THE NEW SCIENCE AND COMEDY 67 



Glanvil declared that to doubt it was the first step toward atheism.* 

 This connection with the new science brings the satire against it 

 within the scope of this investigation. "The well-known trials 

 of the Lancashire Witches occurred in 1613, and again in 1634".'^ 

 Comedy immediately took up the subject. Thomas Heywood's 

 play, The Lancashire Witches, appeared in 1634, satirizing the 

 trials ; W. Rowley used the same theme in his Witch of Edmonton, 

 1658. Thomas Shadwell, in 1682, presented a play with the same 

 title as Heywood's, The Lancashire Witches, in which an in- 

 genious use is made of the power of witches to transform individuals 

 into various shapes. There is no satire here, but in the introduc- 

 tion Shadwell wrote;. "For the Magical Part, I had no Hopes of 



equalling Shakespeare There is not one action in the play, 



nay, scarce a word concerning it, but is borrowed from some an- 

 cient or modern Witchmonger, which you will find in the Notes, 

 wherein I have presented you a great part of the Doctrine of 

 Witchcraft, believe it who will. For my part, I am (as it is said 

 of Surly in the Alchemist) somewhat costive of Belief".® The 

 struggle of this superstition against the principles of the new 

 science was so far lost in 1715 that Addison could make sport of it 

 in his comedy. The Drummer, where the secret rapping of the 

 spirit of the departed is shown to have a very natural, flesh-and- 

 blood origin. 



Another pseudo-science, astrology, found many believers 

 through the seventeenth century, but not among the new philoso- 

 sphers. For them the telescope had so far removed the super- 

 stitious awe of the heavens that Thomas Burnet could say, 1687, — 

 " I do not see how we are any more concerned in the Postures of the 

 Planets than in the Postures of the Clouds".^ Comedy had al- 

 ready discovered the sham and pretense, for John Wilson satir- 

 ized astrology in The Cheats, 1662. Mopus, in this comedy, is an 

 astrological physician, and of course a quack, who showed himself 

 of "no ordinary learning" in an advertisement which he posted; 



" Glanvil, Joseph, fiadducismus Triumphatus. 



' Traill, H. D., Social England, vol. IV, p. 86. 



* Shadwell, Thomas, Dramatic Works, vol. Ill, preface to Lan. Witches. 



» Burnet, Thomas, Sacred Theory, vol. II, p. 38. 



