70.  A comparison of the passages in “King Lear” spoken by Edgar when feigning madness, with those in Harsnet’s book which seem to have suggested them, will furnish as vivid a picture as it is possible to give of the state of contemporary belief upon the subject of possession.  It is impossible not to notice that nearly all the allusions in the play refer to the performance of the youth Richard Mainy.  Even Edgar’s hypothetical account of his moral failings in the past seems to have been an accurate reproduction of Mainy’s conduct in some particulars, as the quotation below will prove;[1] and there appears to be so little necessity for these remarks of Edgar’s, that it seems almost possible that there may have been some point in these passages that has since been lost.  A careful search, however, has failed to disclose any reason why Mainy should be held up to obloquy; and the passages in question were evidently not the result of a direct reference to the “Declaration.”  After his examination by Harsnet in 1602, Mainy seems to have sunk into the insignificant position which he was so calculated to adorn, and nothing more is heard of him; so the references to him must be accidental merely.

[Footnote 1:  “He would needs have persuaded this examinate’s sister to have gone thence with him in the apparel of a youth, and to have been his boy and waited upon him....  He urged this examinate divers times to have yielded to his carnal desires, using very unfit tricks with her.  There was also a very proper woman, one Mistress Plater, with whom this examinate perceived he had many allurements, showing great tokens of extraordinary affection towards her.”—­Evidence of Sara Williams, Harsnet, p. 190.  Compare King Lear, Act iii. sc. iv. ll. 82-101; note especially l. 84.]

71.  One curious little repetition in the play of a somewhat unimportant incident recorded by Harsnet is to be found in the fourth scene of the third act, where Edgar says—­

“Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge,” etc.[1]

[Footnote 1:  l. 51, et seq.]

The events referred to took place at Denham.  A halter and some knife-blades were found in a corridor of the house.  “A great search was made in the house to know how the said halter and knife-blades came thither, but it could not in any wise be found out, as it was pretended, till Master Mainy in his next fit said, as it was reported, that the devil layd them in the gallery, that some of those that were possessed might either hang themselves with the halter, or kill themselves with the blades."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Harsnet, p. 218.]

72.  But the bulk of the references relating to the possession of Mainy occur further on in the same scene:—­