Shakspere went through all this. 122. Illustrations. Hereditary belief.
"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Fairies chiefly an adaptation of current
tradition. 123. The dawn of doubt. 124. Scepticism. Evil spirits
dominant. No guiding good. 125. Corresponding lapse of faith in other
matters. Woman's purity. 126. Man's honour. 127. Mr. Ruskin's view of
Shakspere's message. 128. Founded chiefly on plays of sceptical period.
Message of third period entirely different. 129. Reasoned belief. "The
Tempest." 130. Man can master evil of all forms if he go about it in the
right way--is not the toy of fate. 131. Prospero a type of Shakspere in
this final stage of thought. How pleasant to think this!




ELIZABETHAN DEMONOLOGY.


1. It is impossible to understand and appreciate thoroughly the
production of any great literary genius who lived and wrote in times far
removed from our own, without a certain amount of familiarity, not only
with the precise shades of meaning possessed by the vocabulary he made
use of, as distinguished from the sense conveyed by the same words in
the present day, but also with the customs and ideas, political,
religious and moral, that predominated during the period in which his
works were produced. Without such information, it will be found
impossible, in many matters of the first importance, to grasp the
writer's true intent, and much will appear vague and lifeless that was
full of point and vigour when it was first conceived; or, worse still,
modern opinion upon the subject will be set up as the standard of
interpretation, ideas will be forced into the writer's sentences that