[In the following essay, Briggs examines the satire of magic and its practitioners in seventeenth-century dramas.]

The dramatists of the seventeenth century found good material in the practitioners of magic, the exorcists, astrologers and pretenders to the art of alchemy that abounded in those troubled days. From medieval times we find records of superstitious practices, and alchemy in particular enjoyed more serious repute in medieval and Tudor England than it did in the seventeenth century. The ferment of beliefs after the Reformation, the various strands of thought and the spread of scientific inquiry brought many things to the surface that had been quietly out of sight for centuries. We can ascertain from the diaries of some of the fashionable magicians how well-grounded the satires were. Some of the Chancery cases are also illuminating. In The Anatomy of Puck I have cited the autobiographical writings of Forman, Dee and Lilly as evidence of fairy trickery. Dee was an honest, if credulous, man, but the same cannot be said of his assistant, Kelly, who was exposed to all the temptations that beset a medium, and seems to have yielded to most of them. He undoubtedly made unscrupulous use of Dee's credulity, and he was even accused of an attempt at necromancy in the churchyard at Walton-le-Dale.

This diabolicall questioning of the dead, for the knowledge of future accidents, was put in practice by the foresaid Kelley; who, vpon a certaine night, in the Parke of Walton in le dale, in the county of Lancaster, with one Paul Waring, (his fellow companion in such deeds of darknesse) inuocated some of the infernall regiment, to know certaine passages in the life, as also what might be known by the deuils foresight, of the manner and time of the death of a noble young Gentleman, as then in his wardship. The blacke ceremonies of that night being ended, Kelley demanded of one of the Gentleman's seruants, what corse was the last buried in Law-Churchyard, a Church thereunto adioyning, who told him of a poore man that was buried there but the same day. Hee and the said Waring, intreated this foresaid seruant, to go with them to the grave of the man so lately interred, which hee did; and withall did helpe them to digge up the carcase of the poore caitiffe, whom by their incantations, they made him (or rather some euill spirit through his Organs,) to speake, who deliuered strange predictions concerning the said Gentleman.

[J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, 1631]

Dee and Kelly travelled about Europe together for some years with their two wives. Finally Dee returned to England and died there in poverty, and Kelly remained in Germany to enjoy a short time of reputation and prosperity. After that he fell into disgrace with the Emperor, and the story went that he died after breaking his leg in an attempt to escape from Prague.

These two were probably the last English Alchemists to enjoy any considerable credit. The researches of the true alchemists did much for Science, but already in Chaucer's time the quacks among them were beginning to be suspect, and in King Henry VIII's reign Thomas Norton exposed the false alchemist in his Ordinal:

The fals man walketh from Towne to Towne,
For the most parte in a threed-bare-Gowne;
Ever searching with diligent awaite
To winn his praye with some fals deceit
Of swearing and leasing; such will not cease,
To say how they can Silver plate increase.
And ever they rayle with perjury;
Saying how they can Multiplie
Gold and silver, and in such wise
With promise thei please the Covetise,
And Causeth his minde to be on him sett,
Then Falsehood and Covetise be well mett.
But afterwards within a little while
The Multiplier doth him beguile
With his faire promise, and with his fals othes,
The Covetise is brought to threed-bare clothes.

If we may judge from Norton and from such indications as William Stapleton's letter England at that time was seething with greedy attempts to make or find treasure. Norton's Ordinal was written to protect the ignorant from unskilled and fraudulent practitioners.

And merveile not Lords, ne ye freinds all,
Why so noble a Scyence, as all Men this Arte call,
Is here set out in English blunt and rude,
For this is soe made to teach a Multitude
Of rude people which delen with this Werkes,
Ten Thousand Laymen against ten able Clerks:
Whereby yearely greate Riches in this Londe
Is lewdly lost, as Wisemen understonde;
And manie men of Everie degree
Yearely be brought to great Povertee.
Cease Laymen, cease, be not in follie ever;
Lewdnes to leave is better late than never.

By the seventeenth century the vogue for Alchemy had somewhat declined, though Ben Jonson's Alchemist shows that some dupes and pretenders were still to be found. The Astrologers were still high in popular credit, however, and William Lilly may be taken as a prime example of them. He enjoyed considerable reputation in his lifetime both as an astrologer and a man of learning; but he seems, even from his own account, to have been almost as shady a character as Kelly himself. In the Civil War and Commonwealth times his predictions were favourable to the Parliamentarians, and for this reason, or possibly because he may have acted as their secret agent, he was granted an annuity by the Parliament. His contemporary, Booker, was also Roundhead, and the Royalists tried to counter the influence of these two almanack makers by employing George Naworth, or Wharton, but he seems never to have been so popular as Booker or Lilly. Butler satirized Lilly in Hudibras under the name of Sidrophel.

Do not our great Reformers use
This Sidrophel to foreboad News?
To write of Victories next year,
And Castles taken yet i' th' Air,
Of Battels fought at Sea, and Ships
Sunk, two years hence, the last Eclips?
A Total O'erthrow giv'n the King
In Cornwal, Horse and Foot, next Spring?
And has he not point-blank foretold
Whats'er the close Committee would?
Made Mars and Saturn for the Cause,
The Moon for fundamental Laws?
The Ram, and Bull, and Goat declare
Against the Book of Common Pray'r?
The Scorpion take the Protestation

And Bear engage for Reformation?
Made all the Royal Stars recant,
Compound, and take the Covenant?

A few lines later on Butler scoffs at the learning on which Lilly prided himself.

He had been long t'wards Mathematicks,
Opticks, Philosophy and Staticks,
Magick, Horoscopy, Astrology,
And was old Dog at Physiology;
But as a Dog that turns the spit,
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet,
To climb the Wheel; but all in vain,
His own weight brings him down again:
And still he's in the self-same place,
Where at his setting out he was.
So in the Circle of the Arts
Did he advance his nat'ral Parts;
Till falling back still, for retreat,
He fell to Juggle, Cant, and Cheat…
H'had read Dee's Prefaces before
The Dev'l, and Euclids o'er and o'er.
And all th'Intregues, 'twixt him and Kelly,
Lescus and th'Emperor (would) tell ye.
But with the Moon was more familiar
Than e'er the Almanack well wilier.
Her secrets understood so clear,
That some believ'd he had been there.

Lilly, though he had been poorly bred, was proud of his schooling and his early bent towards knowledge. In his autobiography he tells of it in some detail, though his early bent seems to have been towards the classics.

For the two last Years of my being at School, I was in the highest Form in the School, and chiefest of that Form; I could then speak Latin as well as English; could make Extempore Verses upon any Theme; all Kinds of Verses, Hexameter, Pentameter, Phaleuciacks, Iambicks, Sapphicks, etc. so that if any Scholars from remote Schools came to dispute, I was Ringleader to dispute with them; I could cap Verses, etc. If any Minister came to examine us, I was brought forth against him, nor would I argue with him unless in the Latin Tongue, which I found few of them could well speak without breaking Priscian's Head; which if once they did, I would complain to my Master, None bene intelligit Linguam Latinam, nec prorsus loquitur. In the Derivation of Words I found most of them defective, nor indeed were any of them good Grammarians.

Then, as later, Lilly's quick wit seems to have served him well, but he sounds an intolerable prig at this time, and indeed he was reared in the strictest Puritanism; but his poverty led him to take service in London, where he fell into dubious company, and at last took up Astrology and Magic. He tells us how he was first introduced to this study.

It happened on one Sunday 1632, as my self and a Justice of Peace's Clerk were, before Service, discoursing of many Things, he chanced to say, that such a Person was a great Scholar, nay, so learned, that he could make an Almanack, which to me then was strange: One Speech begot another, till, at last, he said, he could bring me acquainted with one Evans in Gun-Powder-Alley, who had formerly lived in Staffordshire, that was an excellent wise Man, and study'd the Black Art. The same week after we went to see Mr. Evans; when we came to his House, he having been drunk the Night before, was upon his Bed, if it be lawful to call that a Bed whereon he then lay; he roused up himself, and, after some Complements, he was content to instruct me in Astrology; I attended his best Opportunities for seven or eight Weeks, in which time I could set a Figure perfectly.

Lilly did not confine himself to Astrology, he seems to have covered much the same ground as Subtle did, except that he was more prosperous, having made a match with his master's widow, and that by his time Alchemy had gone out of fashion. Otherwise Subtle is a good portrait of him, hardly caricatured. Jonson's alchemist was visited by Sir Epicure Mammon, a covetous and grandiose knight, and by the representatives of a sect of Puritans, both seeking the Philosopher's Stone; by a gamester who wanted a familiar spirit to direct his play—this request had been made to magicians from medieval times;—by a druggist, asking directions about a propitious aspect for his new shop and appropriate conjurations to inscribe above the counters; by a boy who wanted to become a duellist—this was a hit at Roaring Boys who are so often mentioned in contemporary drama—by a maid who wished to know if she would ever take precedency over her mistress; by a sailor's wife asking her husband's where abouts, and by a widow to know her future fortunes in marriage. He cozens Sir Epicure Mammon by tempting him with a woman, and then pretending that the necessary chastity had been violated, and the spells undone.

SUBTLE. How! What sight is here!
Close deeds of darknesse, and that shunne the light!
Bring him againe. Who is he? What, my sonne!
O, I haue liu'd too long!

MAMMON. Nay good, deare father,
There was no vnchast purpose.

SUBTLE. Not? and flee me,
When I come in?

MAMMON. That was my error.

SUBTLE. Error?
Guilt, guilt, my sonne. Giue it the right name.
No maruaile,
If I found check in our great worke within,
When such affaires as these were managing!

MAMMON. Why, haue you so?

SUBTLE. It has stood still this halfe houre:
And all the rest of our lesse workes gone back.
Where is the instrument of wickednesse,
My lewd false drudge?

MAMMON. Nay, good sir, blame not him.
Beleeue me,' twas against his will, or knowledge.
I saw her by chance.

SUBTLE. Will you commit more sinne
T'excuse a varlet?

MAMMON. By my hope,' tis true, sir.

SUBTLE. Nay, then I wonder lesse, if you, for whom
The blessing was prepar'd, would so tempt heauen:
And loose your fortunes.

MAMMON. Why sir?

SUBTLE. This 'll retard
The worke, a month at least.

MAMMON. Why, if it doe,
What remedie? but thinke it not, good father:
Our purposes were honest.

SUBTLE. As they were
So the reward will proue (a great crack and noise within.)
How now! Aye me.
God, and all Saints be good to vs. (re-enter FACE.)
What's that?

FACE. O, sir, we are defeated! all the workes,
Are flowne in fumo: every glasse is burst.
Fornace, and all rent downe! as if a bolt
Of thunder had beene driuen through the house.
Retorts, Receiuers, Pellicanes, Bolt-heads,
All strooke in shiuers (SUBTLE falls downe as in a swoune.)

[The Alchemist. Works of Ben Jonson, 1937, Vol. V, act IV, sc. v]

Lilly, like Subtle, lays stress on the necessity of pure living for success with spirits, indeed this was a commonplace with magicians; and the questions his customers asked were of much the same kind. They came for his help in finding hidden treasure, and for the recovery of thefts; husbands and wives consulted him as to which should die first; they asked for success in love, to know lucky days for bargains or enterprises, the whereabouts of their friends and the cure of sickness. People were cured of epilepsy, skin diseases and the haunting of spirits by amulets, questions were resolved either by astrology or by crystal-gazing with the help of a medium, and spirits, more or less amenable according to the purity and psychic power of the conjurer, were raised at the request of the more influential patrons. The many surviving magical manuscripts show us how seriously this was taken. Some of them dealt with angels, some with devils, some with unspecified spirits or elementals; sometimes, as when a bone or piece of body was taken, we have a modified form of Kelly's necromancy; sometimes only churchyard mould was used. There were many charms for driving spirits from the ground where treasure was hid. All these seem to have survived alchemical practices. One of the latest poetic references to the trickster alchemists is to be found in Cartwright's Poems, and perhaps it is already a literary allusion.

Come! I will undeceive thee, they that tread
Those vain Aëriall waies,
Are like young Heyrs and Alchymists misled
To waste their Wealth and Daies,
For searching thus to be for ever Rich
They only find a Med'cine for the itch.

There may be a reference here to the ritual purity enjoined on Sir Epicure.

Shirley, in his borrowing from The Alchemist makes fun of another superstition. The fool, Pazzorello, wishes to be made shot-free, like the soldier mentioned by Aubrey; and Flavia is disguised not as a fairy but a witch.

DIDIMO. That is she.

PAZZORELLO. That old hag?

DIDIMO. Good words; she has come two hundred mile to-day upon a distaff, salute her, she expects it.

PAZZORELLO. Would you have me kiss the devil?

DIDIMO. Do, as I say. —
This is the gentleman, my loving aunt,
For whom I do beseech your powerful spells.

FLAVIA. To make him slick (stick) and shot free?

DIDIMO. Right, dear aunt,
He is a precious friend of mine, and one
That will be ready servant to your pleasures,
At midnight, or what hour you please to call him.

PAZZORELLO. Thou wouldst not have me lie with the old witch?
What a generation of hobgoblins should we have together!

DIDIMO. Nor, for this benefit, shall you find him (not) only
Obedient to yourself, but very dutiful
To any devil you have.

FLAVIA. He is welcome, child.

PAZZORELLO. What a saltpetre breath she has!

FLAVIA. Where is Mephistophilus?

PAZZORELLO. No more devils, if you love me.

FLAVIA. I must have some to search him.

This is, of course, the prelude to removing his money and jewels; and he then receives even rougher treatment than Dapper.

FLAVIA. Now rub his temples, forehead eke,
Give his nose a gentle tweak,
Strike off paleness, and bestow
On either cheek a lusty blow;
Take him by the hair, and pull it:
Now his head's free from sword and bullet.

PAZZORELLO. What will they do with the rest of my body? (aside)

FLAVIA. Grasp his neck till he groan twice.

PAZZORELLO. Oh, oh!

FLAVIA. Enough, now let the young man rise.
Thus on his shoulder I dispense
My wand to keep all bullets thence;…
Farewell to both! For now must I
On my winged gennet flie.—
Suckle and Hoppo, fetch long strides
By your mistress as she rides. (Exit FLAVIA.)

PAZZORELLO. Whither is she gone now?

DIDIMO. Home to a witches' upsitting; she's
there by this time.

PAZZORELLO. Where?

DIDIMO. In Lapland; she will cross the sea in an egg-shell, and upon land hath a thousand ways to convey herself in a minute; I did but whistle, and she came to me.

PAZZORELLO. She knows your whistle belike.

[The Young Admiral. The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, 1833, Vol. III, Act IV, sc. i]

Flavia was well-read in witch plays, all her devils came from them. But, derivative though the scene may be, it attaches itself, as The Alchemist does, to a real contemporary superstition. The Alchemist is, however, the more realistic of the two, and is enriched by half the trickeries exposed in the Jacobean pamphlets, and richest of all in its alchemical talk. John Read, in his Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art, while admitting the accuracy of the jargon, does not believe that Subtle ever did any practical alchemy. It is clear, however, from the opening quarrel that he was an alchemist, though a cheating one. Face says:

When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your mineralls, vegetalls, and animalls,
Your coniuring, cosning, and your dosen of trades,
Could not relieue your corps, with so much linnen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I ga' you count'nance, credit for your coales,
Your stills, your glasses, your materialls;
Built you a fornace, drew you customers,
Aduanc'd all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in.—

A little later he says, describing Subtle's trickeries:

Haue all thy tricks
Of cosning with a hollow cole, dust, scrapings,
Searching for things lost, with a sive, and sheeres,
Erecting figures, in your rowes of houses,
And taking in of shaddowes, with a glasse,
Told in red letters: And a face, cut for thee,
Worse than gamaliel ratsey's.

Evidently Subtle sometimes used a coal, or, as Surly later suggested, a hollow rod stopped with mercury, with silver or gold in it, which, when burnt away, left the metal exposed, and so led on his patrons with the hope of success. It was a famous trick of the quack alchemists. From this account Subtle had many strings to his bow; from the sieve and shears, which was almost amateur magic, to astrology and crystal gazing; but his chief occupation was in alchemy, and he had taught Face as he boasted, a handsome smattering of the jargon, which they displayed in the alchemical catechism recited before Ananias.

The Wise-woman of Hogsdon, in Heywood's play of that name, had no such skill, but depended solely on the information given by the credulity of her customers. It is a satire on the perennial willingness of human beings to help in cheating themselves in supernatural matters. Anyone who has ever played at fortune-telling can vouch for the accuracy of this part of Heywood's representation. If he is to be equally depended upon in his account of the Wise Woman's elaborate arrangements for forwarding illicit love affairs and disposing of unwanted babies, it is plain that there was some reason for the severity of the witch persecutions. It is surprising that so modest and respectable a girl as the first Luce should have been so well acquainted with her. The best description of her activities is given in her initiation of the Second Luce, who, disguised as a boy, has taken service with her.

LUCE. But Mistris, what meane all these womens pictures, hang'd here in your withdrawing roome?

WISEWO. Ile tell thee, Boy; marry thou must be secret. When any Citizens, or young Gentlemen come hither, under a colour to know their Fortunes, they looke upon these pictures, and which of them they best like, she is ready with a wet finger: here they have all the furniture belonging to a privat-chamber, bedde, bed-fellow and all; but mum, thou knowest my meaning, Iacke.

LUCE. But I see comming and going, Maids, or such as goe for Maids, some of them, as if they were ready to lie downe, sometimes two or three delivered in one night; then suddenly leave their Brats behind them, and conveigh themselves into the Citie againe: what becomes of their Children?

WISEWO. Those be Kitchin-maids, and Chamber-maids, and some-times good men's Daughters; who having catcht a clap, and growing near their time, get leave to see their friends in the Countrey, for a weeke or so: then hither they come, and for a matter of money, here they are delivered. I have a Midwife or two belonging to the house, and one Sir Boniface, a Deacon, that makes a shift to christen the Infants; we have poore, honest and secret Neighbours, that stand for common Gossips. But dost thou not know this?

LUCE. Yes, now I doe: but what after becomes of the poore Infants?

WISEWO. Why, in the night we send them abroad, and lay one at this man's doore, and another at that, such as are able to keep them; and what after becomes of them, we inquire not. And this is another string to my Bowe.

LUCE. Most strange, that woman's brain should apprehend
Such lawlesse, indirect and horrid meanes
For covetous gaine! How many unknowne Trades
Women and men are free of, which they never
Had Charter for? but Mistris, are you so
Cunning as you make your selfe: you can
Neither write nor reade, what doe you with those
Bookes you so often turn over?

WISEWO. Why tell the leaves; for to be ignorant, and seeme ignorant, what greater folly?

LUCE. Beleeve me, this is a cunning Woman; neither hath shee her name for nothing, who out of her ignorance can foole so many that thinke themselves wise. But wherefore have you built this little Closet close to the doore, where sitting, you may heare every word spoken, by all such as aske for you.

WISEWO. True, and therefore I built it: if any knock, you must to the doore and question them, to find what they come about, if to this purpose or to that. Now they ignorantly telling thee their errand, which I sitting in my Closet, overheare, presently come forth, and tell them the cause of their comming, with every word that hath past betwixt you in private: which they admiring, and thinking it to be miraculous, by their report I become thus famous.

[Thomas Heywood, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638, Act III, sc. ii]

Like Lilly the Wise Woman gives a list of her predecessors and contemporaries:

You have heard of Mother Nottingham, who for her time, was prettily well skill'd in casting of Waters: and after her, Mother Bombye; and then there is one Hatfield in Pepper-Alley, hee doth prettie well for a thing that's lost. There's another in Cole-harbour, that's skill'd in the Planets. Mother Sturton in Goulden-Lane is for Fore speaking; Mother Phillips of the Banke-side, for the weaknesse of the backe: and then there's a very reverent Matron on Clerkenwell-Green, good at many things: Mistris Mary on the Banke-side is for recting a Figure: and one (what doe you call her) in Westminster, that practiseth the Booke and the Key, and the Sive and the Sheares: and all doe well, according to their talent. For my self, let the world speake.

This, though it contains some of the traditional witches, is evidently meant to be a catalogue of shabby and disreputable practitioners of the type of Lilly's first master Evans; though Evans was more learned than the Wise Woman. Lilly gives us a lively account of him:

He was by Birth a Welchman, a Master of Arts, and in Sacred Orders; he had formerly had a Cure of Souls in Staffordshire, but was now come to try his Fortunes at London, being in a manner enforced to fly for some Offences very scandalous committed by him in these Parts, where he had lately lived; for he gave Judgment upon things lost, the only Shame of Astrology: He was the most Saturnine Person my Eyes ever beheld, either before I practised or since; of a middle Stature, broad Forehead, Beetle-brow'd, thick Shoulders, flat Nosed, full Lips, downlook'd, black curling stiff Hair, splay-footed; to give him his Right, he had the most piercing Judgment naturally upon a Figure of Theft, and many other Questions, that I ever met withal; yet for Money he would willingly give contrary Judgments, was much addicted to Debauchery, and then very abusive and quarrelsome, seldom without a black Eye, or one Mischief or other. This is the same Evans who made so many Antimonial Cups, upon the Sale whereof he principally subsisted; he understood Latin very well, the Greek Tongue not at all: He had some Arts above, and beyond Astrology, for he was well versed in the Nature of Spirits, and had many times used the circular way of invocating.

The Wise Woman pretended to the art of astrology, but disavowed the dangerous traffic with spirits:

BOYSTER. Can'st conjure?

WISE WOMAN. That's a foule word! But I can tell you your Fortune, as they say; I have some little skill in Palmistry, but never had to doe with the devill.

It was a traffic too near witchcraft for her to claim it; and in the same way Subtle only gives the fly familiar under a promise of secrecy. Lilly and Evans, however, managed it with impunity, by claiming to have to do with angels.

The Wise Woman had her pretensions to learning; for she says: "In, in: Ile but read a little of Ptolomie and Erra Pater; and when I have cast a Figure, Ile come to you presently." The second Luce, however, who is Heywood's mouthpiece in this, entirely disbelieves in her skill, though she is not sceptical about occult arts in properly skilled hands.

Tis strange the Ignorant should be thus fool'd.
What can this Witch, this Wizard, or old Trot,
Doe by Inchantment, or by Magicke spell?
Such as professe that Art should be deepe Schollers.
What reading can this simple Woman have?
'Tis palpable grosse foolery.

The Alchemist and The Wise Woman of Hogsdon are two plays which treat of this type of quackery at the greatest length, but references to it are so common throughout the dramatists as to lead one to suppose that the abuse was a rampant one. Massinger in The City Madam, has an astrologer, Stargaze, something after Lilly's type, but rather more domesticated. He is Lady Frugal's tame astrologer.

You shall first know him, then admire him
For a man of many parts, and those parts rare ones.
He's every thing, indeed; parcel physician,
And as such proscribes my diet, and fortels
My dreams when I eat potatoes; parcel poet,
And sings encomiums to my virtues sweetly;
My antecedent, or my gentleman-usher,
And as the stars move, with that due proportion
He walks before me: but an absolute master
In the calculation of nativities:
Guided by that ne'er-erring science call'd,
Judicial Astrology.

[The City Madam. The Plays of Philip Massinger, ed. F. Cunningham, Act II, sc. ii]

Fletcher's references to magicians and astrologers are a good example of his general attitude towards the supernatural. He uses it much as a nineteenth-century author would have done, for decoration. From his own poem Upon an Honest Man's Fortune we know him to have disbelieved in astrology, and his fairly frequent allusions to it are generally of trickery or delusion.

In Thierry and Theoderet the wicked doctor, Lecure, disguises himself as an astrologer, and by a false prophecy tries to procure the death of the queen. Vecchio in The Chances, is as much an impostor, though an amiable one. His manipulation brings about the happy ending, but it seems he had previously made profit out of fraud.

Those your Grace saw,
Which you thought spirits, were my Neighbours Children
Whom I instruct in Grammar here, and Musick;
Their shapes, the Peoples fond opinions,
Believing I can conjure, and oft repairing
To know of things stoln from 'em, I keep about me,
And always have in readiness, by conjecture
Out of their own confessions, I oft tell 'em
Things that by chance have fallen out so.

[John Fletcher, The Chances. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Vol. IV, Act V, sc. iii]

Both these are alterations of the material used. The historical foundation of Thierry and Theoderet provided probably by de Serres, is very slight, with no mention of this particular incident, and Fletcher has changed the end of La Senora Cornelia, from which the plot of The Chances was taken. The mock conjurer, Vecchio, replaces a priest, who was in the habit of showing his guests curiosities, but with no hint of magic. This is characteristic of Fletcher. Wherever possible he gave a supernatural, or mock supernatural, turn to his plots, but with no appearance of belief behind it; his use of the subject was purely decorative.

In Day's Law Tricks Polymetus is a quick astrologer, and in Randolph's Jealous Lovers Demetrius is disguised as an astrologer, and Ballio professes to be able to confer invincibility in love:

I'll teach you in one fortnight by Astrologie
To make each Burgesse in all Thebes—your Cuckold,

and the Epilogue is couched in astrological language: "I find by the horoscope, and the elevation of the bright Aldeboran a Sextile opposition; and that th'Almutes is inclining to the enemies house."

One of Randolph's poems is full of references to magicians, contemporary and legendary, as well as to astrologers in general, to Merlin, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Dr. Lambe, and Dame Eleanor Davies, the queer, crazed wife of Sir John Davies, whose predictions frightened Henrietta Maria and annoyed King Charles.

Is Frier Bacon nothing but a name?
Or is all Witchcraft brain'd with Doctor Lamb?
Does none the learned Bungies soul inherit?
Has Madam Davers, dispossest her spirit?
Or will the Welshmen give me leave to say
There is no faith in Merlin? none, though they
Dare swear each letter Creed, and pawn their blood
He prophecied an age before the flood
Of holy Dee, which was as some have said
Ten generations ere the Ark was made.
All your predictions but impostures are,
And you but prophecy of things that were.
And you Coelestiall juglers that pretend
You are acquainted with the stars, and send
Your spies to search what's done in every sphear,
Keeping your State-intelligences there;
Your art is all deceit, for now I see
Against the Rules of deep Astrology,
Girls may be got when Mars his power doth vaunt,
And boyes when Venus is Predominant.

There are similar references in Master's poem On Lute Strings Cat-Eaten, which is…full of folklore references, and … much less known than it deserves to be…. Davenant refers to Booker and Allestree, a pair of popular almanack makers. These almanacks and rehashing of old prophecies flooded the press at this time, and were eagerly read by the unlearned, even among the puritans. They survive to the present day, though Old Moore has outlived Merlin in popularity.

Another type of quack was the pretended exorcist, like Dr. Pinch the Conjurer in The Comedy of Errors. It was against these that Samuel Harsnett wrote his two books, A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrell (1599) and A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603). Sometimes these exorcists worked, like Dr. Pinch, on an unwilling patient, sometimes on an hysterical subject who began by inventing experiences and would afterwards gladly have escaped from treatment, like Sara Williams and her sister Fid; sometimes, as in the cases of Grace Sowerbutts and William Perry, they trained an accomplice to feign possession so that they might show their skill. In the Declaration of Popish Impostures Harsnett worked on a cold trail, for the case was some years old, and his chief source of evidence was an hysterical girl, very apt to say what gave most satisfaction to her hearer. It is probable that the priests who assembled at Sir George Peckham's house, at Lord Vaux's or at the Earl of Lincoln's were honestly doing their best for their patients, however mistaken their methods. The same does not seem to be true of the other cases, though some of these, too, may have been the dupes of their patients. For there were those who feigned possession on their own account, either to satisfy their malice or for gain. Among these were the beggars, after the type of Mad Tom, the disguise assumed by Edgar in King Lear. These Bedlam Men, real or pretended madmen who were supposed to be possessed, and who roved about the country begging, must have added a very real terror to quiet places. The Abram Cove, as he was called, was often treated in the cant literature of the times. One of the fullest descriptions of him is in Dekker's O Per Se O.

The abram Cove is a lusty strong rogue, who walketh with a slade about his quarroms (a sheet about his body) trining (hanging) to his hams, bandolierwise, for all the world as cutpurses and thieves wear their sheets to the gallows, in which their trulls are to bury them…. These, walking up and down the country, are more terrible to women and children, than the name of Rawhead and Bloody-bones, Robin Goodfellow, or any other hobgoblin….

And to colour their villainy the better, every one of these abrams hath a several gesture in playing his part. Some make an horrid noise, hollowly sounding; some whoop, some hollow, some show only a kind of wild distracted ugly look, uttering a simple kind of maunding, with these addition of words: 'Well and wisely'….

The second begins: 'Now dame, well and wisely, what will you give poor Tom now? One pound of your sheep's feathers to make poor Tom a blanket? Or one cutting of your sow side, no bigger than my arm? or one piece of your salt meat to make poor Tom a sharing horn? or one cross of your small silver towards the buying a pair of shoes—well and wisely.

There was a certain fashion for writing songs about these men at the beginning of the seventeenth century, which passed into folklore in such songs as the Somersetshire "Bedlam." The whole subject of madness was of great interest to the writers of that time, and a sub-product of it was an unusual number of nonsense verses, almost after a surrealistic style.

A very early play to deal with pretended exorcism was The Buggbears, one of the few manuscripts which escaped the destructive hand of Warburton's cook. It was translated from La Spiritata of Grazzini (1561) by one John Jeffrey, not otherwise known as an author. The editor, Warwick Bond, on the evidence of the orthography and metrical style, put it as early as 1566—60. If it was written as early as that the Author had not been long in assimilating Weyer's De Praestigiis Daemonum, which was first published in 1563. It almost seems as if Reginald Scot must have owed something to the list of spirits given by the mock conjurer. The trickster in this play was not a professional, the plot is about a trick, with pretended hauntings and exorcisms, played by some young men and servants on their covetous elders. It is the first of the sceptical plays.

Very near to the exorcists were the witch-finders, of which Matthew Hopkins made himself the type. The general hatred in which he was held gave rise to a story that he was swum himself at the last and proved to be a witch. One can only hope that the tale was true, though others said that he retired on the profits of his trade. Henry King, in a neat embroidery on the text "The sin of rebellion is as witchcraft" begins with a reference to Hopkins.

We need not here on skillfull Hopkins call,
The States allowed Witch-finder General,
For (though Rebellion wants no Cad nor Elfe,
But is a perfect Witchcraft in it self)
We could with little help of art reveal
Those learn'd Magitians with whom you deal:
We all Your Juggles both for Time and Place
From Darby-house to Westminster can Trace,
The Circle where the factious Jangle meet
To Trample Law and Gospel under feet;
In which, like Bells rung backward, they proclaim
The Kingdom by their Wild-fire set on flame,
And, quite Perverting their First Rules, invent
What mischief may be done by Parliament.
Ye know your holy Flamens, and can tell
What Spirits Vote within the Oracle:
Have found the Spells and Incantations too
By whose assistance You such Wonders do.

This contains references to a good many sides of the witchcraft belief, but the fullest verse comment on Hopkins and his methods comes from Butler.

Has not this present Parliament
A Legar to the Devil sent,
Fully empower'd to Treat about
Finding revolted Witches out:
And has not he, within a year,
Hang'd threescore of them in one Shire?
Some only for not being drown'd.
And some for sitting above ground,
Whole days and nights upon their breeches,
And feeling pain, were hang'd for Witches.
And some for putting Knavish tricks
Upon Green-Geese, and Turkey Chicks,
Or Pigs, that suddenly deceast,
Of griefe unnat'ral, as he guest;
Who after prov'd himself a Witch.
And made a Rod for his own breech.
[S. Butler, Hudibras]

Beyond these obvious quacks there were a certain number of old women who blackmailed their neighbours by claiming powers which they knew to be imaginary, but the most part of them believed themselves to be witches, and from the beginning to the middle of the century these claims became increasingly dangerous.