Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/187

 12 s. ii. SEPT. 2, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1916.

CONTENTS.-No. 36.

NOTES : Shakespeare on Satan as an Angel of Light, 181 Marshals of France, 182 Mansell of Muddlescomb, 184- Capt. Cox's ' Book of Fortune,' 1575, 185" Unthinkable, 186 Uncut Paper Memorial of Cholera Victims, Bicester, Oxon Ancient Roman and Welsh Law, 187 Daylight Saving, 188.

QUERIES : The Colours of the 56th Foot : Louclon Bar- court Gordon Sbeepsbanks's Biographies -Slonk Hill, Sboreham, Sussex -Pork Butcher's Epitaph, 188 The Removal of Memorials in Westminster Abbey The Actor- Martyr Capt. Arthur Conolly William of Malmesbury on Bird Life in the Fens Authors Wanted Bardsey Island: Conscription, 189 Bluebeard Ladies' Spurs- Bird Folk-LoreMother and Child "Toothdrawer" as a Name Steyning : Stening George Harris, Civilian- Thomas Watts. M.P. Nicholas Wood, M.P. J. Rennie on the Flying Powers of Birds, 190" Stop the Smithfield fires "Sir Charles Price, Lord Mayor of London, 191.

REPLIES : An English Army List of 1740, 191 Burton and Speke : African Travel, 193 Folk-Lore : Chime- HoursEighteenth-Century Dentists Stones of London, 194 St. George's, Hart Street, Bloomsbury Thomas Congreve, M.D. Heraldic Query: Silver Cup Hebrew Inscription, Sheepshed, Leicestershire Raynes Park. Wimbledon Caldecott -Boy-Ed as Surname Hare and Lefevre Families, 195 Folk-Lore : Red Hair, 196 Heraldic Query' Sabrinse Corolla 'Village Pounds- Christopher Urswick Panoramic Surveys of London Streets Mrs. Anne Dutton The "Doctrine of Signa- tures," 197 Cromwell's Baronets and Knights Ibbetson or Ibberson ' The London Magazine 'Postal Charges in 1847 Rome and Moscow, 198 Ching: Cornish or Chinese? -Emma Robinson, Author of ' Whitefriars,' 199.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' England's First Great War Minister' ' Armorial Bearings of Kingston-upon-Hull ' "Old Mother Hubbard."

"Notices to Correspondents.

SHAKESPEARE ON SATAN AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT.

WITHOUT entering into the question as to whether Shakespeare's knowledge of the Bible was such as that which results from careful and prolonged study, or was merely such as a sharp-witted boy might pick up from hearing it read in church, it is interest- ing to notice that one passage in 2 Corinthians was never long absent from his mind, and appears over and over again in his plays. It is the picturesque sentence in 2 Cor. xi. 14, in which St. Paul, after speaking of false apostles succeeding in passing themselves off as true, says : " And no marvayle, for Satan himselfe is changed into the fashion of an Angel of light." For so ran the passage in the Geneva Version, of which there can be no doubt that the author of the plays made use.

It is interesting to notice how this sentence fascinated him, and how often he reproduces it in various forms. Thus we find it in ' Measure for Measure,' Act III. i. 89, where Isabella says of Angelo :

This outward -sain ted deputy.... is yet a deVil ;

His filth within being cast, he would appear A pond as deep as hell.

In ' The Comedy of Errors,' Act IV. iii. 48, the reference to 2 Corinthians is direct. Dromio of Syracuse is speaking of some one described as " a light wench," and he puns upon the word " light." He addresses her as Satan, and says : " It is written, they appear to men like angels of light."

In ' Love's Labour's Lost,' probably the first of the plays wholly written by Shakespeare, we find the allusion in a similarly direct form. Biron says (Act IV. iii. 257) : " Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light." The use made of the passage is much more elaborate in ' The Merchant of Venice,' and there is combined with St. Paul's simile an allusion to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and the quotation then made by the Tempter of a passage in the Psalms. Shy- lock has just quoted an incident in Scripture to justify usury, and Antonio says (Act I. iii. 98):

Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek ; A goodly apple rotten at the heart : O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath !

Some have suggested the word " godly " instead of " goodly " in this last line, and have supposed the latter repeated by mistake from the preceding line. It certainly would be more in accord with the passage in 2 Corinthians.

If we now turn to the histories we find fresh illustrations of the attraction which St. Paul's words had for the dramatist. In ' King John,' Act III. i. 208, Constance says to the Dauphin :

O Louis, stand fast ! the devil tempts thee here In likeness of a new uptrimmed bride.

There is here the same idea of a tempter and of his ability to assume attractive shapes. It is to be hoped that there are few so ungallant as to assert that " a new uptrimmed bride " is not synonymous with " an angel of light."

In ' Henry V.,' Act II. ii. 114, the King reproaches Lord Scroop for his treachery hidden under the show of intimate friendship, and savs that the