then follows the corpse, either of an abortive, or some infant; if a large one, then the corpse of some one come to age. If there be seen two, three, or more, of different sizes,—some big, some small,—then shall so many corpses pass together, and of such ages or degrees. If two candles come from different places, and be seen to meet, the corpses will do the same; and if any of these candles be seen to turn aside, through some bye-path leading to the church, the following corpse will be found to take exactly the same way."[359:B]

Among the Highlanders of Scotland, likewise, the same species of omen was so implicitly credited, that it has continued in force even to the present day. Of this Mrs. Grant has given us, in one of her ingenious essays, a most remarkable instance, and on the authority, too, of a very pious and sensible clergyman, who was accustomed, she says, "to go forth and meditate at even; and this solitary walk he always directed to his churchyard, which was situated in a shaded spot, on the banks of a river. There, in a dusky October evening, he took his wonted path, and lingered, leaning on the churchyard-wall, till it became twilight, when he saw two small lights rise from a spot within, where there was no stone, nor memorial of any kind. He observed the course these lights took, and saw them cross the river, and stop at an opposite hamlet. Presently they returned, accompanied by a larger light, which moved on between them, till they arrived at the place from which the first two set out, when all the three seemed to sink into the earth together.

"The good man went into the churchyard, and threw a few stones on the spot where the lights disappeared. Next morning he walked out early, called for the sexton, and shewed him the place, asking if he remembered who was buried there. The man said, that many years ago, he remembered burying in that spot, two young children, belonging to a blacksmith on the opposite side of the river, who was now a very old man. The pastor returned, and was scarce sat down to breakfast, when a message came to hurry him to come over to pray with the smith, who had been suddenly taken ill, and who died next day."[360:A]

Fiery and meteorous exhalations, shooting through the lower regions of the air, and sinking into the ground, were also deemed predictive of death. The individual was pointed out by these fires either falling on his lands or garden, or by gleaming with a lurid light over the family burying-place. Appearances of this kind were called tomb-fires by the Scandinavians, and tan-we by the Welsh, who believed that no freeholder died without a meteor having been seen to sparkle and vanish on his estate. In fact, as Shakspeare has expressed it, there could happen

but were considered as

The idea that sudden and fearful noises are frequently heard before death takes place, and are indications of such an event, was very common at the period of which we are writing, both on the continent and in this country. "It happeneth many times," says the English Lavaterus, "that when men lye sicke of some deadly disease, there is something heard going in the chamber, like as the sicke men were wonte, when they were in good health: yea and the sicke parties themselves, do many times heare the same, and by and by gesse what wil come to passe. And divers times it commeth to passe, that when some of our acquaintaunce or friends lye a dying, albeit they are many miles off, yet there are some great stirrings or noises heard. Sometimes we think that the house will fall on our heads, or that some massie and waightie thing falleth downe throughout all the house, rendring and making a disordered noise: and shortlie within few monthes after, we understande that those things happened, the very same houre that our friends departed in. There be some men of whose stocke none doth dye, but that they observe and marke some signes and tokens going before: as that they heare the dores and windowes open and shut, that some thing runneth up the staires, or walketh up and downe the house, or doth some one or other such like thing.

"There was a certain parishe priest, a very honest and godly man, whom I knewe well, who in the plague time, could tell before hand, when any of his parishe should dye. For in the night time he heard a noise over his bed, like as if one had throwne downe a sacke full of corne from his shoulders: which when he heard he would say: Nowe an other biddeth me farewell. After it was day, he used to inquire who died that night, or who was taken with the plague, to the end he might comfort and strengthen them, according to the duty of a good pastour.

"In Abbeys, the Monks, servaunts or any other falling sicke, many have heard in the night, preparation of chests for them, in such sorte as the coffin makers did afterwards prepare in deede.

"In some country villages, when one is at death's dore, many times there are some heard in the evening, or in the night, digging a grave in the Churcheyarde, and the same the next day is so found digged, as these men did heare before."[362:A]

The next class of superstitions which we shall notice in this chapter, is that depending on CHARMS and SPELLS, a fertile source of knavery and credulity, and which has been chiefly exercised, in our poet's time and since, by old women. Of this occupation, and its attendant folly and imposition, the bard has given us a sketch, in his Merry Wives of Windsor, in the person of the Old Woman of Brentford, who is declared by Ford to be "a witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!—We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing."[362:B]

That women of this description, or as Scot has delineated them, in one instance, indeed, deviating from the portly form of Shakspeare's cunning Dame, "leane, hollow-eied, old, beetle browed women[362:C]," were, as dealers in charms, spells and amulets, a very numerous tribe, in the days of Elizabeth and James, we have every reason to believe, from contemporary evidence; but it appears that the trade of fortune-telling was then, as now, chiefly exercised by the wandering horde of gipsies, to whose name and characteristic knavery, our great poet alludes, in Antony and Cleopatra, where the Roman complains that Cleopatra,

Of this wily people, of the juggle referred to in these lines, and of their profession of fortune-telling, Scot thus speaks in his thirteenth book:—"The Aegyptians juggling witchcraft or sortilegie standeth much in fast or loose, whereof though I have written somewhat generallie already (p. 197), yet having such opportunitie I will here shew some of their particular feats; not treating of their common tricks which is so tedious, nor of their fortune-telling which is so impious; and yet both of them meere cousenages."[363:A] He then describes two games of fast and loose; one with a handkerchief, and the other with whip cords and beads; but as these much resemble the modern trick of pricking at the belt or girdle, explained by Sir J. Hawkins, in a note on the passage just quoted from our poet, it will not be necessary to notice them further in this place.

To palmistry, indeed, or the art of Divination by the lines of the hand, Shakspeare has allotted a great part of the second scene, in the first act, of Antony and Cleopatra, no doubt induced to this by the topographical situation of the opening characters, the play commencing at Alexandria in Egypt.

He has also occasionally adverted in other dramas to the multitude of charms, spells, and periapts which were in use in his time; and he makes La Pucelle, in accordance with the necromantic powers attributed to her, solemnly invoke their assistance—

but as, to adopt the expression of Scot, he who "should go about to recite all charmes, would take an infinite worke in hand[363:C]," we shall confine ourselves to an enumeration, from this scarce and curious writer, of the evils and the powers, against, and for, which, these charms, were sought; and shall then add a few specimens of their nature, force, and composition. It appears that they were eagerly enquired after in the first place against burning, drowning, pestilence, sword, and famine, against thieves, spirits, witches, and diseases, and of the last class, especially against the venom of serpents, scorpions and other reptiles, the epilepsy, the king's evil, and the bite of a mad dog; and in the second, to enable the wearer to release a woman in travail, to conjure a thorn out of any member, or a bone out of the throat, to open all locks and doors, to know what is said and done behind our backs, to endure the severest tortures without shrinking, &c. &c.

One of the most efficacious of these charms, was a periapt or tablet, called an Agnus Dei. This, which was ordered to be constantly worn round the neck, consisted of a little cake, having the impression of a lamb carrying a flag on one side, and Christ's head on the other; and in the centre a concavity sufficiently large to contain the first chapter of St. John's Gospel, written on fine paper, in a very small character. It was a spell potent to protect the wearer against thunder and lightning, fire and water, sin, pestilence, and the perils of childbirth.[364:A]

A charm against shot, or a waistcoat of proof, was thus to be obtained:—"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell: and it must be by hir woven, and also wrought with the needle. In the brest or forepart thereof must be made with needle worke two heads; on the head at the right side must be a hat, and a long beard; the left head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible, that it maie resemble Belzebub, and on each side of the wastcote must be made a crosse."[364:B]

That some of these spells, however, were not carried into execution with quite so much ease, as the two we have just transcribed, will be evident from the directions annexed to the following, entitled a charm for one possessed: "The possessed bodie must go upon his or hir knees to the church, how farre soever it be off from their lodging; and so must creepe without going out of the waie, being the common high waie, in that sort, how fowle and durtie soever the same be; or whatsoever lie in the waie, not shunning anie thing whatsoever, untill he come to the church, where he must heare masse devoutlie, and then followeth recoverie."[365:A]

It appears, notwithstanding, that, even among the old women of the sixteenth century, there could be found some who, while they profited by, could, at the same time, despise, the credulity of their neighbours. "An old woman," says Scot, "that healed all diseases of cattell (for the which she never tooke any reward but a penie and a loafe) being seriouslie examined by what words she brought these things to passe, confessed that after she had touched the sicke creature, she alwaies departed immediatlie; saieng:

The same author, after relating the terrible curse or charm of St. Adelbert against thieves, facetiously adds,—"But I will answer this cruell cursse with another cursse farre more mild and civill, performed by as honest a man (I dare saie) as he that made the other.—

"So it was, that a certeine sir John, with some of his companie, once went abroad a jetting, and in a moone light evening robbed a millers weire, and stole all his éeles. The poore miller made his mone to sir John himselfe, who willed him to be quiet; for he would so cursse the theefe, and all his confederates, with bell, booke and candell, that they should have small joy of their fish. And therefore the next sundaie, sir John got him to the pulpit, with his surplisse on his backe, and his stole about his necke, and pronounced these words following in the audience of the people.

So (saith he) there is sauce for your éeles my maisters."[366:A]

A third portion of the popular creed may be considered as including the various kinds of superstitious Cures, Preventatives, and Sympathies; a species of credulity which has suffered little diminution even in the present day; for, though the materials selected for the purpose be different, the folly and the fraud are the same. Instead of animal magnetism and metallic tractors, the public faith, in the days of Shakspeare, rested, with implicit confidence, on the virtues supposed to be inherent in bones, precious stones, sympathetic signs, powders, &c.; and the poet, accordingly, has occasionally introduced imagery founded on these imaginary qualities. Thus, in the Merchant of Venice, the high value which Shylock places on his turquoise ring, was derived from this source, the turquoise or Turkey-stone, being considered as inestimable for its properties of indicating the health of the wearer by the increase or decrease of its colour, and for its protective power in shielding him from enmity and peril. That this was the cause of Shylock's deep regret for the loss of his ring, will appear probable from the more direct intimations of his contemporaries, Jonson and Drayton; the former, in his Sejanus, remarking of two parasites, that they would,

and the latter declaring, that

A more distinct allusion to the sanative virtue of precious stones, is to be found in the celebrated simile in As You Like It:

This stone or jewel was supposed to secure the possessor from the effects of poison, and to be, likewise, a sovereign remedy for the stone.

These important effects are ascribed to it by numerous writers of Shakspeare's time,—by Gesner[367:B]; by Batman[367:C]; by Maplett[367:D]; by Fenton[367:E]; by Lupton[367:F]; by Topsell, and, subsequently, by Fuller.[367:G] It even formed, very early indeed, a part of medical treatment; for Lloyd, in his Treasure of helth, recommends its exhibition for the stone, and orders it, after having been stampt, to be "geven to the pacyent to drinke in warme wine."[367:H]

To the Bezoar stone also was attributed great potency in expelling 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—

"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:—

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:—

and Drayton seems to have been a firm believer in the same preternatural effect; for he informs us in his forty sixth Idea, that,

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—

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:—

exclaims Juliet; and Suffolk, in King Henry the Sixth, declares that every joint of his body should curse and ban his enemies,

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