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confider it without admiring our poet's improvement of every hint he receives from the ancients,

or

Medaea, Met. VII. where the boiling and bubbling of the cauldron is prettily expreft:

Interea validum pofito medicamen aheno

Fervet et exultat, fpumifque tumentibus albet.

among the ingredients in her charms, are mentioned the owlet's wing, and fillet of a fenny Snake.

Et frigis infames ipfis cum carnibus alas
Nec defuit illic

Squamea Cinyphii tenuis membrana Chelydri.

See likewife the Medaea of Seneca:

Mortifera carpit gramina, ac serpentium
Saniem exprimit; mifcetque et obfcenas aves
Maeftique cor bubonis, et raucae ftrigis
Exfecta vivae vifcera.

And the Priestess in Virgil, Aen. IV, 509, &c. And the witch Erecho in Lucan, B. VI. where the mixes for her ingre dients every thing of the ill-ominous kind.

Huc quicquid foetu genuit natura finiftro
Mifcetur, &c.

And Canidia in Horace, Epod. V.

Jubet fepulcris caprificos erutas,

Jubet cupreffus funebres,

Et uncta turpis ova ranae fanguine,

Plumamque nocturnae ftrigis,`

Herbafque, &c.

D 3

Before

or 16 moderns. Then again thofe apparitions,

being

Before the witches call up the apparitions, they pour into the cauldron fow's blood. So the witches in Horace, L. I. fat. 8. pour out the blood of a black ram into a pit digged for that purpose.

Cruor in feffam confufus, ut inde

Manes elicerent, animas refponfa daturas.

The ghoft of Darius is conjur'd up in the Perfae of Aeschylus, and foretells to queen Atoffa her calamities. Sextus Pompeius, in Lucan, enquired of Erictho the forceress the event of the civil wars, and she raised up a dead body by her magic art, to answer his demands. Homer ought not to be paffed over; in his Odyff. B. XI. Ulyffes calls up Tirefias. Our poet will bear comparison with any of these.

16 See a mafque of Johnson's at Whitehall, Feb. 2. 1609. which feems to have preceded this play. For Johnson's pride would not fuffer him to borrow from Shakespeare, tho' he stole from the ancients: a theft excufable enough. But thefe pocts made this entertainment of the witches to please king James, who then had written his book of Demonology. Johnson, in the introduction of the mafque fays, "The part of the scene which first presented itself was an "ugly Hell, which flaming beneath, smoked unto the top "of the roofe. And in refpect all evils are morally faid "to come from bell; as alfo from that observation of "Torrentius upon Horace his Canidia, quae tot inftruča "venenis, ex orci faucibus profecta videri poffit: these "witches, with a hollow and infernal mufick came forth

"from

being " fymbolical reprefentations of what shall happen to him, are introduced paltering with him in a double fenfe, and leading him on, according to the common notions of diabolical oracles, to his confufion. And when the kings appear, we have a piece of machinery, that neither the ancients or moderns can exceed. I know nothing any where can parallel it, but that moft fublime paffage in Virgil, where the great fucceffors of Aeneas pass in review before the hero's eyes. Our poet's clofing with a compliment to James the first upon the union, equals Virgil's compliment to Auguftus.

18

" from thence." He tells us, Jones invented the architecture of the whole scene and machine. Perhaps Shakespeare made use of the fame scenes: as may be guessed from what Hecate fays, A&t. III.

"Get you gone,

"And at the pit of Acheron
"Meet me i' th' morning."

17 The armed head represents fymbolically Macbeth's head cut off and brought to Malcolm by Macduff. The bloody child is Macduff untimely ripp'd from his mother's womb. The child with a crown on his head, and a bough in his hand, is the royal Malcolme; who ordered his foldiers to hew them down a bough, and bear it before them to Dunfinane.

18 Virg. VI, 756, &c.

The variety of characters with their different manners ought not to be paffed over in filence. Banquo was as deep in the murder of the king, as fome of the 19 Scotifh writers inform us, as Macbeth. But Shakespeare, with great art and addrefs, deviates from the hiftory. By thefe means his characters have the greater variety; and he at the fame time pays a compliment to king James, who was lineally defcended from Banquo. There is a thorough honesty, and a love of his country in Macduff, that diftinguishes him from all the reft. The characters of the two kings, Duncan and Macbeth, are finely contrafted; fo are thofe of the two women, lady. Macbeth and lady Macduff.

In whatever light this play is viewed, it will fhew beautiful in all. The emperor 20 Marcus Antoninus fpeaks in commendation of tragedy, as not only exhibiting the various events of life,

19 Igitur re cum intimis amicorum, in quibus erat BANQUO, communicatâ, regem opportunum infidiis ad Enverneffum nactus, feptimum jam regnantem annum, obtruncat, Buchan. rer. Scot. L. 7. Confilia igitur cum proximis amicis communicata ac in primis cum BANQUHONE; qui ubi omnia polliciti fuiffent, per occafionem regem feptimum jam annum regnantem ad Envernes (alii dicunt ad Botgofuanac) obtruncat. Het Boeth. p. 250.

20 Marc. Ant. XI, 6.

but

41 but teaching us wife and moral obfervations. What tragedian equals Shakespeare? When news was brought to Macbeth that the queen was dead, he wishes fhe had not then died; to morrow, or any other time would have pleased him better. This is the concatenation of ideas, and hence is introduced the obfervation that follows.

To morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last fyllable of recorded time:
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

21

The way to study death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That ftruts and frets bis bour upon the ftage
And then is beard no more! It is a tale,
Told by an idiot, full of found and fury,
Signifying nothing!

And

21 The first folio edition reads dufty death: i. e. death which reduces us to duft and ashes ; as Mr. Theobald explains it, an espouser of this reading. It might be further ftrengthened from a fimilar expreffion in the pfalms, xxii. 15. thou haft brought me to the duft of death; the dust of death i. e. dufty death. I don't doubt but dufty death was Shakespeare's own reading; but 'twas his firft reading; and he afterwards altered it himself into ftudy death, which the players finding in fome other copy, gave it us in their

fecond

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