SACRIFICIAL CONCLUSION And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out, Upon such sacrifice, my Cordelia, ... The gods themselves throw incense" (v. 3). 327 The times to which the drama refers are characterised by Gloucester, ""Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind" (iv. 1); and by Albany at the end : "The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. And the conclusion is like that of Shakespeare's sacrificial tragedies, such as "Romeo and Juliet," where the death of the chief actors has its effect in the conversion of the survivors. Albany is of the faction of Lear's two daughters, he fights against him and Cordelia; yet at the conclusion he is left as the true representative of Lear, whose cause is triumphant, though to secure its triumph he and Cordelia perish. But an objection to Shakespeare's Catholicism requiring a somewhat detailed examination is commonly found in Edgar's feigned madness; the names he gives to his supposed devil being the same as those uttered by the possessed persons who were exorcised by Father William Weston, S.J. The exorcisms in question took place chiefly at Sir George Peckham's at Denham, near Uxbridge, and at Lord Vaux's at Hackney, and were made known to the world in Harsnet's "Popish Impostures," in the account there given of the trial of the parties concerned in the Ecclesiastical Court. Harsnet held successively the sees of Chichester, Norwich, and York, and in his capacity first of secretary then of judge in the Ecclesiastical Court, he seems to have accepted any witness, however worthless and false, who would help to obtain the verdict he desired. His book is full of the vilest calumnies. A true account of the possessions was given by Father Weston himself in his autobiography, edited by Father Morris, S.J. Our business, however, is only to inquire into the nature of Shakespeare's belief in good and evil spirits, as set forth in his writings, and to see whether the nomenclature of Edgar's devils is an argument in favour of his Protestantism. The belief in good and evil spirits forms an essential part of the Christian revelation, and was held by Puritans and Protestants as well as by Catholics in Shakespeare's time. Harsnett in fact prosecuted Darrell the preacher for exorcising seven persons in the Puritan family of Starchie, and Hartley was put to death for exorcising in the same 1 "Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers," chap. vii., 2nd series. POSSESSED PERSONS 329 household. The 72nd canon of the English Church forbidding exorcisms was passed in consequence of the Darrell case. Belief in evil spirits, like every other doctrine of faith, is open to superstitious corruption and to abuse for servile ends. From the days of Simon Magus there have been conjuring quacks, and true exorcists; simulated cases of possession, and real demoniacs. But superstition points to a basis of fact, and it is proper to a sound judgment to be able to distinguish truth from imposture by the character of the evidence adduced. Thus, Blessed Thomas More, as shrewd, learned, and experienced a lawyer as any in the England of the sixteenth century, after recounting the pretended cure of Simcox ("2 Henry IV.," ii. 1) already related, proceeds to say that as false jewels do not disprove the existence of precious stones, but show the necessity of precaution in judging them, and of applying proper tests, so it is with miracles. "You do not," he says, "mistrust St. Peter for Judas;" and he proceeds to relate a case of possession in the person of a daughter of Sir Roger Wentworth, who was cured by Our Lady of Ipswich under circumstances which, in his judgment, attested its reality. "There was," he says, "in this matter no pretext of begging; no possibility of counterfeiting; no simpleness in the seers, her father, and others right honourable and rich, sore abashed at seeing such sad changes in their children. The great number of witnesses, many of great worship, wisdom, and good experience, and the maid herself, too young to feign, and the fashion itself too strange for any man to feign. Finally, the virgin herself was so moved in mind by the miracle" that for aught her father could do, "she forsook the world, and professed religion in a very good and noble company of the Minoresses, where she hath lived well and virtuously ever since."1 Now we think Shakespeare's view of preternatural manifestation was like that of More. He knows how to condemn and expose the false conjuring of Pinch, or the pretended sorceries of Southwell and Bolingbroke. He may complain with Hotspur that such "skimble skamble" credulity as Glendower's puts him from the faith," or is a scandal to religion, or through the mouth of Mrs. Page he may expose the old wives' tales how "The superstitious idle-headed elf Received, and did deliver to our age, This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth." He can embody, in the comic, good-natured satire of "Midsummer-Night's Dream," the popular belief in beneficent elves and fairies, or weave into the woof of his tragedy the superstitions prevalent on witchcraft. Yet he can speak with unfeigned respect of the remedial exorcisms of the Abbess, and make the whole action of his mightiest drama hinge on 1 Works, 137. the apparition of a blessed spirit. He can recount as an attested fact the numberless cures worked by St. Edward and the cure of the king by Helena's aid. Nor are these merely chance poetic expressions. Shakespeare's belief in the spiritual world is attested by the fact that the functions he assigns to the angels are in strict accordance with Catholic theology. Their songs are the harmony of Heaven, and "they tune the music of the spheres" ("Merchant of Venice," V. 1). They are invoked as "blessed ministers from above" ("Measure for Measure," v. 1), as "ministers of grace" ("Hamlet," i. 4), as "heavenly guards (“Hamlet,” iii. 4); though in constant conflict with evil, they remain unstained. Their love for men, pure, disinterested, divine, furnishes the type of Catherine's conjugal fidelity. "He counsels a divorce: a loss of her That like a jewel has hung twenty years They shed tears on the crimes and disorders of man, "But man, proud man! Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep." -Measure for Measure, ii. 2 ; and they rejoice over his repentance. |