The Plays and Poems of Shakespeare, Vol. 6 of 15: According to the Improved Text of Edmund Malone, Including the Latest Revisions, With a Life, ... Illustration, From Designs by English Artists

Excerpt from The Plays and Poems of Shakespeare, Vol. 6 of 15: According to the Improved Text of Edmund Malone, Including the Latest Revisions, With a Life, Glossarial Notes, an Index, and One Hundred and Seventy Illustration, From Designs by English Artists The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been credited by the common people, and in most, by the learned them selves. These phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown, that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient to drive them out of the world. The time in which this kind of credulity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantments or diabolical opposition, as they ascribed their success to the assistance of their military saints; and the learn. Ed Dr. Warburton appears to believe (suppl. To the Introduction to Don Quixote) that the first accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by those who returned from their eastern expeditions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.