Toad. Among the vulgar errors of Shakespeare’s day was the belief that the head of the toad contained a stone possessing great medicinal virtues. In “As You Like It,” (ii. 1), the Duke says:
“Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
Lupton, in his “One Thousand Notable Things,” says that “a toad-stone, called Crepaudina, touching any part envenomed by the bite of a rat, wasp, spider, or other venomous beast, ceases the pain and swelling thereof.” In the Londesborough Collection is a silver ring of the fifteenth century, in which one of these stones is set.[583]
It was also generally believed that the toad was highly venomous—a notion to which there are constant allusions in Shakespeare’s plays; as, for example, in the above passage, where it is spoken of as “ugly and venomous.” In “Richard III.” (i. 2), Lady Anne says to Gloster:
“Never hung poison on a fouler toad.”
And, in another scene (i. 3), Queen Margaret speaks of “this pois’nous bunch-back’d toad.”
Once more, in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 2), the Nurse describes Queen Tamora’s babe as being “as loathsome as a toad.” There is doubtless some truth in this belief, as the following quotation from Mr. Frank Buckland’s “Curiosities of Natural History” seems to show: “Toads are generally reported to be poisonous; and this is perfectly true to a certain extent. Like the lizards, they have glands in their skin which secrete a white, highly acid fluid, and just behind the head are seen two eminences like split beans; if these be pressed, this acid fluid will come out—only let the operator mind that it does not get into his eyes, for it generally comes out with a jet. There are also other glands dispersed through the skin. A dog will never take a toad in his mouth, and the reason is that this glandular secretion burns his tongue and lips. It is also poisonous to the human subject. Mr. Blick, surgeon, of Islip, Oxfordshire,[584] tells me that a man once made a wager, when half drunk, in a village public-house, that he would bite a toad’s head off; he did so, but in a few hours his lips, tongue, and throat began to swell in a most alarming way, and he was dangerously ill for some time.”
Owing to the supposed highly venomous character of the toad, “superstition,” says Pennant,[585] “gave it preternatural powers, and made it a principal ingredient in the incantations of nocturnal hags.” Thus, in Macbeth (iv. 1), the witch says:
“Toad that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.”
Pennant adds that this was intended “for a design of the first consideration, that of raising and bringing before the eyes of Macbeth a hateful second-sight of the prosperity of Banquo’s line. This shows the mighty power attributed to this animal by the dealers in the magic art.”