, which is not quite extinct, that
those who are defective or deformed are marked by nature as prone to
mischief. Thus, in "Richard III." (i. 3), Margaret says of Richard, Duke
of Gloster:

"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature, and the son of hell."

She calls him _hog_, in allusion to his cognizance, which was a boar. A
popular expression in Shakespeare's day for a deformed person was a
"stigmatic." It denoted any one who had been _stigmatized_, or burned
with an iron, as an ignominious punishment, and hence was employed to
represent a person on whom nature has set a mark of deformity. Thus, in
"3 Henry VI." (ii. 2), Queen Margaret says:

"But thou art neither like thy sire, nor dam;
But like a foul misshapen stigmatic
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,
As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings."

Again, in "2 Henry VI." (v. 1), young Clifford says to Richard:

"Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell."

We may note, too, how, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), mothers'
marks and congenital forms are deprecated by Oberon from the issue of
the happy lovers:

"And the blots of Nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be."[602]

[602] Cf. "King John" (iii. 1), where Constance gives a
catalogue of congenital defects.

Indeed, constant allusions are to be met with in our old writers
relating to this subject, showing how strong were the feelings of our
forefathers on the point. But, to give one further instance of this
superstition given by Shakespeare, we may quote the words of King John
(iv. 2), with reference to Hubert and his supposed murder of Prince
Arthur:

"A fellow by the hand of Nature mark'd,
Quoted, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind."

This adaptation of the mind to the deformity of the body concurs, too,
with Bacon's theory: "Deformed persons are commonly even with nature;
for, as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature, being void
of natural affection, and so they have their revenge on nature."

_Drowning._ The old superstition[603] of its being dangerous to save a
person from drowning is supposed, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, to be
alluded to in "Twelfth Night." It was