tition is almost effete among civilized
nations, yet it still retains an important place in the religious
beliefs of savage and uncivilized communities.

CHAPTER IV.

DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE.

The state of popular feeling in past centuries with regard to the active
agency of devils has been well represented by Reginald Scot, who, in his
work on Witchcraft, has shown how the superstitious belief in demonology
was part of the great system of witchcraft. Many of the popular
delusions of this terrible form of superstition have been in a masterly
manner exposed by Shakespeare; and the scattered allusions which he has
given, illustrative of it, are indeed sufficient to prove, if it were
necessary, what a highly elaborate creed it was. Happily, Shakespeare,
like the other dramatists of the period, has generally treated the
subject with ridicule, showing that he had no sympathy with the grosser
opinions shared by various classes in those times, whether held by king
or clown. According to an old belief, still firmly credited in the
poet's day, it was supposed that devils could at any moment assume
whatever form they pleased that would most conduce to the success of any
contemplated enterprise they might have in hand; and hence the charge of
being a devil, so commonly brought against innocent and harmless persons
in former years, can easily be understood. Among the incidental
allusions to this notion, given by Shakespeare, Prince Hal ("1 Henry
IV.," ii. 4) tells Falstaff "there is a devil haunts thee in the
likeness of an old fat man;" "an old white-bearded Satan." In the
"Merchant of Venice" (iii. 1) Salanio, on the approach of Shylock, says:
"Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he
comes in the likeness of a Jew."

Indeed, "all shapes that man goes up and down in" seem to have been at
the devil's control, a belief referred to in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2):

"_Var. Serv._ What is a whoremaster, fool?

_Fool._ A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis
a spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a
lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe
than's artificial one: he is very often like a knight; and,
generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from
fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in."

A popular form assumed by evil spirits was that of a negro or Moor, to
which Iago alludes when he incites Brabantio t