In _The Sad Shepherd_ the purpose is still different. We have none of the wild unearthliness of the masque. Maudlin is a witch of a decidedly vulgar type, but there is no satirical intent. Jonson, for the purpose of his play, accepts for the moment the prevailing attitude toward witchcraft, and the satisfaction in Maudlin’s discomfiture doubtless assumed an acquiescence in the popular belief. At the same time the poetical aspect is not wholly forgotten, and appears with especial prominence in the beautiful passage which describes the witch’s forest haunt, beginning: ‘Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell’. _The Sad Shepherd_ and the masque are far more akin to each other in their treatment of witchcraft than is either to _The Devil is an Ass_. [84] See _Trials for Witchcraft 1596-7_, vol. 1, _Miscellany of the Spalding Club_, Aberdeen, 1841. [85] First appeared in 1597. _Workes_, fol. ed., appeared 1616, the year of this play. IV. PERSONAL SATIRE The detection of personal satire in Jonson’s drama is difficult, and at best unsatisfactory. Jonson himself always resented it as an impertinence.[86] In the present case Fleay suggests that the motto, _Ficta, voluptatis causa, sint proxima veris_, is an indication that we are to look upon the characters as real persons. But Jonson twice took the pains to explain that this is precisely the opposite of his own interpretation of Horace’s meaning.[87] The subject of personal satire was a favorite one with him, and in _The Magnetic Lady_ he makes the sufficiently explicit statement: ‘A play, though it apparel and present vices in general, flies from all particularities in persons’. On the other hand we know that Jonson did occasionally indulge in personal satire. Carlo Buffone,[88] Antonio Balladino,[89] and the clerk Nathaniel[90] are instances sufficiently authenticated. Of these Jonson advances a plea of justification: ‘Where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease?’[91]