"thrusted home," ought to have demonstrated to him the fallacy; he next snatches by crime, as "the nearest way," what was promised him as a gift; and, lastly, madly opposes himself to what he ought to have acknowledged a decree of fate. These are incongruities, but they are not chargeable on Shakspeare, who only embodied the theory of witchcraft, which adopted, from the same sources, the two contradictory doctrines of absolute fate, and the influence of man's actions by evil spirits. The classic world assigned to every individual a demon, or genius, which always presided over his actions, gave him private counsels, and watched over his secret intentions; and some writers maintained that two demons, the one good, the other bad, were the invariable attendants of every man. Of the Valkeries some were good and others evil, and they dispensed good and evil; and were the cause of good or bad actions in others, according to their origin. The operation of these principles on Macbeth is very obvious and frequent. As yet unseduced, he would have patiently awaited the coming on of "the all-hail hereafter!" but the moment of prediction was seized by, what Lady Macbeth designates, "the spirits that tend on N 4 mortal thoughts," to tempt him to the commission of a damning crime : "This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill; cannot be good: — If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success If good, why do I yield to that suggestion And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Similar bloody purposes were suggested to his mind on Malcolm's elevation, "Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires: The prophecy relative to Banquo and his issue must also be viewed as a stratagem to inspire Macbeth with murderous thoughts, whence he might be readily betrayed to the absolute commission of the contemplated crime. Banquo was clearly pointed out to him as an 66 enemy; by him his genius was rebuk'd," and he held him "in such bloody distance that every minute of his being thrust against his nearest life." The influence of human actions by evil spirits was one of the corner stones of a belief in witch craft, and Shakspeare has given great prominence to the doctrine: “'Tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, It is in allusion to the supposed prevalence of the attempts of malignant spirits to effect their purposes by the suggestion of evil in dreams, that Banquo prays to be restrained in the "cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose, and it appears that he had reason for his prayer; he "dreamt last night of the three weird sisters." Macbeth's description of the dead of night defines it as the hour when "wicked dreams abuse the curtain'd sleep." This is a gothic version of classic superstition. The ancients always attributed dreams to supernatural interference, and hence proper subjects for the art of divination. Sophocles makes Clytemnestra pray, in the Electra, against terrific or bad dreams. Apollo, the guardian of houses and families, was properly solicited to avert such disturbances of domestic peace. The subserviency of witches to a Dame was a recognised feature in witchcraft; and Shak speare, it may be thought, designated the mistress of the weird sisters Hecate, by finding that goddess in the exercise of the same office in a play called The Witch, by Thomas Middleton. But in the description of "6 Persey's daughter" in Golding's translation of Ovid, he met with "Heccatee, of whom the witches hold as of their goddess ;" and the same author also furnished him with the knowledge of the "triple Hecat's holy rites," which he displays in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "the triple Hecate's team." Yet, in the present play, is this presiding deity of witchcraft inconsistently represented as anxious to catch the "vap'rous drop profound" that hung "upon the corner of the moon." Could the poet have overlooked that Hecate was herself the moon? It has been questioned whether ancient and modern superstition are not confounded by placing Hecate in ascendancy over the witches of Macbeth. But Shakspeare is guilty of no impropriety, for both the names and attributes of Diana were perfectly familiar to Gothic superstition. Proserpine, indeed, under the name of Creirwy, or Llywy, occupied a singularly conspicuous place in the religion of the British Druids: she was the daughter of Ked, or Ceridwen, the most important personage in Druid worship. So completely similar were the attributes of parent and offspring that it has not been thought unreasonable to regard them as the same mystical personage. They presided over the most sacred mysteries of Druidism; they were enchantresses, and possessed the power of transformation; they were venerated in conjunction with, or under the symbol of the moon; and in their custody was the sacred cauldron of inspiration and science, the preparation of which was a necessary preliminary to the celebration of the deepest mysteries of their religion it was fabled that he who merely tasted its contents immediately became skilled in science, and had the whole of futurity laid open to his view. The cauldron of Ceridwen is the prototype of the cauldron of the weird sisters. The idea of exhibiting his witches in the act of celebrating their foul and prestigious rites appears to have been caught by Shakspeare from Middleton's Witch.* Hecat and a group of * The witches of Middleton are low, vulgar, and disgusting, and their employment in the destruction of the bridegroom's virility, the wasting of Almachildes, whom the Duchess hated, and the inspiring of illicit love, by charms, for such only is their business in the scene, are acts corresponding to their ignoble demeanours. In Shakspeare, an air of mystery, solemnity, and grandeur, is cast around the celebration of the rites of witchcraft, and the witches |