Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 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

by Nathan Drake

The fairie Sibylia is then seventimes cited to appear:—"I conjure thee Sibylia, O gentle virgine of fairies, by all the angels of ♃ and their characters and vertues, and by all the spirits of ♃ and ♀ and their characters and vertues, and by all the characters that be in the firmament, and by the king and queene of fairies, and their vertues, and by the faith and obedience which thou bearest unto them,—I conjure thee O blessed and beautifull virgine, by all the riall words

aforesaid; I conjure thee Sibylia by all their vertues to appeare in that circle before me visible, in the forme and shape of a beautifull woman in a bright and white vesture, adorned and garnished most faire, and to appeare to me quicklie without deceipt or tarrieng, and that thou faile not to fulfill my will and desire effectuallie."

The spirit in the christall stone having produced Sibylia within the circle, she is bound to appear "at all times visiblie, as the conjuration of words leadeth, written in the booke," and the ceremony is wound up in the subsequent terms:—"I conjure thee Sibylia, O blessed virgine of fairies, by the king and queene of fairies, and by their vertues,—to give me good counsell at all times, and to come by treasures hidden in the earth, and all other things that is to doo me pleasure, and to fulfill my will, without any deceipt or tarrieng; nor yet that thou shalt have anie power of my bodie or soule, earthlie or ghostlie, nor yet to perish so much of my bodie as one haire of my head. I conjure thee Sibylia by all the riall words aforesaid, and by their vertues and powers, I charge and bind thee by the vertue thereof, to be obedient unto me, and to all the words aforesaid, and this bond to stand betweene thee and me, upon paine of everlasting condemnation, Fiat, fiat, fiat. Amen."[520:A]

The Sibylia of this incantation was, therefore, in origin, form, manners, and potency, very much assimilated to the Ariel of our author's Tempest, being gentle, beautiful, yet possessing great influence, and exerting high authority over numerous inferior essences and powers. Thus the spirits employed by Prospero were subservient to Ariel, and under his immediate direction, partly by his own rank in the hierarchy of elemental existences, and partly by the aid of Prospero.[520:B]

The orders of spirits constituting the miraculous machinery of The Tempest are in Hamlet ranged under four heads,

—— "In sea or fire, in earth or air,"—

a distribution which, though seeming naturally to spring from the usual nomenclature of the elements, was not the division generally adopted; for Scot, detailing the opinion of Psellus "De Operatione Demonum," classes the elementary spirits under six heads, by the addition of subterranean spirits, and spirits of darkness, "subterranei et lucifugi;" and the Talmudists and Platonists add to these, solar, lunar, and stellar spirits; but our poet was probably influenced in his enumeration, by the perusal of Batman uppon Bartholome, who tells us, in a manner calculated to make an impression on the mind, that "spirites are divided one from another, that some are called firie, some earthly, some airie, some watrie. Heereupon those foure rivers in Hell, are sayd to be of divers natures, to wit, Phlegethon firie, Cocytus airie, Styx watrye, Acheron earthly."[521:A] We are the more inclined to believe this to have been the case, notwithstanding the obvious facility of such a classification, because it appears to us, that in a prior part of this book, the germ of Caliban's generation may be detected. "Incubus," observes this commentator on Bartholome, "doth infest and trouble women, and Succubus doth infest men, by the which wordes (taken from Augustine "De Civitate Dei") it is manifest, that the godly, chast, and honest minded, are not free from this gross subjection, although more commonly the dishonest are molested therewith. Some hold opinion, that Marline in the time of Vortiger king of great Britaine 470 yeres before Christ, was borne after this manner. Hieronimus Cardanus in his tretise De rebus contra naturam, seemes to be of opinion that spirits or divells may beget and conceive

but not after y^e common manner, yet he reciteth a storie of a young damoisell of Scotland which was got with child of an inchaunted divell, thinking that he had bene a fayre young man which had layen with hir, whereupon she brought foorth so deformed a monster, that he feared the beholders." He then proceeds to observe, that the spirits thus procreating are not of a "subtill Materia," "but a more grose and earthie cause, as Nymphæ, Dryades, Hobgoblins, and Fairies," adding, that two instances of such connection, "it is no straunge secret to disclose," had taken place "in fewe yeares heere in Englande."[522:A]

We find Prospero, in fact, employing these four classes of spirits in succession, but in every instance, through the immediate or remote agency of Ariel. Those of fire are thus described:—

——————— "Now on the beak,