The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elizabethan Demonology, by Thomas Alfred
Spalding

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Title: Elizabethan Demonology

Author: Thomas Alfred Spalding

Release Date: July 12, 2004 [eBook #12890]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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ELIZABETHAN DEMONOLOGY

An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils,
and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the
Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding;
with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works

by

THOMAS ALFRED SPALDING, LL.B. (LOND.)

Barrister-at-Law, Honorary Treasurer of The New Shakspere Society

London

1880

TO

ROBERT BROWNING,

PRESIDENT OF THE

NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.

FOREWORDS.

This Essay is an expansion, in accordance with a preconceived scheme, of
two papers, one on "The Witches in Macbeth," and the other on "The
Demonology of Shakspere," which were read before the New Shakspere
Society in the years 1877 and 1878. The Shakspere references in the text
are made to the Globe Edition.

The writer's best thanks are due to his friends Mr. F.J. Furnivall and
Mr. Lauriston E. Shaw, for their kindness in reading the proof sheets,
and suggesting emendations.

TEMPLE,
October 7, 1879.

"We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for
fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us)
involved in their creed of witchcraft."--C. LAMB.

"But I will say, of Shakspere's works generally, that we have no
full impress of him there, even as full as we have of many men. His
works are so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the
world that was in him."--T. CARLYLE.

ANALYSIS.

I.

1. Difficulty in understanding our elder writers without a knowledge of
their language and ideas. 2. Especially in the case of dramatic poets.
3. Examples. Hamlet's "assume a virtue." 4. Changes