that secret supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret unnaturall crime, so it appeares that God hath appointed (for a supernaturall signe of the monstrous impietie of Witches) that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosome, that have shaken off them the sacred water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite thereof: No, not so much as their eyes are able to shed teares (threaten and torture them as you please) while first they repent (God not permitting them to dissemble their obstinacie in so horrible a crime) albeit the women-kind especially, be able otherwayes to shed teares at every light occasion when they will, yea, although it were dissemblingly like the Crocodiles.” *

Such are the chief features of this gross superstition, as detailed by the writers of the period in which it most prevailed in this country. Scot has taken infinite pains in collecting, from every writer on the subject, the minutiae of Witchcraft, and his book is expanded to a thick quarto, in consequence of his commenting at large on the particulars which he had given in his initiatory chapters, for the purpose of their complete refutation and exposure; a work of great labour, and which shows, at every step, how deeply this credulity had been impressed on the subjects of Elizabeth. James, on the other hand, though a man of considerable erudition, and, in some respects, of shrewd good sense, wrote in defence of this folly, and, unfortunately for truth and humanity, the doctrine of the monarch was preferred to that of the sage.

When such was the creed of the country, from the throne to the cottage; when even the men of learning, with few exceptions, ranged themselves on the side of the Dæmonologie, it was highly judicious in Shakspeare, in his dramatic capacity, to adopt, as a powerful instrument of terror, the popular belief; popular both in his

King James's Works apud Winton, pp. 111. 135, 136.

Among these we find the mighty name of Bacon; this great man attributing, in the Tenth Century of his Natural History, the achievements and the confessions of witches and wizards to the effects of a morbid imagination.

own time, and in that to which the reign of Macbeth is * referred. And, in doing this, he has shown not less taste than genius; for in the principal authorities to which he has had recourse for particulars; in the Discoverie of Scot, in the Dæmonologie of James, and even in the Witch of Middleton, a play now allowed to have been anterior to his own drama, the ludicrous and the frivolous are blended, in a very large proportion, with that which is calculated to excite solemnity and awe. With exquisite skill has he separated the latter from the former, exalting it with so many touches of grandeur, and throwing round it such an air of dreadful mystery, that, although the actual superstition on which the machinery is founded, be no more, there remains attached to it, in consequence of passing through the mind of Shakspeare, such a portion of what is naturally inherent in the human mind, in relation to its apprehensions of the invisible world of spirits, such a sublime, though indistinct conception of powers unknown and mightier far than we, that nearly the same degree of grateful terror is experienced from the perusal or representation of Macbeth in modern days, as was felt in the age of its production.

In the very first appearance, indeed, of the Weird Sisters to Macbeth and Banquo on the blasted heath, we discern beings of a more awful and spiritualised character than belongs to the vulgar herd of witches. "What are these," exclaims the astonished Banquo,

*

"What are these,

So wither'd, and so wild in their attire;

That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught

To the traditions of Boethius and Holinshed, we may add a modern authority in the person of Sir John Sinclair, who tells us that " In Macbeth's time, Witchcraft was very prevalent in Scotland, and two of the most famous witches in the kingdom lived on each hand of Macbeth, one at Collace, the other not far from Dunsinnan House, at a place called the Cape. Macbeth applied to them for advice, and by their counsel built a lofty Castle upon the top of an adjoining hill, since called Dunsinnan. The moor where the Witches met, which is in the parish of St. Martin's, is yet pointed out by the countrypeople, and there is a stone still preserved which is called the Witches Stone."— Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xx. p. 242.

Even when unattended by any human witnesses, when supporting the dialogue merely among themselves, Shakspeare has placed in the mouths of these agents imagery and diction of a cast so peculiar and mysterious, as to render them objects of alarm and fear, emotions incompatible with any tendency towards the ludicrous. But when, wheeling round the magic cauldron, in the gloomy recesses of their cave, they commence their incantations, chanting in tones wild and unearthly, and heard only during the intervals of a thunder-storm, their metrical charm, while flashes of subterranean fire obscurely light their haggard features, their language seems to breathe of hell, and we shrink back, as from beings at war with all that is good. Yet is the impression capable of augmentation, and is felt to have attained its acmé of sublimity and horror, when, in reply to the question of Macbeth,

they reply,

"How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is't you do?"

"A deed without a name."

Much, however, of the dread, solemnity, and awe which is experienced in reading this play, from the intervention of the witches, is lost in its representation on the stage, owing to the injudicious custom of bringing them too forward on the scene; where, appearing little better than a group of old women, the effect intended by the poet is not only destroyed, but reversed. Their dignity and grandeur must arise, as evil beings gifted with superhuman powers, from the unde

fined nature both of their agency and of their external forms. Were they indistinctly seen, though audible, at a distance, and, as it were, through a hazy twilight, celebrating their orgies, and with shadowy and gigantic shape flitting between the pale blue flames of their cauldron and the eager eye of the spectator, sufficient latitude would be given to the imagination, and the finest drama of our author would receive in the theatre that deep tone of supernatural horror' with which it is felt to be so highly imbued in the solitude of the closet.

CHAPTER XII.

OBSERVATIONS ON JULIUS CÆSAR; ON ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA; ON CORIOLANUS; ON THE WINTER'S TALE; ON the tempeST; DISSERTATION ON THE GENERAL BELIEF OF THE TIMES IN THE ART OF MAGIC, AND ON SHAKSPEARE'S MANAGEMENT OF THIS SUPERSTITION, AS EXHIBITED IN THE TEMPEST OBSERVATIONS ON OTHELLO; ON TWELFTH NIGHT, AND ON THE PLAYS ASCRIBED TO SHAKSPEARE SUMMARY OF SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMATIC CHARACTER.

THE Roman tragedy of Shakspeare, including the three pieces of Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, exhibit the poet under a new aspect. We have seen him dramatise the annals of his own country with matchless skill and effect; we have beheld him touching with a discriminative pencil the heroes of ancient Greece, and he now brings before us, clothed in the majesty of republican greatness, or surrounded with the splendour of illimitable most illustrious patriots and warriors of the Roman world.

power, the The task of combining a faithful adhesion to the records of history with that grandeur and freedom of conception which characterise the unfettered poet, could alone have been achieved by the genius of Shakspeare. He has, accordingly, not only fixed his scene at Rome, during the days of Coriolanus or of Cæsar, but he has resuscitated the manners and the modes of thinking of their respective ages. We enter with enthusiasm into the characters and fortunes of these masters of the civilised globe, and the patriotism and martial glory, the very feelings and public life of the eternal city again start into existence.

The chronology of these three plays having been ascertained with as much probability, as the subject will admit, it is only necessary to observe, as a preliminary remark, that the dates of the first and second are adopted from Mr. Malone, and that of the third from Mr. Chalmers; and to these critics the reader is referred for facts and