pared to a sponge. Burbage. ton. Mills unequal to Macbeth. Better Anec Quin. dote of him and an infidious rival.-Both died about the fame time. HE author had more than one thing TH in view when he wrote the tragedy of Macbeth. James I. loved the mufes, and, to his own and the poet's honour, distinguished our Shakspeare by particular marks of favour. His plays, we have the authority of Ben Jonfon to aver, gave the king great delight; and our best editors fpeak of a letter which James wrote to him in his own hand: a very fingular mark of royal favour, and an evident proof of the king's good taste, humanity, and condefcenfion. To compliment his royal mafter as the descendant of Banquo, and the first of our monarchs, • That twofold balls and treble fceptres carry'd,' was was one main motive to the choice of the fubject. James's belief in witchcraft, and his pretended knowledge of dæmonology, on which fubject he published a volume, was, I believe, another inducement in order to gain his prince's favour. In an account Sir James Harrington has given of a long conference he had with James, he informs us that a confiderable part of the king's difcourfe turned upon witchcraft. I farther believe that there was another, and a political, reafon which prevailed upon Shakspeare to make a part of the Scottish history the subject of a play. The English and Scotch, united under one king, was a splendid novelty, as well as a matter of great confequence to both. The perpetual wars, which had been carried on with great animofity, for above five or fix hundred years, between the inhabitants of the northern and fouthern parts of the island, had contributed to embitter the spirits of both, and the fudden establishment of government under one prince could not imVOL. II. mediately H mediately remove that difpleafure which had fo long irritated them. Shakspeare, therefore, chofe à fubject which he thought would render the Scots important in their own eyes, and in the opinion of their new allies and fellow fubjects. He has, befides, very happily contrived to celebrate the humanity, courage, and generofity, of his own countrymen, in the fame piece. The lawful heir to the crown of Scotland is honourably maintained and fupported, in the court of an English king, by the bravery of whofe fubjects the banished prince is restored, and the ufurper defeated, This was a fair and honourable method of making court to both English and Scotch. Dr. Johnson's obfervations on witchcraft are learned and inftructive: nothing can be added to them, at least by me. The impreffions made on the mind of Shakspeare, refpecting witches, fairies, and inchantment, produced, in his riper years, fuch amazing descriptions of the supposed powers, manners, and magic charms, of thefe thefe imaginary beings, as were wonderfully fuited to the credulous age in which he lived. Like other great poets, he took advantage of the popular fuperftition to create fuch phantoms of the imagination, which the weak and credulous believed as implicitly as the articles of their creed, while the more fagacious confidered them as efforts of fancy and effufions of genius, which contributed to the main defign of the poet, to delight. At the Restoration, few of our author's plays were written to the palate of the court and thofe who affumed the direction of the public amufements. After Macbeth had been thrown afide, or neglected for fome years, Sir William Davenant undertook to refine and reduce it, as near as poffible, to the standard of the tafte in vogue. He likewife brought it, as well as he could, to the refemblance of an opera. In the mufical part he was affifted by Mr. Locke, an eminent mafter of mufic. It must be confeffed the fongs of HeH 2 cate, cate, and the other witches, have a folemn aadaption to the beings for whom they were compofed. Dances of furies were invented for the incantation-fcene in the fourth act, and near fifty years fince I faw our best dancers. employed in the exhibition of infernal spirits. Had Davenant stopped here, it had been well for his reputation, but this ill-inftructed admirer of Shakspeare altered the plan of the author's defign, and deftroyed that peculiarity which diftinguishes Macbeth from feveral of our author's pieces. The jingle of rhyme delighted the ears of our court critics, for no other reason, which I can discover, but because the plays of the French nation, and especially their tragedies, wore the chiming fetters; but the dramatic poets of France knew that their language was too weak for blank verfe, or for lines of twelve feet, without the affistance of rhyme, and therefore, what was mere neceffity in them, the falfe judges of our language confidered as an effential beauty. |