Elizabethan Demonology | Page 3

Bullinger's opinion about Sadducees and Epicures. 109.
Emancipation a gradual process. Exorcism in Edward VI.'s Prayer-book.
110. The author hopes he has been reverent in his treatment of the
subject. Any sincere belief entitled to respect. Our pet beliefs may some

day appear as dead and ridiculous as these.
IV.
111. Fairies and devils differ in degree, not in origin. 112. Evidence.
113. Cause of difference. Folk, until disturbed by religious doubt, don't
believe in devils, but fairies. 114. Reformation shook people up, and
made them think of hell and devils. 115. The change came in the towns
before the country. Fairies held on a long time in the country. 116.
Shakspere was early impressed with fairy lore. In middle life, came in
contact with town thought and devils, and at the end of it returned to
Stratford and fairydom. 117. This is reflected in his works. 118. But
there is progression of thought to be observed in these stages. 119.
Shakspere indirectly tells us his thoughts, if we will take the trouble to
learn them. 120. Three stages of thought that men go through on
religious matters. Hereditary belief. Scepticism. Reasoned belief. 121.
Shakspere went through all this. 122. Illustrations. Hereditary belief.
"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Fairies chiefly an adaptation of current
tradition. 123. The dawn of doubt. 124. Scepticism. Evil spirits
dominant. No guiding good. 125. Corresponding lapse of faith in other
matters. Woman's purity. 126. Man's honour. 127. Mr. Ruskin's view of
Shakspere's message. 128. Founded chiefly on plays of sceptical period.
Message of third period entirely different. 129. Reasoned belief. "The
Tempest." 130. Man can master evil of all forms if he go about it in the
right way--is not the toy of fate. 131. Prospero a type of Shakspere in
this final stage of thought. How pleasant to think this!

ELIZABETHAN DEMONOLOGY.
1. It is impossible to understand and appreciate thoroughly the
production of any great literary genius who lived and wrote in times far
removed from our own, without a certain amount of familiarity, not
only with the precise shades of meaning possessed by the vocabulary
he made use of, as distinguished from the sense conveyed by the same
words in the present day, but also with the customs and ideas, political,
religious and moral, that predominated during the period in which his
works were produced. Without such information, it will be found
impossible, in many matters of the first importance, to grasp the
writer's true intent, and much will appear vague and lifeless that was
full of point and vigour when it was first conceived; or, worse still,

modern opinion upon the subject will be set up as the standard of
interpretation, ideas will be forced into the writer's sentences that could
not by any manner of possibility have had place in his mind, and utterly
false conclusions as to his meaning will be the result. Even the man
who has had some experience in the study of an early literature,
occasionally finds some difficulty in preventing the current opinions of
his day from obtruding themselves upon his work and warping his
judgment; to the general reader this must indeed be a frequent and
serious stumbling-block.
2. This is a special source of danger in the study of the works of
dramatic poets, whose very art lies in the representation of the current
opinions, habits, and foibles of their times--in holding up the mirror to
their age. It is true that, if their works are to live, they must deal with
subjects of more than mere passing interest; but it is also true that many,
and the greatest of them, speak upon questions of eternal interest in the
particular light cast upon them in their times, and it is quite possible
that the truth may be entirely lost from want of power to recognize it
under the disguise in which it comes. A certain motive, for instance,
that is an overpowering one in a given period, subsequently appears
grotesque, weak, or even powerless; the consequent action becomes
incomprehensible, and the actor is contemned; and a simile that
appeared most appropriate in the ears of the author's contemporaries,
seems meaningless, or ridiculous, to later generations.
3. An example or two of this possibility of error, derived from works
produced during the period with which it is the object of these pages to
deal, will not be out of place here.
A very striking illustration of the manner in which a word may mislead
is afforded by the oft-quoted line:
"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."
By most readers the secondary, and, in the present day, almost
universal, meaning of the word assume--"pretend that to be, which in
reality has no existence;"--that is, in the particular case, "ape the
chastity you do not in