114 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



allowed to melt away slowly in the hope that the prototype 

 would also waste away, and ultimately die. Shakespeare 

 alludes to this in the play of King John. In Act v., Scene 

 4, line 24, Melun says : 



" A quantity of life 



Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax, 

 Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire ? " 



And Hollinshed tells us that "it was alleged against 

 Dame Eleanor Cobham and her confederates that they had 

 devised an image of wax, representing the king, which, by 

 their sorcerie, by little and little consumed, intending 

 thereby, in conclusion, to waste and destroy the king's 

 person." 



In these cases, however, the operator always depended 

 upon certain occult or demoniacal influences, or, in other 

 words, upon the art of magic, and therefore examples of 

 this kind do not come within the scope of the present 

 volume. In the case of the Powder of Sympathy the 

 results were supposed to be due entirely to natural causes. 



