P. 99. Bodin’s “asseheaded man”. N. Drake, in his Shakespeare and his Times, vol. ii, p. 351, suggested that Bottom’s “translation” was derived from p. 315 in Scot, where a receipt for such transformations is given. This may in part have been in Shakespeare’s memory, as may the commonly received belief that magicians could do such things. He may, too, have remembered another tale, told at p. 533, of Pope Benedict IX having been condemned after death to walk the earth (I presume at night, after his purgatorial day) in a bear’s skin, with an ass’s head in such sort as he lived. But I incline to think that these after-statements only caused him to remember the more this first, full, and remarkable M. Mal-Bodin-Cyprus tale; and more especially this passage, for in iv, i, 30, Bottom declares—“Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay hath no fellow.” So acute and ready an observer may have the more remembered the epithet “asseheaded” because, as most readers must observe, Scot uses this word, though the sailor in the tale is an ass from his snout and ears down to the end of his tail and the tips of his hoofs.

P. 542. His “white spirits”. Because in the 1623 folio Macbeth we have in iv, 1, Musicke and a Song. Blacke Spirits, &c., and because in Middleton’s Witch the words are given at length, it has been held that Middleton was either Shakespeare’s coadjutor, or his after interpolator, that these lines were his, and were first used in his Witch. But, according to most of Malone’s arguments—for one certainly is not sound—the Witch was some years later than Macbeth, as is also likely from Middleton’s age. And that it was later is in especial shown by a hitherto unnoticed passage in ii, 1:

For it is clear that this must have been written when the price and quality of knighthood had much come down, and its commonness increased beyond what it was in 1605. Secondly, it is an assumption, and a most unlikely one, that the Macbeth MS. intimation of the song was due to the players’ knowledge of it through the Witch. It presupposes that the supernumeraries who played the witches’ parts were the same in both plays. Also that the writers of the MS. knew that these would be the same, and would certainly remember the words: for a playhouse copy is either for the use of the prompter, or a text whence the players’ parts can be extracted. Moreover, the Witch had been, as the author himself tells us, “an ignorantly ill-fated labour”, in other words, a failure.

But in reference to the supposed right of Middleton to these lines, we now find, in 1584, when Middleton was a boy, that the first of the two lines—or, if one chooses, the first two of the four, the words being in each half phrase inverted, possibly to vary the too great sing-song of the sentence—was copied by Scot as part of a known series of rhyming lines. Shakespeare, who wrote later, has the “Black spirits”, etc.; Middleton, in his Witch, where we find passages taken verbatim and almost verbatim from Scot, has these and the other rhymes given by Scot very slightly altered in i, 2, and the “Black spirits”, etc., with “Mingle, mingle”, and some of the other rhymes in v, 2. Hence they are neither Shakespeare’s nor Middleton’s. Whose then are they? Scot gives them as from W. W.’s booklet on the Witches at St. Osees, Essex. But certainly the lines, nor any of them, are not in that booklet. These things, however, are there. Ursula Kempe’s little boy deposes, and she herself, on promise from the Justice, Brian Darcie, Esq., of favour being shown her—which promise, by the way, both in her case and that of others, was carried out by their being hanged—that she had two he- and two she-spirits, the shes being Tyffen, in the shape of a white lamb, and Pigine, black like a toad; the hes, Tittie, like a little grey cat, and Jacke, black like a cat. Nor are these merely thus mentioned by each, but the old woman specifies their doings through three or four of the earlier pages (A 3, v—A 8). Mother Bennet’s spirits were two, Suckin, like a black dog, and Lyerd, redde like a Lyon (B 3, etc., B 7). Besides these, but less prominently brought forward, were these. Mother Hunt had two little things like horses, one white and one black, kept in a pot amongst black and white wool (A 5, v and 6). Ales Hunt had also two spirits, one white and one black, like little colts, and named Jacke and Robbin (C 3). Marg. Sammon had a Tom and a Robyn, but these were like toads. H. Sellys, aged nine, deposes that his mother had two imps, one Herculus sothe hons [sic] or Jacke, black, and a he, who, in the night, and in the likeness of his sister, pulled his younger brother’s leg and otherwise hurt him so that he cried out; the second, Mercurie, a she and white (D v). Ales Baxter says that the cow while being milked was viciously unruly, and that something like a white cat struck at her heart, so that she became so weak that she could not stand, and being found leaning against a style, was carried home in a chair (D 4, v). Ales Mansfield had given her by Margaret Grevell (elsewhere Gravell)—for these imps seem to have been given away without will of their own, like brute beasts, and being hungry were fed on milk, beer, bread, oats, hay, straw, and especially a sup of blood sucked from the body—two he- and two she-spirits, named Robin, Jack, William, and Puppet, alias Mamet, like black cats (D 6). Mother Eustace also had three imps, like white, gray, and black cats. Annis Dowsing, aged seven, base daughter of Annis Herd, tells B. Darcie that her mother had six Avices or Blackbirds, black speckled with white or all black. Also six imps like cows, but “as big as rattes”, one of which, black and white, and named Crowe, had been given to her, while Donne [? Dun], another, was red and white (G. 4. v). I have, perhaps, overlengthened this tale through wishing to show that these imps, besides being hungry, generally took a white or black, and sometimes a red or grey, colour, and because these notings from this unique book and authentic record might be otherwise acceptable. So much do the names and the notice of the colours of the imps strike a reader, that Bishop Hutchinson, in his Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, 1718, says, p. 29, “An account of them was written by Brian Darcie, with the Names and Colours of their spirits.” But here an end after the remarks. First, that the chief witnesses, and leaders up to these confessions, were their own children of from 6¾ to 9 years of age. Secondly, that these confessions were, as plainly as possible, first made by some and then followed by others through promises of favour, promises lyingly carried out to condemnation and death. Thirdly, that, as shown by such instances as “[she] desired to speake alone with me, the said Bryan Darcey, whereupon I went into my garden”, etc., and by the frequent use of “before mee”—the initials W. W. were either fictitious, or not improbably those of his clerk, and that the real author was Brian Darcie, Esq., Justice of the Peace, who desired to gain favour from his kinsman, Lord Darcie, to whom the book was dedicated, or possibly, through him and it, the notice of her Majesty, as a clever, zealous, and trustworthy seeker-out of these old-new things.

It need hardly be added that ballading was then a profession, and that its professors seized upon anything of interest,—an atrocious murder, the last words of the murderer (spoken or not), unusual floods or storms, the effects of lightning, the cruise of an adventurous vessel, shipwrecks, the story of a strange fish “in forme of a woman from the wast upward”, that appeared “forty thousand fathom above water [or otherwise], and sang as followeth”. How then should the condemnation of some sixteen old women for horrible crimes escape being “balletted”? It was new, rare, came home to all, and was in more senses than one deadly. The very rhymes in Scot prove it, for they could not be Scot’s own words, and they have the very rhythm, or rather lilt, of a ballad. On looking calmly, therefore, at the evidence, I am convinced that neither Shakespeare nor Middleton could have been the one who tacked together these rhymes between 1582 and 1584, but that Shakespeare did here, as he sometimes did, and notably in Ophelia’s madness, quote such lines as “Black spirits and white”, etc., because the words suited his scene of devilish enchantment, and gave it reality; while Middleton, in a Magical Tragi-Comedy, gave, with very slight variation, the whole of the words quoted by Scot.

I trust my reader will not merely excuse it when it regards Shakespeare and Macbeth, if I go a little out of my present road and add the few words following. As it has been held that Middleton wrote “Black spirits”, etc., so it has been supposed that the lines on the “Touching for the Evil” were interpolated by Middleton or some other, because negative evidence seemed to show that James did not take upon himself this custom till a date much later than 1605. Lately, however, Prof. S. R. Gardiner has discovered that James “touched” and was almost compelled to “touch” as early as 1603. Its efficacy had been believed in, and was set forth in books; so that the very assumption of this prerogative proved its efficacy, and thus proved his rightful heirship to the English crown,—a proof, I suspect, not lost sight of by the astute counsellors who counselled its adoption, nor by James himself. And I think that he must be blind who cannot see how this, added to the other evidence set forth in the play, and to the true, though somewhat, and of purpose, indirectly exposed intent of Macbeth, proved both James’s heirship and set forth the certain overthrow of all such devilishly contrived plots,—such as, to name but three, the attempt at the Carse of Gowrie; the plot in which Raleigh was, or was supposed to be, concerned; and lastly, the gunpowder plot—as would alter the predestinate decree of Heaven, that James I and VI should be King of Great Britain. Unless, too, I am much mistaken, the fears of James were the direct or indirect instigators of Shakespeare’s play, and the cause of that autograph letter to the poet, for which no shadow of a reason can otherwise be assigned.

For convenience’ sake I here include some notings illustrative of either Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Scot, or of those beliefs and forms of expression which led both to write as they did.

P. 10. “They can pull down the moon.” This belief, derived from classic times, is authority for Prospero’s “A witch ... so strong That could control the moon” (v, i). So also ii, 1, 174.

——— “Corne in the blade.” There is frequent reference to this in Scot, as here and at pp. A iiii, v, 49, 58, 63, 219, 221, 482, and elsewhere. But as Staunton saw, this is the nearest to Macbeth’s “though bladed corn be lodged” (iv, 1). Also, though this happens more or less in several of the instances, yet especially here, the context agrees with the thoughts and context-words of Macbeth.

P. 33. “Anthropophagi and Canibals.” Associated synonymes probably suggested to both by the same heading in p. 1100 of Seb. MÜnster’s Cosmography (Basil, 1550).

P. 42. “Never faile to danse.” An authority for the dancing of Macbeth’s witches, and a probable authority for the dancing of the latter with broomsticks headed with brooms in their hands.

P. 54. The “Monarcho” of L. L. Lost appears from this to have been a madman.

P. 64. “Rime either man or beast to death.” An extension of the Shakespearean and general belief that they rhymed (Irish) rats to death. As You Like It, iii, 2.

P. 77. “No power to occupy.” Proof that this last word was used in the sense of to use or be busied with, from which general use it came to be employed as common slang for a disreputable and vile using.

P. 170. “Chattering of pies and haggisters.” A haggister is the Kentish term for a pie, or magpie. The passage explains why Duncan (i, 5) is not welcomed by these, but by the ill-omened raven that is hoarse with croaking his approach. W. Perkins on Witchcraft, works, ed. 1613, says: “When a raven stands on a high place and looks a particular way and cries, a corse comes thence soon.”

P. 187. “A thousand for one that fell out contrary.” We would more correctly write—“A thousand that fell out contrary for one that fell out rightly or correctly.” But this and others are examples of what we would call a more than loose way of expressing oneself, though then it was allowable, for Scot was an educated and intelligent man, who wrote well. “Each putter out of five for one”, Tempest, iii, 2, is an almost exactly similar instance. The putting out of five for one is considered as one action, and is—pace Dyce—the receiving, as Malone says, at the rate of five for one, the putter out being he who puts out in the hope of receiving five for one.

P. 212. “The blind man ... in killing the crow.” Green’s Defence of Cony-Catching, p. 70, ed. Grosart, gives this proverbial saying—“as blinde men shoote the crowe”. Hamlet, 4to., 1603, has the variant—“as the blinde man catcheth the hare”.

“A green silk curtain.” These words, also in Middleton’s Witch, i, 2, illustrate the custom which led Sir Toby (Tw. N., i, 4) to say, “Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ’em? Are they like to take dust like Mistress Moll’s picture?” And these last words, by the way, prove that this same Moll had, for her own purposes, the portrait exposed in some painter’s shop, or painters’ shops, or rather free fronts, without a curtain.

P. 269. “If a soule wander ... by night.” Proof that the wandering of Hamlet’s father’s ghost was strictly in accordance with traditional folk-lore. So, p. 462, we have, “How common an opinion ... reveale their estate”; and p. 535, “They affirme ... soules of saints”.

P. 347. “Bodkin.” The text and margin show that this was used for a small dagger, and the woodcut on the next page that it was sometimes at least a rod-like and pointed weapon. Being thus shaped it was small, more easily carried at the waist, and less readily broken either by a bone or by an adversary’s stroke.

P. 382. “Beliall.” This goes to show that he was “the other devil” whose name had escaped Macbeth’s porter. Its being less common in men’s and preachers’ mouths would account for his non-remembrance.

P. 416. “Lignum aloes.” Against any argument drawn from the italic use of Hews in Son. 20, and its not being italicised in its first use in the same line, nor anywhere else in Shakespeare, the fact that Alloes appears in The Lover’s Complaint, as well as do other words in the Sonnets, has been brought forward. But without entering in detail into the question, I would note that three substantives, all names of vegetables, are here mentioned, and that this alone is placed in italics. So, in the Appendix II, 1665, pp. 67-8, we have a number of aromatics named, but this only, and only on its second occurrence, is with Sperma Ceti placed in italics—the reason, I presume, being, that as a medicine, a more strange and less-known name to the commonalty, and a Latin one, it was treated as a quoted proper name.

P. 497. “He burned his booke.” A precedent, as was Acts ix, 19, for Prospero’s “I’ll drown my book”, when he left his island.

P. 498. “Bicause they want.” One example, among many, from Elizabethan and present authors, and from provincial use, where want = “be”, or “are without”. This in part explains Macbeth, iii, 6, where Lennox exclaims, “Who cannot want the thought?” The true difficulty lies in the use of the negative “cannot”. But while a more correct style would have “can”, the more colloquial and hasty use of the former was, I think, permissible, just as was the use of the double negative where it was not meant to be, as it usually was, emphatic. Moreover, it gives here a double or ambiguous sense, such as, I think, Lennox wanted to express.

P. 504. “One instant or pricke of time.” Illustrates somewhat differently than I think is usually explained, “the prick of noon”. R. and Jul., and other places.

P. 516. “Diverse shapes and forms.” Shakespeare follows this ruling when he makes Ariel and his co-spirits assume different shapes, though some modern critics find fault because he being on some occasions invisible, these changes are, in their opinion, unnecessary. But the appearance of these spirits, sometimes as invisible, sometimes as visible, sometimes in spirit form, sometimes as Juno or Ceres, sometimes as harpies, is not only in accordance with the then beliefs as to airy spirits, but to me, and to those who have seen their representatives, it is more pleasant to see them in forms appropriate to their office, besides bringing their spiritual existence and power more vividly before us. Critics here, as well as elsewhere, too often insist on considering Shakespeare as the author of books to be read, and not of plays to be acted and seen.

P. 518. “This devil Beelzebub.” So seems to have thought Macbeth’s porter.

P. 520. “The cruell angel.” Here in Prov. 17 [11] we have one of the principles on which Macbeth was planned and executed.

P. 533. “Soules appeare oftenest by night;... never to the whole multitude, also may be seene of some[,] and of some other in that presence not seene at all.” Here is proof of the folk-lore correctness of the ghost appearing only when Marcellus and Bernardo were alone on watch, and of his being afterwards invisible to the Queen in her own chamber, though visible to Hamlet while there in obedience to her summons.

Appendix II, P. 46, par. 8. “But it is rarely known.” Though this is after Shakespeare’s time, the belief, in all probability, was in existence in his day, and shows how the writer of the first and unknown Hamlet followed in Hamlet’s ghost the beliefs of his day.

“Feature.” An example of its being used for the make of a man, and not merely of the features of his countenance, to which it is now appropriated; but till I can find—and as yet I have found none, though I have looked out for it—an example of feature used for things inanimate, I cannot accept the interpretation of song or sonnet in Touchstone’s As You Like It, iii, 3, 3. Feature here, as any shape or proportions, is perfectly intelligible. Did it refer to verse we should expect “features”. From no man, as Touchstone is depicted by Shakespeare, could we less expect verse-making, and all his reference to it in this passage may readily have arisen from his reference to his new situation as like that of the honest poet Ovid among the Goths. Had he been poetical and given her verses, he could not have explained to Aubrey that he, being a poet, only feigned to love her.

P. 198. “Primus secundus.” This goes far to show—proves, I think—that the Clown’s “Primo, secundo, tertio is a good play” (Tw. N., v, 1), a passage on which no commentator known to me has touched, thinking it a merely jocular remark, is, in fact, taken from a well-known “play” or game. What the game was is unknown to me, but children still use various numerals, provincial or otherwise, mingled with rhyme, to settle anything, as, for instance, who shall hide in the game of hide and seek.

P. 471. “Biggins.” Shows, as does 2 Hy. IV, iv, 5, 27, that, if not nightcaps, they meant, among other significations, caps worn at night and in bed, and that “homely” was not a generic epithet.

Introd. Rainolde Scot’s Will “bank or pond”. I note this because it may possibly help to some future interpretation of Iris’s words in the Tempest, iv, 1, 64, “The banks with pioned ... brims.”