Elizabethan Demonology / An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils, and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding; with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works

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An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils, and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding; with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works
Barrister-at-Law, Honorary Treasurer of The New Shakspere Society
London
1880
This Essay is an expansion, in accordance with a preconceived scheme, of two papers, one on The Witches in Macbeth, and the other on The Demonology of Shakspere, which were read before the New Shakspere Society in the years 1877 and 1878. The Shakspere references in the text are made to the Globe Edition.
The writer's best thanks are due to his friends Mr. F.J. Furnivall and Mr. Lauriston E. Shaw, for their kindness in reading the proof sheets, and suggesting emendations.
TEMPLE, October 7, 1879.
We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft. —C. LAMB.
But I will say, of Shakspere's works generally, that we have no full impress of him there, even as full as we have of many men. His works are so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him. —T. CARLYLE.
1. Difficulty in understanding our elder writers without a knowledge of their language and ideas. 2. Especially in the case of dramatic poets. 3. Examples. Hamlet's assume a virtue. 4. Changes in ideas and law relating to marriage. Massinger's Maid of Honour as an example. 5. Sponsalia de futuro and Sponsalia de praesenti . Shakspere's marriage. 6. Student's duty is to get to know the opinions and feelings of the folk amongst whom his author lived. 7. It will be hard work, but a gain in the end. First, in preventing conceit. 8. Secondly, in preventing rambling reading. 9. Author's present object to illustrate the dead belief in Demonology, especially as far as it concerns Shakspere. He thinks that this may perhaps bring us into closer contact with Shakspere's soul. 10. Some one objects that Shakspere can speak better for himself. Yes, but we must be sure that we understand the media through which he speaks. 11. Division of subject.