Francesco Maria Guazzo of the Congregation of S. Ambrose; _Disputatio de Magis_ (Frankfort, 1584), by Johan Georg Godelmann; _Tractatus de Strigiis et Lamiis_ of Bartolommeo Spina, O.P.; the _Decretum_ (about 1020) of Burchard, Bishop of Worms; the _De Sortilegiis_ (Lyons, 1533) of Paolo Grilland; the _De Occulta Philosophia_ (Antwerp, 1531) of Cornelius Agrippa; the _Apologie pour tous les Grands Hommes qui ont este faussement supconnez de Magie_ (1625) of Gabriel Naudé, librarian to Cardinal Mazarin; _De Subtilitate_ (libri XXI, Nuremberg, 1550) of Girolamo Cardano, the famous physician and astrologer; _De magna et occulta Philosophia_ of Paracelsus; _IIII Livres des Spectres_ (Angers, 1586) by Pierre le Loyer, Sieur de Brosse, of which Shadwell used the English version (1605) _A treatise of Specters_ ... translated by Z. Jones. It will be seen that no less than forty-one authors, authorities on magic, are quoted by Shadwell in these notes, whilst not infrequently the same author is cited again and again, and extracts of some length, not merely general references, are given. But for all this parade of learning, perchance because of all this parade of learning, Shadwell’s witch scenes are intolerably clumsy, they are gross without being terrible. Shadwell was a clever dramatist, he was able to draw a character, especially a crank, with quite remarkable vigour, and his scenes are a triumph of photographic realism. True, he could not discriminate and select; he threw his world _en masse_ higgledy piggledy on to the stage, and as even in the reign of the Merry Monarch there were a few tedious folk about, so now and again—but not very often—one chances upon heavy passages in Shadwell’s robust comedies. On the other hand _The Sullen Lovers_, _Epsom Wells_, _The Virtuoso, Bury Fair_, _The Squire of Alsatia_, _The Volunteers_, in fact all his native plays, are full of bustle and fun, albeit a trifle riotous and rude as the custom was. Dryden, who very well knew what he was about, for purposes of his own cleverly dubbed Shadwell dull. And dull he has been dubbed ever since by those who have not read him. But Shadwell had not a spark of poetry in his whole fat composition. And so his witches become farcical, yet farcical in a grimy unpleasant way, for we are spared none of the loathsome details of the Sabbat, and should anyone object, why, there is the authority of Remy or Guazzo, the precise passage from Prierias or Burchard to support the author. Indeed we feel that these witches are very real in spite of their materialism. They present a clear picture of one side of the diabolic cult, however crude and crass.