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, spumisque tumentibus albet. among the ingredients in her charms, are mentioned the owlet's wing, and fillet of a fenny fnake. Et frigis infames ipfis cum carnibus alas Squamea Cinyphii tenuis membrana Chelydri. Mortifera carpit gramina, ac serpentium And the Priestess in Virgil, Aen. IV, 559, &c. And the witch Erectho in Lucan, B. VI. where she mixes for her ingredients every thing of the ill-ominous kind. Huc quicquid foetu genuit natura finiftro And Canidia in Horace, Epod. V. Fubet fepulcris caprificos erutas, Et unita turpis ova ranae fanguine, Plumamque nocturnae ftrigis, Herbafque, &c: or 18 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 foffam confufus, ut inde Manes elicerent, animas refponfa daturas. The ghost of Darius is conjur'd up in the Perfae of AefchyJus, and foretells to queen Atoffa her calamities. Sextus Pompeius, in Lucan, enquired of Erictho the forceress the event of the civil wars, and the 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 thefe. 16 See a masque 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 ftole from the ancients: a theft excufable enough. But thefe poets 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 feene which firft presented itself was an "ugly Hell, which flaming beneath, smoked unto the top of the roofe. And in respect all evils are morally faid "to come from hell; as alfo from that obfervation of "Torrentius upon Horace his Canidia, quae tat inftru&a venenis, ex orci faucibus profecta videri poffit: these "witches, with a hollow and infernal mufick came forth ་ from being " fymbolical representations 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 most fublime paffage in 18 Virgil, where the great fucceffors of Aeneas pafs in review before the hero's eyes. Our poet's clofing with a compliment to James the firft upon the union, equals Virgil's compliment to Auguftus. " from thence." He tells us, Jones invented the architecture of the whole fcene and machine. Perhaps Shakefpeare made use of the fame scenes: as may be gueffed 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 reprefents 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 address, deviates from the hiftory. By these means his characters have the greater variety; and he at the same 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 distinguishes him from all the reft. The characters of the two kings, Duncan and Macbeth, are finely contrafted; so are those 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 speaks 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 Enver neffum 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 Botgofuanae) obtruncat. Het Boeth. p. 250. 20 Marc. Ant. XI, 6. but 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, 21 The way to " ftudy death. Out, out, brief candle! 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 hast brought me to the duft of death; the duft of death, į. e. dufty death. I don't doubt but dufty death was Shakespeare's own reading; but 'twas his first reading; and he afterwards altered it himself into ftudy death, which the players finding in fome other copy, gave it us in their fecond |