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.