the emissaries of the greater fiends, to carry out their evil designs.  The more important class kept for the most part in a mystical seclusion, and only appeared upon earth in cases of the greatest emergency, or when compelled to do so by conjuration.  To the class of lesser devils belonged the bad angel which, together with a good one, was supposed to be assigned to every person at birth, to follow him through life—­the one to tempt, the other to guard from temptation;[1] so that a struggle similar to that recorded between Michael and Satan for the body of Moses was raging for the soul of every existing human being.  This was not a mere theory, but a vital active belief, as the beautiful well-known lines at the commencement of the eighth canto of the second book of “The Faerie Queene,” and the use made of these opposing spirits in Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus,” and in “The Virgin Martyr,” by Massinger and Dekker, conclusively show.

[Footnote 1:  Scot, p. 506.]

37.  Another classification, which seems to retain a reminiscence of the origin of devils from pagan deities, is effected by reference to the localities supposed to be inhabited by the different classes of evil spirits.  According to this arrangement we get six classes:—­

(1.) Devils of the fire, who wander in the region near the moon.

(2.) Devils of the air, who hover round the earth.

(3.) Devils of the earth; to whom the fairies are allied.

(4.) Devils of the water.

(5.) Submundane devils.[1]

(6.) Lucifugi.

These devils’ power and desire to injure mankind appear to have increased with the proximity of their location to the earth’s centre; but this classification had nothing like the hold upon the popular mind that the former grouping had, and may consequently be dismissed with this mention.

[Footnote 1:  Cf.  I Hen.  VI.  V. iii. 10; 2 Hen.  VI.  I. ii. 77; Coriolanus, IV. v. 97.]

38.  The greater devils, or the most important of them, had distinguishing names—­strange, uncouth names; some of them telling of a heathenish origin; others inexplicable and almost unpronounceable—­as Ashtaroth, Bael, Belial, Zephar, Cerberus, Phoenix, Balam (why he?), and Haagenti, Leraie, Marchosias, Gusoin, Glasya Labolas.  Scot enumerates seventy-nine, the above amongst them, and he does not by any means exhaust the number.  As each arch-devil had twenty, thirty, or forty legions of inferior spirits under his command, and a legion was composed of six hundred and sixty-six devils, it is not surprising that the latter did not obtain distinguishing names until they made their appearance upon earth, when they frequently obtained one from the form they loved to assume; for example, the familiars of the witches in “Macbeth”—­Paddock (toad), Graymalkin (cat), and Harpier (harpy, possibly).  Is it surprising that, with resources of this nature at his command, such an adept in the art of necromancy as Owen Glendower should hold Harry Percy, much to his disgust, at the least nine hours