meth up in the likeness of man, and answereth fullie as
touching anything which is hidden or secret." In the "Merry Wives of
Windsor" (ii. 2) it is mentioned by Ford in connection with Lucifer, and
again in "Henry V." (ii. 1) Nym tells Pistol: "I am not Barbason; you
cannot conjure me."

[88] Ibid. p. 378.

The names of the several fiends in "King Lear," Shakespeare is supposed
to have derived from Harsnet's "Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures" (1603).

_Flibbertigibbet_, one of the fiends that possessed poor Tom, is, we are
told (iv. 1), the fiend "of mopping and mowing, who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting-women." And again (iii. 4), "he begins at
curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin."

_Frateretto_ is referred to by Edgar (iii. 6): "Frateretto calls me; and
tells me, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and
beware the foul fiend."

_Hobbididance_ is noticed as "prince of dumbness" (iv. 1), and perhaps
is the same as Hopdance (iii. 6), "who cries," says Edgar, "in Tom's
belly for two white herring."

_Mahu_, like _Modo_, would seem to be another name for "the prince of
darkness" (iii. 4), and further on (iv. 1) he is spoken of as the fiend
"of stealing;" whereas the latter is described as the fiend "of murder."
Harsnet thus speaks of them: "Maho was general dictator of hell; and
yet, for good manners' sake, he was contented of his good nature to make
show, that himself was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in
Ma(ister) Maynie."

_Obidicut_, another name of the fiend known as Haberdicut (iv. 1).

_Smulkin_ (iii. 4). This is spelled Smolkin by Harsnet.

Thus, in a masterly manner, Shakespeare has illustrated and embellished
his plays with references to the demonology of the period; having been
careful in every case--while enlivening his audience--to convince them of
the utter absurdity of this degraded form of superstition.

CHAPTER V.

NATURAL PHENOMENA.

Many of the most beautiful and graphic passages in Shakespeare's
writings have pictured the sun in highly glowing language, and often
invested it with that sweet pathos for which the poet was so signally
famous. Expressions, for instance, such as the following, are ever
frequent: "the glorious sun" ("Twelfth Night," iv. 3); "heaven's
glorious sun" ("Love's Labour's Lost," i. 1); "gorgeous as the sun at
midsummer" ("1 Henry IV.," iv. 1); "all the world is cheered by