the evil spirits.

36. (i.) It is difficult to discover any classification of devils as well authenticated and as universally received as that of the angels introduced by Dionysius the Areopagite, which was subsequently imported into the creed of the Western Church, and popularized in Elizabethan times by Dekker's "Hierarchie." The subject was one which, from its nature, could not be settled ex cathedrâ, and consequently the subject had to grow up as best it might, each writer adopting the arrangement that appeared to him most suitable. There was one rough but popular classification into greater and lesser devils. The former branch was subdivided into classes of various grades of power, the members of which passed under the titles of kings, dukes, marquises, lords, captains, and other dignities. Each of these was supposed to have a certain number of legions of the latter class under his command. These were the evil spirits who appeared most frequently on the earth as the emissaries of the greater fiends, to carry out their evil designs. The more important class kept for the most part in a mystical seclusion, and only appeared upon earth in cases of the greatest emergency, or when compelled to do so by conjuration. To the class of lesser devils belonged the bad angel which, together with a good one, was supposed to be assigned to every person at birth, to follow him through life—the one to tempt, the other to guard from temptation;[1] so that a struggle similar to that recorded between Michael and Satan for the body of Moses was raging for the soul of every existing human being. This was not a mere theory, but a vital active belief, as the beautiful well-known lines at the commencement of the eighth canto of the second book of "The Faerie Queene," and the use made of these opposing spirits in Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," and in "The Virgin Martyr," by Massinger and Dekker, conclusively show.

[Footnote 1: Scot, p. 506.]

37. Another classification, which seems to retain a reminiscence of the origin of devils from pagan deities, is effected by reference to the localities supposed to be inhabited by the different classes of evil spirits. According to this arrangement we get six classes:—

(1.) Devils of the fire, who wander in the region near the moon.

(2.) Devils of the air, who hover round the earth.

(3.) Devils of the earth; to whom the fairies are allied.

(4.) Devils of the water.

(5.) Submundane devils.[1]

(6.) Lucifugi.

These devils' power and desire to injure mankind appear to have increased with the proximity of their location to the earth's centre; but this classification had nothing like the hold upon the popular mind that the former grouping had, and may consequently be dismissed with this mention.

[Footnote 1: Cf. I Hen. VI. V. iii. 10; 2 Hen. VI. I. ii. 77;
Coriolanus, IV. v. 97.]

38. The greater devils, or the most important of them, had distinguishing names—strange, uncouth names; some of them telling of a heathenish origin; others inexplicable and almost unpronounceable—as Ashtaroth, Bael, Belial, Zephar, Cerberus, Phoenix, Balam (why he?), and Haagenti, Leraie, Marchosias, Gusoin, Glasya Labolas. Scot enumerates seventy-nine, the above amongst them, and he does not by any means exhaust the number. As each arch-devil had twenty, thirty, or forty legions of inferior spirits under his command, and a legion was composed of six hundred and sixty-six devils, it is not surprising that the latter did not obtain distinguishing names until they made their appearance upon earth, when they frequently obtained one from the form they loved to assume; for example, the familiars of the witches in "Macbeth"—Paddock (toad), Graymalkin (cat), and Harpier (harpy, possibly). Is it surprising that, with resources of this nature at his command, such an adept in the art of necromancy as Owen Glendower should hold Harry Percy, much to his disgust, at the least nine hours

    "In reckoning up the several devils' names
    That were his lackeys"?

Of the twenty devils mentioned by Shakspere, four only belong to the class of greater devils. Hecate, the principal patroness of witchcraft, is referred to frequently, and appears once upon the scene.[1] The two others are Amaimon and Barbazon, both of whom are mentioned twice. Amaimon was a very important personage, being no other than one of the four kings. Ziminar was King of the North, and is referred to in "Henry VI. Part I.;"[2] Gorson of the South; Goap of the West; and Amaimon of the East. He is mentioned in "Henry IV. Part I.,"[3] and "Merry Wives."[4] Barbazon also occurs in the same passage in the latter play, and again in "Henry V."[5]—a fact that does to a slight extent help to bear out the otherwise ascertained chronological sequence of these plays. The remainder of the devils belong to the second class. Nine of these occur in "King Lear," and will be referred to again when the subject of possession is touched upon.[6]

[Footnote 1: It is perhaps worthy of remark that in every case except the allusion in the probably spurious Henry VI., "I speak not to that railing Hecate," (I Hen. VI. III. ii. 64), the name is "Hecat," a di-syllable.]

[Footnote 2: V. iii. 6.]

[Footnote 3: II. iv. 370.]

[Footnote 4: II. ii. 311.]

[Footnote 5: II. i. 57. Scot, p. 393.]

[Footnote 6: § 65.]

39. (ii.) It would appear that each of the greater devils, on the rare occasion upon which he made his appearance upon earth, assumed a form peculiar to himself; the lesser devils, on the other hand, had an ordinary type, common to the whole species, with a capacity for almost infinite variation and transmutation which they used, as will be seen, to the extreme perplexity and annoyance of mortals. As an illustration of the form in which a greater devil might appear, this is what Scot says of the questionable Balam, above mentioned: "Balam cometh with three heads, the first of a bull, the second of a man, and the third of a ram. He hath a serpent's taile, and flaming eies; riding upon a furious beare, and carrieng a hawke on his fist."[1] But it was the lesser devils, not the greater, that came into close contact with humanity, who therefore demand careful consideration.

[Footnote 1: p. 361.]

40. All the lesser devils seem to have possessed a normal form, which was as hideous and distorted as fancy could render it. To the conception of an angel imagination has given the only beautiful appendage the human body does not possess—wings; to that of a devil it has added all those organs of the brute creation that are most hideous or most harmful. Advancing civilization has almost exterminated the belief in a being with horns, cloven hoofs, goggle eyes, and scaly tail, that was held up to many yet living as the avenger of childish disobedience in their earlier days, together perhaps with some strength of conviction of the moral hideousness of the evil he was intended, in a rough way, to typify; but this hazily retained impression of the Author of Evil was the universal and entirely credited conception of the ordinary appearance of those bad spirits who were so real to our ancestors of Elizabethan days. "Some are so carnallie minded," says Scot, "that a spirit is no sooner spoken of, but they thinke of a blacke man with cloven feet, a paire of hornes, a taile, and eies as big as a bason."[1] Scot, however, was one of a very small minority in his opinion as to the carnal-mindedness of such a belief. He in his day, like those in every age and country who dare to hold convictions opposed to the creed of the majority, was a dangerous sceptic; his book was publicly burnt by the common hangman;[2] and not long afterwards a