20 TOAD. Class III. 



ternatural powers, and made it a principal ingre- 

 dient in the incantations of nocturnal hags : 



Toad that under the cold stone, 

 Days and nights has, thirty-one, 

 Swelter'd venom sleeping got, 

 Boil thou^r.^ i'th' charmed pot. 



We know by the poet that this charm was in- 

 tended for a design of the first consideration, 

 that of raising the dead from their repose, and 

 bringing before the eyes of Macbeth a hateful 

 second-sight of the prosperity of Banquet's line. 



This shews the mighty powers attributed to 

 this animal by the dealers in the magic art ; but 

 the powers our poet indues it with, are far 

 superior to those that Gesner ascribes to it: 

 Shakespeare's witches used it to disturb the dead ; 

 Gesner s, only to still the living, Ut vi?n coeundi, 

 ni jailor ) in mrls tollerent* 

 Toad-stone. We may add here another superstition in 

 respect to this animal : it was believed by some 

 old writers to have a stone in its head, fraught 

 with great virtues medical and magical : it was 

 distinguished by the name of the reptile, and 

 called the Toad-Stone, Bufonites, Crapaudine, 

 Krottenstein ;\ but all its fancied powers va- 

 nished on the discovery of its being nothing but 



* Hist. quad. ovip. 72. 



f Boet. de Boot, de Lap. et Gem. 301. 303. 



