56.  But the belief in the appearance of ghosts was too deeply rooted in the popular mind to be extirpated, or even greatly affected, by a dogmatic declaration.  The masses went on believing as they always had believed, and as their fathers had believed before them, in spite of the Reformers, and to their no little discontent.  Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, in a letter to Archbishop Parker, dated 1564, complains that, “among other things that be amiss here in your great cares, ye shall understand that in Blackburn there is a fantastical (and as some say, lunatic) young man, which says that he has spoken with one of his neighbours that died four year since, or more.  Divers times he says he has seen him, and talked with him, and took with him the curate, the schoolmaster, and other neighbours, who all affirm that they see him. These things be so common here that none in authority will gainsay it, but rather believe and confirm it, that everybody believes it.  If I had known how to examine with authority, I would have done it."[1] Here is a little glimpse at the practical troubles of a well-intentioned bishop of the sixteenth century that is surely worth preserving.

[Footnote 1:  Parker Correspondence, 222.  Parker Society.]

57.  There were thus two opposite schools of belief in this matter of the supposed spirits of the departed:—­the conservative, which held to the old doctrine of ghosts; and the reforming, which denied the possibility of ghosts, and held to the theory of devils.  In the midst of this disagreement of doctors it was difficult for a plain man to come to a definite conclusion upon the question; and, in consequence, all who were not content with quiet dogmatism were in a state of utter uncertainty upon a point not entirely without importance in practical life as well as in theory.  This was probably the position in which the majority of thoughtful men found themselves; and it is accurately reflected in three of Shakspere’s plays, which, for other and weightier reasons, are grouped together in the same chronological division—­“Julius Caesar,” “Macbeth,” and “Hamlet.”  In the first-mentioned play, Brutus, who afterwards confesses his belief that the apparition he saw at Sardis was the ghost of Caesar,[1] when in the actual presence of the spirit, says—­

     “Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil?"[2]

The same doubt flashes across the mind of Macbeth on the second entrance of Banquo’s ghost—­which is probably intended to be a devil appearing at the instigation of the witches—­when he says, with evident allusion to a diabolic power before referred to—­

                “What man dare, I dare: 
    Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
    The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,
    Take any shape but that."[3]

[Footnote 1:  Julius Caesar, V. v. 17.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid.  IV. iii. 279.]

[Footnote 3:  Macbeth, III. iv. 100.]