ellus and Bernardo were on their watch (i.
2),

"A figure like your father,
Arm'd at point, exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them."

Further on, when the ghost appears again, Hamlet addresses it thus:

"What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous."

In the graphic description of Banquo's ghost in "Macbeth" (iii. 4), we
have a further allusion to the same belief; one, indeed, which is
retained at the present day with as much faith as in days of old.

Shakespeare has several allusions to the notion which prevailed in days
gone by, of certain persons being able to exorcise or raise spirits.
Thus, in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2), Guiderius says over Fidele's grave:

"No exorciser harm thee."

In "Julius Caesar" (ii. 1), Ligarius says:

"Soul of Rome!
Brave son, derived from honourable loins!
Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up
My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things impossible;
Yea, get the better of them."

In "All's Well that Ends Well" (v. 3) the king says:

"Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is't real that I see?"

This superstition, it may be added, has of late years gained additional
notoriety since the so-called spiritualism has attracted the attention
and support of the credulous. As learning was considered necessary for
an exorcist, the schoolmaster was often employed. Thus, in the "Comedy
of Errors" (iv. 4), the schoolmaster Pinch is introduced in this
capacity.

Within, indeed, the last fifty years the pedagogue was still a reputed
conjurer. In "Hamlet" (i. 1), Marcellus, alluding to the ghost, says:

"Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio."

And in "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 1), Benedick says:

"I would to God some scholar would conjure her."

For the same reason exorcisms were usually practised by the clergy in
Latin; and so Toby, in the "Night Walker" of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii.
1), says:

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
And that will daunt the devil."

It was also necessary that spirits, when evoked, should be questioned
quickly, as they were supposed to be impatient of being interrogated.
Hence in "Macbeth" (iv. 1) the appari