And fomewhat before, when the doctor gives Macbeth an account of the troubled ftate of the queen, he afks,

Canft thou not minister to a mind difeas'd,
Pluck from the memory a reoted forrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with fome fweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanfe the stuff'd bofom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

fecond edition. Study then feems the authentic word-
To die is a leffon fo easily learnt, that even fools can study
it even the motley fool, in As you like it, could reason
en the time.

'Tis but an hour ago fince it was nine,

And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ;
And fo from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we xot and rot,
And thereby bangs a tale.

22 Alluding to the Nepenthe: a certain mixture, of which perhaps opium was one of the ingredients. Homer, Ód. . 221.

Νηπενθές τ' ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον απάντων.

2. e. the oblivious antidote, caufing the forgetfulness of all the evils of life. What is remarkable, had Shakespeare understood Greek as well as Johnson, he could not more clofely have expreffed the meaning of the old bard.

It might be likewise deserving notice, how finely Shakespeare obferves that rule of tragedy, to paint the miseries of the great: almost all the perfons in the play, more or lefs, are involved in calamity. The leffon to be learnt by the lower people is acquiefcence in the ease of a private station, not obnoxious to thofe diforders, which attend greatness in the stage of the world.

23 Ἐν τοῖς πλυσίοις καὶ βασιλεῦσι καὶ τυράννοις αἱ τραγῳδίας τόπον ἔχεσιν, εδεὶς δὲ πένης τραγῳδίαν συμπληροί, εἰ μὴ ὡς χορευτής· οἱ δὲ βασιλεῖς ἄρχονται μὲν εἶπ ̓ ἀγαθῶν,

Στέψαλε δώματα.

εἶτα περὶ τρίτον ἢ τέταριον μέρος,

A

Ἰω Κιθαιρών, τί μ' ἐδέχε ;

Arrian. L. 1. c. 25. P.124, Mare. Anton. XI, 16,

SECT. VI.

GAIN, let us fuppofe the poet had a mind, to inculcate this moral, that villany, tho' for a time fuccessful, will meet it's certain ruin. ΕΙΠΕΡ ΓΑΡ ΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΙΚ' ΟΛΥΜΠΙΟΣ ΟΥΚ ΕΤΕΛΕΣΣΕΝ

EK TE KAI OYE TEAEI.

What,

1 Hom. II. . 160, &c. Agamemnon foon after fuggests he fhall return back to Argos with ignominy; to his muchinjur'd Argos, fo he calls it; this expreffion carries paffion

What, tho' the band of beav'n withholds its ftroke?
At length, tho' late, more dreadful 'twill defcend
Down, on the author's head, his wife and offspring.
For well I ween the fatal day draws near,
When Troy's curft walls, and Priam with his people
Shall perish all. High o'er their impious heads
Jove shakes his gloomy Aegis, fully fraught
With vengeance gainft their frauds and perjuries.
Thus Fate ordains irrevocably fixt.

Thus is Hamlet made an instrument by providence to work the downfal of his uncle; and the punishment being compleated, the play ends. Were one to enter into a detail of the fable, to what advantage would the poet's art appear? The former king of Denmark being fecretly murdered by the poffeffor of the crown, the fact could not be brought to light, but by the intervention of a fupernatural power. The ghoft

2

with it, ΠΟΛΥΡΙΠΣΙΟΝ ΑΡΓΟΣ. Which the tranfcriber has alter'd into woλudition "Aglo, miftaking the Aeolic digamma for a A.

2 Ariftotle having obferved that the unravelling of the plot, or the solution of the fable, fhould proceed from the fable itself, and not from any machine, or the interpofition of a fupernatural charafter, adds, ̓Αλλὰ μηχανῇ χρησέον ἐπὶ τὰ ἔξω τῷ δράμα, ἢ ὅσα πρὸ τὸ γέγονεν, (ἃ ὐχ οἷόν τε ἄν θρωπον εἰδέναι,) ἢ ὅσα ἔτερον, ἃ δεῖται προα[ορεύσεως καὶ ἀγκε

24

λίας,

ghost of the murdered king was usually feen to walk on a platform before the palace, where the centinels kept guard. There was a foldier, who doubting this tale, came on the platform

out

λίας, περὶ ποιητ. κεφ. ιε.
But a machine may be used with
respect to things not included within the drama, that is to fay
either fuch as have happened previously (which 'twas not
paffible for meer man to know of himself ) or else such as are
to happen hereafter, which fand in need of prediction and
prophetic information. The murder of the king is a fact of
this fort, which could not be known but by a machine.
Machines thus introduced add furprise and majefty to the
incidents nor are they improbable, if according to the
received and vulgarly believed opinions; as the ghoft in
Hamlet, the witches in Macbeth, &c. The epic poet has
greater latitude; his fpeciofa miracula are received more
eafily; he tells you ftories; the tragedian represents them,
and brings them before your eyes.

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quae funt oculis fubje&ta fidelibus.

Hor. art. poet. 180.

Now what is marvellous, and out of the vulgar road, is highly pleafing. What Ariftotle fays to this purpose is worth our notice. I will give his words as they seem to me they should be printed and corrected. As ir Ev y ταῖς τραγῳδίαις ποιεῖν τὸ θαυμαςόν. Μᾶλλον δ ̓ ἐνδέχεται ἐν τῇ ἐποποιία τὸ ἄλοἷον, (δι ̓ ὃ συμβαίνει μάλισα τὸ θαυμαςόν, διὰ τὸ μὴ ὁρᾶν εἰς τὸν πράτονα. Επειτα [lege Επεί τοι τὰ περὶ τὴν Εκλος δίωξιν ἐπὶ σκηνῆς ὅλα, γελοία ἂν φανείη,

out of curiofity, and defired to hear a parti cular account of this apparition. The centinel begins:

Laft night of all

When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the pole,
Had made his course t' illume that part of heav'n
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one

Mar. Peace, break thee off; Enter the ghoft. Look, where it comes.

With what art does the poet break off, just as he raises the curiofity of the audience; and thus avoids a long circumftantial narration? Let any

οἱ μὲν ἐσῶτες καὶ ἐ διώκολες, ὁ δὲ ἀνανεύων. Ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἔπεσε λανθάνει. Τὸ δὲ θαυματὸν, ἡδύ· σημεῖον δέ πάντες γὰρ προσιθέντες ἀπαγ[έλλεσιν ὡς χαριζόμενοι. The marvellous ought to be in tragedy; but rather in the Epopea is admitted what even tranfgresses the bounds of reafon, (by which the marvellous is chiefly raised) because the actors are not seen. So that which Homer writes of Hector, perfued by Achilles, would be ridiculous on the ftage; for here the foldiers must be Standing fill, and not perfuing the flying Hector; there one perfon only following and beckoning the reft to ftand off. But all this is not difcernable in the Epopea. Now the marvellous is likewife pleasant: a proof of it is, that thofe, who relate any thing, generally add fomething or other of their own invention, to make their narration more diverting. weg woint. κεφ. δ.

one