Elizabethan Demonology | Page 6

his reading.
The number of "classical" authors whose works will repay such severe
study is extremely limited. However much enthusiasm he may throw
into his studies, he will find that nine-tenths of our older literature
yields too small a harvest of instruction to attract any but the pedant to
expend so much labour upon them. The two great vices of modern
reading will be avoided--flippancy on the one hand, and pedantry on
the other.
9. The object, therefore, which I have had in view in the compilation of
the following pages, is to attempt to throw some additional light upon a
condition of thought, utterly different from any belief that has firm hold

in the present generation, that was current and peculiarly prominent
during the lifetime of the man who bears overwhelmingly the greatest
name, either in our own or any other literature. It may be said, and
perhaps with much force, that enough, and more than enough, has been
written in the way of Shakspere criticism. But is it not better that
somewhat too much should be written upon such a subject than too
little? We cannot expect that every one shall see all the greatness of
Shakspere's vast and complex mind--by one a truth will be grasped that
has eluded the vigilance of others;--and it is better that those who can
by no possibility grasp anything at all should have patient hearing,
rather than that any additional light should be lost. The useless, lifeless
criticism vanishes quietly away into chaos; the good remains quietly to
be useful: and it is in reliance upon the justice and certainty of this law
that I aim at bringing before the mind, as clearly as may be, a phase of
belief that was continually and powerfully influencing Shakspere
during the whole of his life, but is now well-nigh forgotten or entirely
misunderstood. If the endeavour is a useless and unprofitable one, let it
be forgotten--I am content; but I hope to be able to show that an
investigation of the subject does furnish us with a key which, in a
manner, unlocks the secrets of Shakspere's heart, and brings us closer
to the real living man--to the very soul of him who, with hardly any
history in the accepted sense of the word, has left us in his works a
biography of far deeper and more precious meaning, if we will but
understand it.
10. But it may be said that Shakspere, of all men, is able to speak for
himself without aid or comment. His works appeal to all, young and old,
in every time, every nation. It is true; he can be understood. He is, to
use again Ben Jonson's oft-quoted words, "Not of an age, but for all
time." Yet he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit and opinions of
his era, that without a certain comprehension of the men of the
Elizabethan period he cannot be understood fully. Indeed, his greatness
is to a large extent due to his sympathy with the men around him, his
power of clearly thinking out the answers to the all-time questions, and
giving a voice to them that his contemporaries could
understand;--answers that others could not for themselves
formulate--could, perhaps, only vaguely and dimly feel after. To
understand these answers fully, the language in which they were

delivered must be first thoroughly mastered.
11. I intend, therefore, to attempt to sketch out the leading features of a
phase of religious belief that acquired peculiar distinctness and
prominence during Shakspere's lifetime--more, perhaps, than it ever did
before, or has done since--the belief in the existence of evil spirits, and
their influence upon and dealings with mankind. The subject will be
treated in three sections. The first will contain a short statement of the
laws that seem to be of universal operation in the creation and
maintenance of the belief in a multitudinous band of spirits, good and
evil; and of a few of the conditions of the Elizabethan epoch that may
have had a formative and modifying influence upon that belief. The
second will be devoted to an outline of the chief features of that belief,
as it existed at the time in question--the organization, appearance, and
various functions and powers of the evil spirits, with special reference
to Shakspere's plays. The third and concluding section, will embody an
attempt to trace the growth of Shakspere's thought upon religious
matters through the medium of his allusions to this subject.
* * * * *
12. The empire of the supernatural must obviously be most extended
where civilization is the least advanced. An educated man has to make
a conscious, and sometimes severe, effort to refrain from pronouncing a
dogmatic opinion as to the cause of a given result when sufficient
evidence to warrant a