II. 1. See Puck's behaviour, lb. III. 1. " Sometimes a horse I'll be ; . . .

sometime a fire." See also the Fool of the Walking Fire and Flibberti- gibbet, Lear, III. 2, and Ariel's tricks upon Stephano and his fellows in The Tempest, IV. I.
§ Comp. 3 Hen. VI. II. 1, 25—31.
|| Compare Prospero's account of his own performances in his speech to the elves (Temp. V. 1), and Macb. IV. 1, 44—61.
^[ " The God's throw stones of sulphur." — Cymb. V. 5. " Are there no stones in heaven ? " — Oth. V. 2. " Let the sky rain potatoes."— Mer. Wiv. V. 5.
** See of the portents before the murder of Caesar. " The noise of battle hurtled in the air." — Jul. Cces. II. 2.
tt " Away ! the foul fiend follows me ! . . . Who gives anything to poor Tom ? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame,
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 225
Tempestatibus se ingerunt, saith Rich. Argentine, as when a desperate man makes away ivith himself, which by hanging or drowning they frequently do. • . . . These can corrupt the air and cause plagues, sickness, storms, shipwrecks, fires, inundations." Such devils or aerial spirits can " sell winds to mariners f and cause tempests ; they consort with witches and serve magicians, 1 . . «*, Cardan's father had one of them (as he is not ashamed to relate), an aerial devil, bound to him for twenty-eight years."
Many other instances are given of men who employed such familiar spirits; Paracelsus being supposed to have one confined to his sword pommel, others who wore them in rings.
" Water-devils are those naiads or water-nymphs conversant with waters and rivers.§ The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their chaos, wherein they live ; some call them fairies, and say that Habundia is their queen ; these cause inundations, many times shipwrecks, and deceive men divers ways, as succuba, or otherwise, appearing most part (saith Tritemius) in women's shape. || Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with them ; and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them, jf Such a one as iEgaria, . . . Diana, Ceres, etc. Olaus Magnus hath a narration of a King of Sweden, that, having lost his company one day as he was hunting, met with these water-nymphs, or fairies, and was feasted by them ; and Hector Boethius tells of Macbeth and Banquo, two Scottish lords, that, as they were wandering in the woods, had their fortunes told them by three strange women.
"Terrestrial devils are those Lares, Genii, Fauns, Satyrs, Wood-Nymphs, Foliots, Fairies,** Robin Good-fellows, etc.,
through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire. . . . Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking." — Lear, III. 4.
* See how the murder of Macbeth is accompanied and foreshadowed by tempests {Macb. I. 1). This has been well accentuated in Mr. Irving's reproduction of the play.
f Note the witches and the mariners (Macb. I. 3), and especially the giving of a wind.
% Ariel and Prospero.
§ Prospero summons them, through Ariel, the most perfect impersona- tion of a Paracelsian nymph. T em-pest V. 1.
|| lb. I. 2 Macb. I. 3.
^[ Such is Undine in the lovely story of La Motte-Fouque.
** See M. N. D. II. 1. The fairies of Shakespeare are always Bacon's vital spirits of nature, and this seems to be now recognised. The sprites and fairies in Mr. Benson's recent representation of the Midsummer
226 FRANCIS BACON
which, as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old, and had so many idols and temples erected to them. Of this range was Dagon among the Philistines, Bel among the Babylonians, Astarte among the Sidonians, Baal among the Samaritans, Isis and Osiris among the Egyptians, etc. Some put our fairies into this rank, which have been in former times adored with much superstition, with sweeping their houses, and setting of a pail of clear water, good victuals, and the like, and then they should not be pinched* but find money in their shoes,f and be fortunate in their enterprises.^ These are they that dance on heaths and greens,§ as Lavater thinks with Tritennius, and, as Olaus Magnus adds, leaving that green circle || which we commonly find in plain fields, which others hold to proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rank- ness of the ground, so nature sports herself. . . . Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany where they do usually walk in little coats, some two feet long. A bigger kind of them is called with us hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows, that would, in those superstitious times, grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work. . . . Cardan holds, ^f they will make strange noises in the night, howl sometimes pitifully, and then laugh again, cause great flame and sudden lights, fling stones, rattle chains, shave men, open doors and shut them, fling down platters, stools, chests** sometimes appear in likeness of hares, crows, black dogs,~\ f etc.,
Nighfs Dream were properly attired as flowers, insects, bullrushes, river weeds, etc., and not, as formerly, in ballet skirts and satin shoes. In Macbeth Mr. Irving not only departs from, the old idea of witches as hags in red cloaks and poke bonnets, but the witches are distinctly arrayed to imitate the winds, and a scene in dumb show is interpolated where these wind-witches filled the sails which are to carry Macduff to England.
* " Let the supposed fairies pinch him." Mer. Wiv. IV. 4. "Pinch the maids blue ; . . . pinch them, arms and legs and backs ; . . . still pinch him, fairies, pinch him to vour time." lb. V. 5. and Temp. I. 2, 328, and