“Look where he comes! not poppy nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou hadst yesterday.”
Here it is quite evident that the efficacy of the “syrups” spoken of was to be tried upon the mind only in which the Moor’s horrible malady existed. That Shakspeare, in the passage quoted, alluded to this singular custom, is, we think, at least extremely probable.
We have said that the Midwife stood high as a matchmaker, and so unquestionably she did. No woman was better acquainted with charms of all kinds, especially with those that were calculated to aid or throw light upon the progress of love. If for instance young persons of either sex felt doubt as to whether their passion was returned, they generally consulted the Midwife, who, on hearing a statement of their apprehensions, appointed a day on which she promised to satisfy them. Accordingly, at the time agreed upon, she and the party interested repaired as secretly as might be, and with much mystery, to some lonely place, where she produced a Bible and key, both of which she held in a particular position—that is, the Bible suspended by a string which passed through the key. She then uttered with a grave and solemn face the following verses from the Book of Ruth, which the young person accompanying her was made to repeat slowly and deliberately after her:—
“And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”
If at the conclusion of these words the Bible turned, she affirmed, with the air of a prophetess, not only that the affection of the parties was mutual, but that their courtship would terminate in marriage. If, on the contrary, it remained stationary, the passion existed only on one side, and the parties were not destined for each other. Oh, credulous love! not to see that the venerable sybil could allow the Bible to turn or not, just as she may have previously ascertained from either party whether their attachment was reciprocal or otherwise! We dare say the above charm is seldom resorted to now, and of course this harmless imposition on the lovers will soon cease to be practised at all.
The Midwife’s aid to lovers, however, did not stop here. If they wished to create a passion in some heart where it had not previously existed, she told them to get a dormouse and reduce it to powder, a pinch of which, if put into the drink of the person beloved, would immediately rivet his or her affections upon the individual by whose hands it was administered. Many anecdotes are told of humorous miscarriages that resulted from a neglect of this condition. One is especially well known, of a young woman who gave the potion through the hands of her grandmother; and the consequence was, that the bachelor immediately made love to the old lady instead of the young one, and eventually became grandfather to the latter instead of her husband. Indeed, the administering of philtres and the use of charms in Ireland were formerly very frequent, and occasionally attended by results which had not been anticipated. The use especially of cantharides, or French flies, in the hands of the ignorant, has often been said to induce madness, and not unfrequently to occasion death. It is not very long since a melancholy case of the latter from this very cause appeared in an Irish newspaper.