This intercourse did not, as a rule, result in offspring; but this
was not universally the case. All badly deformed or monstrous children
were suspected of having had such an undesirable parentage, and there
was a great tendency to believe that they ought to be destroyed. Luther
was a decided advocate of this course, deeming the destruction of a life
far preferable to the chance of having a devil in the family. In
Drayton's poem, "The Mooncalf," one of the gossips present at the birth
of the calf suggests that it ought to be buried alive as a monster.[1]
Caliban is a mooncalf,[2] and his origin is distinctly traced to a
source of this description. It is perfectly clear what was the one
thing that the foul witch Sycorax did which prevented her life from
being taken; and it would appear from this that the inhabitants of
Argier were far more merciful in this respect than their European
neighbours. Such a charge would have sent any woman to the stake in
Scotland, without the slightest hope of mercy, and the usual plea for
respite would only have been an additional reason for hastening the
execution of the sentence.[3]
[Footnote 1: Ed. 1748, p. 171.]
[Footnote 2: Tempest, II. ii. 111, 115.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. Othello, I. i. 91. Titus Andronicus, IV. ii.]
108. In the preceding pages an endeavour has been made to delineate the
most prominent features of a belief which the great Reformation was
destined first to foster into unnatural proportions and vitality, and in
the end to destroy.
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