Some infernal Duke would appear in his proper character, quietly seated on a griffin; another spirit of a similar rank would display the three heads of a serpent, a man, and a cat; he would also bestride a viper, and carry in his hand a firebrand; another of the same stamp, would appear like a duchess, encircled with a fiery zone, and mounted on a camel; a fourth would wear the aspect of a boy, and amuse himself on the back of a two-headed dragon. A few spirits, however, would be content with the simple garbs of a horse, a leopard, a lion, an unicorn, a night-raven, a stork, a peacock, or a dromedary; the latter animal speaking fluently the Egyptian language. Others would assume the more complex forms of a lion or of a dog, with a griffin’s wings attached to each of their shoulders; or of a bull equally well gifted; or of the same animal, distinguished by the singular appendage of a man’s face; or of a crow clothed with human flesh; or of a hart with a fiery tail. To certain other noble devils were assigned such shapes as those of a dragon with three heads, one of these being human; of a wolf with a serpent’s tail, breathing forth flames of fire; of a she wolf exhibiting the same caudal appendage, together with a griffin’s wings, and ejecting hideous matter from the mouth. A lion would appear either with the head of a branded thief, or astride upon a black horse, and playing with a viper, or adorned with the tail of a snake, and grasping in his paws two hissing serpents. These were the varied shapes assumed by devils of rank. To those of an inferior order were consigned upon earth, the duty of carrying away condemned souls. These were described as blacker than pitch: as having teeth like lions, nails on their fingers like those of the wild boar, on their forehead horns, through the extremities of which, poison was emitted, having wide ears flowing with corruption, and discharging serpents from their nostrils, and having cloven feet[54]. But this last appendage, as Sir Thomas Brown has learnedly proved, is a mistake, which has arisen from the devil frequently appearing to the Jews in the shape of a rough and hairy goat, this animal being the emblem of sin-offerings[55]. It is worthy of farther remark, says Dr. Hibbert, that the forms of the demons described by St. Bernard, differs little from that which is no less carefully pourtrayed by Reginald Scott, 350 years later, and, perhaps, by the Demonologists of the present day. “In our childhood,” says he, “our mothers’ maids have so terrified us with an ouglie devell having hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eies like a bason, fangs like a dog, clawes like a bear, a skin like a tiger, and a voice roaring like a lion,—whereby we start and are afraid when we heare one cry _bough_.”