ance on a superior being. Without the use of some mysterious form of words, mumblings, whisperings, and secret sounds, the sorceress was powerless. The hellish incantation, uttered with a steady faith in its efficacy, was capable of effecting the greatest wonders, the devil or his spirits rewarding the act of homage by assistance charms were no less available. The hair, or any other part of a wolf; the brain of a cat, a newt, or lizard; the bone of a frog's leg; the garments of the dead; candles that had been partly burnt before a corpse; and needles that had sewed a dead man in his shroud; were all efficacious in their enchantments. The crossing of sticks, digging pits, casting a stone over the left shoulder, or hogs' bristles boiled, were productive of storms. If a witch was desirous of a gambol in the air, the bowels and members of a child were first to be seethed in a brazen vessel, and an ointment made up from the fat, which, carefully rubbed into their bodies, enabled them to feast, sing, and dance beneath the moon. The thinner potion taken from the cauldron enabled the drinker, on the observance of certain ceremonies, immediately to practise witchcraft. Magical pictures, or waxen images, consumed or gradually melted before slow fires,

produced a corresponding waste, by sickness or mysterious pining, in those whose persons the effigies represented.

It is impossible to advance a step towards a belief in the power of uninspired persons to disclose the events of futurity and produce supernatural effects, without recognising an arbitrary predestination of mundane affairs, or the agency of powers that controlled the established laws of nature. Every system of pagan worship inculcates the doctrine of fate, or of presiding or subservient spirits; for each appealed to the miraculous powers of its ministers in support of its pretensions. It is not very easy to reconcile these doctrines together, but, in most cases, both were combined, and in the Gothic system of witchcraft, in particular, both are decidedly conspicuous.

According to the mythology of the Edda, in the beautiful city of Valhall, or the paradise of heroes, dwell three virgins named Urda, the past; Verdandi, the present; and Sskuld, the future. Their business is to attend on the gods and preside over the fate of mankind. Collectively, they are called Valkeries, or Nornies, that is, Fairies, or Destinies, and are the chief of many beings of a similar quality: every man had his own destiny, who assisted at the mo

ment of his birth, and marked beforehand the period of his days.

The Chronicle of Holinshed is precise, and repeated, in its denomination of the women who addressed Macbeth as Fairies, or Weird (that is, prophetic) Sisters; who, though by no means the representatives of, appear fully invested with the attributes ascribed to the three Eddic Valkeries, or the Fates and presiding genii of the North; and Shakspeare has abridged nothing of their power. His witches' address to Macbeth is in the decisive tone of absolute and directing powers: they discourse of the events of futurity as of matters absolutely certain; they proclaim him "thane of Glamis and of Cawdor," things "not within the prospect of belief," and the truth of their predictions is attested in the moment of their utterance

"Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.

‹ All hail,

Macbeth! that shall be king hereafter.""

Here, overwhelmed with astonishment and awe, the victim of hell is left to pause, and he sinks into the firm belief that he had only to wait "the coming on of time" to filment of his most ardent hopes:

reap the ful

"If chance

will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir." He snatches, however, that which was promised him as a gift; and, seated on the throne, his confidence is augmented in the authority and power of the witches to unfold to him the secrets of futurity. When fears shake, and doubts distract him, he flies for the resolving of both, to their assistance.

"I will to-morrow,

(And betimes I will,) to the weird sisters:

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means the worst."

The result of this interview is the elevation of his confidence into presumption, and he exultingly proclaims his assurance of security: "Then live, Macduff; What need I fear of thee?"-"Sweet bodements! good!"

"The spirits that know

All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus:
Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power upon thee.-Then fly, false thanes,

And mingle with the English epicures:

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,

Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.”

"I will not fear of death and bane,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane."

The time, however, does arrive when Birnam forest moves, and yet Macbeth mistrusts not the

authority of the witches. He "doubts," indeed, "the equivocation of the fiend, that lies like truth;" but "swords he smiles at, weapons laughs to scorn, brandish'd by man that's of a woman born," and, the moment previous to his death, he meets Macduff with the proud defiance:

"Thou losest labour:

As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

To one of woman born."

The actions of Macbeth are not in constant accordance with his faith. They who placed the "golden round" upon his brow, promised similar honours to the issue of another. He was bound to believe both, or neither, of these predictions. He rightly concluded, that" if chance would have him king, why, chance would crown him without his stir;" and he ought to have added, that if the succession of Banquo's children was registered among the decrees of fate, no human arm could arrest the march of that event. In neither case does he abide the event. He first yields to an alarm, on the elevation of Malcolm to the principality of Cumberland, of which his professed principles,