Note 378 — EPILOGUE, SPOKEN BY THE SAME.
Reading edition
This and the following lines refer to the success of Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," in which a great deal of machinery is introduced; the witches flying away with the clown's candles, and the priest's bottle of holy water, and converting a country-fellow into a horse upon the stage. Not content with this, the author has introduced upon the stage all that writers upon Dæmonology have rehearsed of the Witches' Sabbath, or Festival, with their infernal master; and has thus, very clumsily, mixed the horrible with the ludicrous. As for the cats and dogs, we have, in one place,—"Enter an Imp, in the shape of a black Shock;" and, in another,
"Enter Mother Hargrave, Mother Madge, and two Witches more; they mew, and spit, like cats, and fly at them, and scratch them.
Young Hartford. What's this? we're set on by cats.
Sir Timothy. They're witches in the shape of cats; what shall we do?
Priest. Phaat will I do? cat, cat, cat! oh, oh! Conjuro vobis! fugite, fugite, Cacodæmones; cats, cats! (They scratch all their faces, till the blood runs about them.)
Tom Shacklehead. Have at ye all! (he cuts at them.) I ha' mauled some of them, by the mass! they are fled, but I am plaguily scratched. (The Witches shriek, and run away.)"
Besides the offence which Shadwell gave, in point of taste, by the introduction of these pantomimical absurdities, Dryden was also displeased by the whole tenor of the play, which was directed against the High-Churchmen and Tories.—See Dedication of the Duke of Guise, Vol. VII. p. 15.