temptations, and standing in need of the guard of cautionary admonition. The fupernatural agents, in fome measure, take off our attention from the other characters, especially as they are, throughout the piece, what they have a right to be, predominant in the events. They should not interfere, but to weave the fatal web, or to unravel it; they ought ever to be the regents of the Fable and artificers of the Catastrophe, as the Witches are in this piece. To preserve in Macbeth a juft confiftency of character; to make that character naturally susceptible of those defires, that were to be communicated to it; to render it interesting to the fpectator, by fome amiable qualities; to make it exemplify the dangers of ambition, and the terrors of remorfe; was all that could be required of the Tragedian and the Moralift. With all the powers of Poetry he elevates a legendary tale, without carrying it beyond the limits of vulgar faith and tradition. The folemn character of the infernal rites would be very ftriking, if the scene was not made ludicrous by a mob of old women, which the Players have added to the the three weird Sifters. The Incantation is fo confonant with the doctrine of enchantments, and receives fuch power by the help of those potent ministers of direful Superstition, the Terrible and the Mysterious, that it has not the air of poetical fiction fo much as of a difcovery of magical fecrets; and thus it seizes the heart of the ignorant, and communicates an irrefiftible horror to the imagination even of the more informed fpectator. Shakespear was too well read in human nature, not to know, that, though Reason may expel the fuperftitions of the nursery, the Imagination does not so entirely free itfelf from their dominion, as not to re-admit them, if occafion prefents them, in the very shape in which they were once revered. The firft scene in which the Witches appear, is not so happily executed as the others. He has too exactly followed the vulgar reports of the Lapland witches, of whom our failors ufed to imagine they could purchase a fair wind. The choice of a story that at once gave countenance to King James's doctrine of dæ monology, and fhewed the ancient deftination of his family to the throne of Great Britain, was no less flattering to that Monarch than Virgil's to Auguftus and the Roman people, in making Anchises shew to Æneas the representations of unborn heroes, that were to adorn his line, and augment the glory of their common-wealth. It is reported, that a great French Wit often laughs at the tragedy of Macbeth, for having a legion of Ghofts in it. One would imagine he either had not learnt English, or had forgotten his Latin; for the Spirits of Banquo's line are no more Ghosts, than the representations of the Julian race in the Æneid; and there is no Ghost but Banquo's in the whole play. Euripides, in the moft philofophic and polite age of the Athenians, brings the fhade of Polydorus, Priam's fon, upon the stage, to tell a very long and lamentable tale. Here is therefore produced, by each tragedian, the departed Spirit walking this upper world for caufes admitted by popular faith. Among the Ancients, Ancients, the Unburied, and with us the Murdered, were fuppofed to do fo. The apparitions are therefore equally justifiable or blamable; fo the laurel must be adjudged to that Poet who throws most of the Sublime and the Marvellous into the fupernatural agent; beft preferves the credibility of its intervention, and renders it most useful in the drama. There furely can be no difpute of the fuperiority of our countryman in these articles. There are many bombast fpeeches in the tragedy of Macbeth; and these are the lawful prize of the Critic: but Envy, not content to nibble at faults, strikes at its true object, the prime excellencies and perfections of the thing, it would depreciate. One should not wonder if a school-boy critic, who neither knows what were the superftitions of former times, or the Poet's privileges in all times, fhould flourish away, with all the rafh dexterity of wit, upon the appearance of a Ghoft; but it is strange, a man of universal learning, a real and just connoiffeur, and a true genius, should cite, as improper and abfurd, what has been practised by the most celebrated artists in the the dramatic way, when fuch machinery was authorized by the belief of the people. Is there not reafon to fufpect from fuch uncandid treatment of our Poet by this Critic, that he Views him with jealous, yet with fcornful eyes, The difference between a mind naturally prone to evil, and a frail one warped by the violence of temptations, is delicately diftinguifhed in Macbeth and his wife. There are also fome touches of the pencil, that mark the male and female character. When they deliberate on the murder of the king, the duties of hoft and fubject ftrongly plead with him against the deed. She passes over these confiderations; goes to Duncan's chamber refolved to kill him, but could not do it, because, fhe fays, he resembled her father while he flept. There is fomething feminine in this, and perfectly agreeable to the nature of the fex; who, even when void of Principle,`are seldom entirely divested of Sentiment; and thus the Poet, who, to use his |