act iv. sc. 1. Buchanan also beautifully records the same traditionary

imagery:

"Festa Valentino rediit lux—— Quisque sibi sociam jam legit ales avem. Inde sibi dominam per sortes quærere in annum Mansit ab antiquis mos repetitus avis; Quisque legit dominam, quam casto observet amore, Quam nitidis sertis obsequioque colat: Mittere cui possit blandi munuscula Veris."

[325:A] Bourne's Antiquities apud Brand, p. 253.

[326:A] Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 252, 253.

[326:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 281. Mr. Gay has more distinctly recorded this ceremony in the following lines:—

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind Their paramours with mutual chirpings find; I early rose, just at the break of day, Before the sun had chas'd the stars away; Afield I went, amid the morning dew, To milk my kine (for so should housewives do), _Thee First_ I spied, and _the first swain we see_ In spite of fortune _shall our true Love be_."

[327:A] "Et vere ad Valentini festum à viris habent fœminæ; munera, et alio temporis viris dantur." Moresini Deprav. Relig. 160.

[327:B] Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 258.—"I have found unquestionable authority," remarks Mr. Brand, "to evince that the custom of chusing Valentines was a sport practised in the houses of the gentry in England as early as the year 1476." Brand apud Ellis, vol. i. p. 48.

The authority alluded to by Mr. Brand, is a letter, in Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 211., dated February 1476.

[328:A] Survey of London, 1618, p. 159.

[328:B] Ibid.

[328:C] Vide Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 317.

[329:A] "L'origine de ce feu que tant de nations conservent encore, et qui se perd dans l'antiquité, est très simple. C'etoit un feu de joie allumé au moment où l'année commençoit; car la première de toutes les Annes, la plus ancienne donc on ait quelque connoissance, s'ouvroit au mois de Juin.—

"Ces feux-de-joie étoient accompagnés en même tems de Vœux et de sacrifices pour la prospérité de peuples et des biens de la terre: on dansoit aussi autour de ce feu; car ya-t-il quelque fête sans danse? et les plus agiles santoient par dessus. En se retirant, chacun empartoit un tison plus ou moins grand, et le reste étoit jetté au vent, afin qu'il emportât tout malheur comme il emportoit ces cendres." Hist. d'Hercule, p. 203.

[329:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 249. act ii. sc. 3.

[329:C] Jonson's Works, act i. sc. 6.

[329:D] Beaumont and Fletcher's Works apud Colman.

[330:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 281. Britannia's Pastorals, book ii. song 2.

[330:B] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 299.

[330:C] Ibid. p. 285.

[331:A] Bourne's Antiquities, p. 301.

[331:B] Stowe also mentions, that bonefires and rejoicings were observed on the Eve of St. Peter and Paul the Apostles; he gives likewise a curious account of the _Marching Watches_ which had been regularly kept on Midsummer-Eve, time out of mind, by the citizens of London and other large towns; but these had ceased before the age of Shakspeare, the last having been appointed by Sir John Gresham, in 1548, though an attempt was made to procure their revival, by John Montgomery in 1585, who published a book on the subject, dedicated to Sir Thos. Pullison, then Lord Mayor; this offer however did not succeed.

[332:A] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 285.

[332:B] Queenhoo-Hall, vol. i. p. 136.

[333:A] Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 103.

[333:B] Jonson's Works, fol. edit. vol. i.

[334:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 359. act iii. sc. 4.

[334:B] Bourne's Antiquities, p. 320, 321.

[334:C] Vide Job, chap. xxxiii. v. 22, 23.

[335:A] Opera et Dies, vol. i. 246.

[335:B] Dionys. in Cælest. Hierarch. cap. ix. x.

[335:C] Calv. Lib. Instit. I. c. xiv. It is worthy of remark, that Reginald Scot, from whose _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, p. 500., this account of the hierarchy of Dionysius is taken, has brought forward a passage from his kinsman Edward Deering, which broaches the same doctrine as that held by Bishop Horsley in the last sermon which he ever wrote. "If you read Deering," says Scot, "upon the first chapter to the Hebrues, you shall see this matter (the angelic theory of Dionysius) notablie handled; where he saith, _that whensoever archangell is mentioned in the Scriptures it signifieth our saviour Christ, and no creature_." p. 501.—Now in the sermon alluded to by Horsley, the text of which is Dan. iv. 17., he affirms, that the term "Michael," or "Michael the Archangel," wherever it occurs, is nothing more than a name for our Saviour. Vide Sermons, vol. ii. p. 376.

[337:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght; p. 160, 161.

[338:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 505, 506.

[338:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 109. Henry IV. Part ii. act ii. sc. 4.

[338:C] Ibid. vol. xii. p. 36. Henry IV. Part ii. act i. sc. 2.

[338:D] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 94, 95. Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. sc. 3.

[338:E] Ibid. vol. x. p. 149.

[339:A] Book iv. line 677.

[340:A] Sermons, vol. ii. p. 412. 415, 416.

[341:A] Vide Brady's Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 180.

[341:B] Brand's Appendix to Bourne's Antiquities, p. 382.

[341:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 205. act ii. sc. 1.

[342:A] Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 229.

[343:A] Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 221.

[343:B] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 238.

[344:A] Scott's Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 221, 222.

[346:A] The powers of description which Burns has evinced in one of the stanzas, while relating the effects of this spell, are truly great:—

"A wanton widow Leezie was As canty as a kittlen; But och! that night, among the shaws, She got a fearfu' settlin! She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn, An' owre the hill gaed scrievin, Where three lairds lands met at a burn, To dip her left sark-sleeve in, Was bent that night.

_Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays As thro' the glen it wimpl't; Whyles round a rocky scar it strays; Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't; Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; Whyles cookit underneath the braes, Below the spreading hazle, Unseen that night._

Among the brachens, on the brae, Between her an' the moon, The deil, or else an outler quey, Gat up an' gae a croon: Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool; Near lav'rock-height she jumpit, But mist a fit, an' in the pool, Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, Wi' a plunge that night."

[347:A] Burns's Works, Currie's edit. vol. iii. p. 126. et seq.

[347:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. p. 472-474.

[348:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 87.

[348:B] See Beaumont and Fletcher apud Colman.

It would appear from the passage just quoted from Shakspeare, that he considered St. Withold as commanding this _female_ incubus to alight from those _she_ was riding and tormenting; but Fuseli and Darwin, in their delineations, appear to have mounted a _male_ fiend, or incubus, on _her_ back, who descending from his steed, sate on the breasts of those whom _he_ had selected for his victims. The personifications of the painter and the modern poet are forcibly drawn and highly terrific:—

"So on his NIGHTMARE through the evening fog Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog; Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd, Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast. —— Such as of late amid the murky sky Was mark'd by FUSELI'S poetic eye; Whose daring tints, with SHAKSPEARE'S happiest grace, Gave to the airy phantom form and place— Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head, Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed; While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath, Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death. —— Then shrieks of captur'd towns, and widow's tears, Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers, The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight, The trackless desert, the cold starless night, And stern-eye'd Murderer with his knife behind, In dread succession agonize her mind. O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet, Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet; In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries, And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes: In vain she _wills_ to run, fly, swim, walk, creep; The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP. —— On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape Erect, and balances his bloated shape; Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes, And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries." Botanic Garden, 4to. edit. p. 101-103.

[350:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 203-205.

[351:A] The Dutchesse of Malfy, act iii. sc. 3. Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. iii. p. 526.

[351:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 418, 419.

[352:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 16. Hamlet, act i. sc. 1.

[352:B] Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 315. Julius Cæsar, act ii. sc. 2.

[353:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 127. Macbeth, act ii. sc. 3.

[354:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 82, 83. Act ii. sc. 4.

[354:B] Ibid. vol. xi. p. 317. First Part of King Henry IV. act iii. sc. 1.

[354:C] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 202, 203. Third Part of King Henry VI. act v. sc. 6.

[355:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 448. Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. 3.

[355:B] Ibid. vol. xx. p. 225. Act v. sc. 1.

[355:C] Ibid. vol. xv. p. 395. Act iv. sc. 4.

[355:D] Familiar Letters, edit. 1726. p. 247.

[355:E] Lady of the Lake, p. 348.

[356:A] Lady of the Lake, p. 106. 347.

[357:A] Lady of the Lake, p. 348.

[358:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 28. Act i. sc. 2.

[358:B] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 506. Act v. sc. 3.

[359:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites, 1572. p. 79.

[359:B] Vide Grose's Provincial Glossary, article Popular Superstitions, p. 282, 283.

[360:A] Grant's Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, vol. i. p. 259-261.

[361:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 459.

[362:A] Of Ghostes and Spirites, p. 77-79.

[362:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 169. Act iv. sc. 2.

[362:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 279.

[362:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. p. 230. Act iv. sc. 10.

[363:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 336.

[363:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiii. p. 152. First Part of King Henry VI. act v. sc. 3.

[363:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 279.

[364:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 230. 270.

[364:B] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 231.

[365:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 247.

[365:B] Ibid. p. 245.

[366:A] Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 265, 266.

[366:B] See Whalley's Works of Ben Jonson.

[366:C] Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 465.

[367:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 41. Act ii. sc. 1.

[367:B] De Quadrup. Ovip., p. 65.

[367:C] Batman uppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum, 1582, fol. article Botrax.

[367:D] A Green Forest, or a Natural History, 1567.

[367:E] Secrete Wonders of Nature, 4to. 1569.

[367:F] First Book of Notable Things, 4to.

[367:G] Topsell's History of Serpents, 1608. fol., p. 188. and Fuller's Church History, p. 151.

[367:H] Printed by Copland, but without date, 12mo.

[367:I] Quoted by Batman on Bartholome, L. xviii. c. 30.

[368:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 59. Act i. sc. 4.

[368:B] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 180, 181.

[370:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 293-295.

[370:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 465.

[370:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 305.

[371:A] This _golden stamp_ was the coin called an angel, from the figure which it bore, and was worth ten shillings.

[371:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 242, 243. Macbeth, act iv. sc. 3.

[371:C] Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i.: and Scot, speaking of the pretensions of the French monarchs to cure the evil, observes of Elizabeth's practice, that "if the French king use it no woorsse than our Princesse doth, God will not be offended thereat: for hir majestie onelie useth godlie and divine praier, with some almes, and referreth the cure to God and to the physician," p. 304., a report which reflects great credit on her majesty's judgment and good sense.

[372:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiv. p. 285. Richard the Third, act i. sc. 2.

[373:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 405.

[373:B] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 80.

[373:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 303.

[373:D] The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince James, fol. edit. 1616. p. 136. The Dæmonologie was first printed at Edinburgh in 1597, and next in London, 1603, 4to.

[374:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 344. Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1.

[374:B] Ibid. vol. xx. p. 208. Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. 3.

[374:C] Ibid. vol. xiii. p. 297. Act iii. sc. 2.

[374:D] Bulwarke of Defence against Sickness, fol. 1579, p. 41.

[375:A] Grose's Provincial Glossary, p. 291.

[375:B] Vide Bacon's Natural History, Century x. No. 997, 998.

[376:A] Digby's Discourse upon the Sympathetic Powder, p. 6.

[377:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 280.

[377:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 146.

[377:C] Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, p. 96.

[377:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 146. note 3.

[378:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 147.

[379:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 303-305.

[379:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 78.

[379:C] "Ad nimium calorem transeat ab aquis nivium." In the paraphrase on Genesis, by Cedmon the Saxon poet, the same imagery may be found.

Of this venerable poet and monk, who flourished in the seventh century, Mr. Turner has given us a very interesting account, together with a version of some parts of his paraphrase. One of these is a picture of the infernal regions, in which he says,—

"There comes at last the eastern wind, the _cold frost_ mingling with the fires." Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, 2d edit. 4to. 1807, vol. ii. p. 309. et seq.

[379:D] Infer. c. iii. 86. Purgat. c. iii. 31.

[379:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 305, note 9.

[379:F] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 330.

[380:A] Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 534. 598.

[380:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 424.

[381:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 149.—"The mesere of helle shalbe in defaute of mete and drink. For God sayth thus by Moyses: They shal be wasted with honger, &c."

[381:B] Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil, 1595.

[381:C] Folio, 1635. p. 345.

[381:D] Paradise Lost, book ii. l. 587, et seq.

[382:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 374.

[382:B] Εκ πασῶν δε, &c. De Republ. lib. x. p. 520, Lugd. 1590. Vide Todd's Milton, vol. vii. p. 53.

[382:C] "Such, notwithstanding, is the force there of (musical harmony), and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think, that the soul itself by nature is or hath in it harmony."—Fifth Book of Ecclesiastical Polity, published singly in 1597.

[382:D] Todd's Milton, vol. vii. p. 53.

[383:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. i. p. 296. col. 1.

[383:B] Dante's Inferno, cant. xx.

[383:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 89, 90.

[383:D] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 222. Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 9.

[383:E] Ibid. vol. xix. p. 409. Othello, act v. sc. 2.

[384:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 361. Midsummer-Night's Dream,