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Whether St. Chryfoftom believed that fuch performances were really to be feen in a day of battle, or only endeavoured to enliven his defcription, by adopting the notions of the vulgar, it is equally certain, that fuch notions were in his time received, and that therefore they were not imported from the Saracens in a later age; the wars with the Saracens however gave occafion to their propagation, not only as bigotry naturally difcovers prodigies, but as the scene of action was removed to a great distance.

The Reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though day was gradually increafing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft ftill continued to hover in the twilight. In the time of queen Elizabeth was the remarkable trial of the witches of Warbois, whofe conviction is ftill commemorated in an annual fermon at Huntingdon. But in the reign of king James, in which this tragedy was written, many circumftances concurred to propagate and confirm this opinion. The king, who was much celebrated for his knowledge, had, before his arrival in England, not only examined in perfon a woman accufed of witchcraft, but had given a very formal account of the practices and illufions of evil fpirits, the compacts of witches, the ceremonies used by them, the manner of detecting them, and the justice of punishing them, in his dialogues of Demonologie, written in the Scottish dialect, and published at Edinburgh. This book was, foon after his fucceffion, reprinted at London, and as the ready way to gain king James's favour was to flatter his fpeculations, the fyftem of Demonologie was immediately adopted by all who defired either to gain preferment or not to lofe it. Thus the doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the greatest part of mankind have no other reafon for their opinions than that they are in fashion, it cannot be doubted but this perfuafion made a rapid progrefs, fince vanity and credulity co-operated in its favour. The infection foon reached the parliament, who, in the first year of king James, made a law, by which it was enacted, chap. xii. That "if any person shall use any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked fpirit; 2. or fhall confult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil or curfed fpirit to or for any intent or purpose; 3. or take up any dead man, woman, or child, out of the grave,—or the fkin, bone, or any part of the dead perfon, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, forcery, charm, or enchantment; 4. or fhall use, practise, or exercise any fort of witchcraft, forcery, charm, or enchantment; 5. whereby any perfon fhall be destroyed, killed, wafted, confumed, pined, or lamed in any part of the body; 6. That every fuch perfon being convicted fhall fuffer death." This law was repealed in our own time.

Thus, in the time of Shakspeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite, but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are

always feen in proportion as they are expected, witches were every day difc. rered, and multiplied fo faft in fome places, that bishop Hall mentions a village in Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the houfes. The jefuits and fectaries took advantage of this univerfal error, and endeavoured to promote the intereft of their parties by pretended cures of perfons afflicted by evil fpirits; but they were detected and expofed by the clergy of the eftablifhed church.

Upon this general infatuation Shakspeare might be eafily allowed to found a play, especially fince he has followed with great exactnefs fuch histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the fcenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by himself and his audience thought awful and affecting. JOHNSON.

In the concluding paragraph of Dr. Johnfon's admirable introduction to this play, he feems apprehenfive that the fame of Shakfpeare's magic may be endangered by modern ridicule. I fhall not hefitate, however, to predict its fecurity, till our national tafte is wholly corrupted, and we no longer deferve the first of all dramatic enjoyments; for fuch, in my opinion at least, is the tragedy of Macbeth. STEEVENS.

Malcolm II. king of Scotland, had two daughters. The eldest was married to Crynin, the father of Duncan, Thane of the Ifles, and western parts of Scotland; and on the death of Malcolm, without male iffue, Duncan fucceeded to the throne. Malcolm's fecond daughter was married to Sinel, Thane of Glamis, the father of Macbeth. Duncan, who married the daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, was murdered by his coufin german, Macbeth, in the caftle of Inverness, according to Buchanan, in the year 1040; according to Hector Boethius, in 1045. Boethius, whose history of Scotland was first printed in feventeen books, at Paris, in 1526, thus describes the event which forms the bafis of the tragedy before us: "Makbeth, be perfuafion of his wyfe, gaderit his friendis to ane counfall at Invernes, quhare kyng Daneane happennit to be for ye tyme. And because he fand fufficient opportunitie, be support of Banquho and otheris his friendis, he flew kyng Duncane, the vii zeir of his regne." After the murder of Duncan, Macbeth" come with ane gret power to Scone, and tuk the crowne." Chroniclis of Scotland, tranflated by John Bellenden, folio, 1541. Macbeth was

In Nafhe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is faid, that no less than fix hundred witches were executed at one time: "it is evident by the confeffion of the fix hundred Scotch witches executed in Scotland at Bartholomew tide was twelve month, that in Yarmouth road they were all together in a plump on Christmas eve was two years, when the great flood was; and there ftirred up fuch tornadoes and furicanoes of tempefts, as will be fpoken of there whilst any winds or forms and tempefts chafe and puff in the lower region." REED.

himself flain by Macduff in the year 1061, according to Boethius; according to Buchanan, in 1057; at which time King Edward the Confeffor poffeffed the throne of England. Holinfhed copied the hiftory of Boethius, and on Holinfhed's relation Shakspeare formed his play.

In the reign of Duncan, Banquo having been plundered by the people of Lochaber of fome of the king's revenues, which he had collected, and being dangerously wounded in the affray, the perfons concerned in this outrage were fummoned to appear at a certain day. But they flew the ferjeant at arms who fummoned them, and chofe one MACDOWALD as their captain. Macdowald speedily collected a confiderable body of forces from Ireland and the Western Ifles, and in one action gained a victory over the king's army. In this battle Malcolm, a Scottish nobleman, who was (fays Boethius) "Lieutenant to Duncan in Lochaber,' Macbeth and Banquo were appointed to the command of the army; was flain. Afterwards and Macdowald being obliged to take refuge in a castle in Lochaber, first flew his wife and children, and then himself. Macbeth on entering the caftle finding his dead body, ordered his head to be cut off, and carried to the king, at the caftle of Bertha, and his body to be hung on a high tree.

At a fubfequent period, in the last year of Duncan's reign, Sueno king of Norway, landed a powerful army in Fife, for the purpose of invading Scotland. Duncan immediately affembled an army to oppofe him, and gave the command of two divifions of it to Macbeth and Banquo, putting himself at the head of a third. Sueno was successful in one battle, but in a second was routed; and after a great flaughter of his troops he escaped with ten perfons only, and fled back to Norway. Though there was an interval of time between the rebellion of Macdowald and the invasion of Sueno, our author has woven these two actions together, and immediately after Sueno's defeat the prefent play commences.

It is remarkable that Buchanan has pointed out Macbeth's hiftory as a fubject for the stage. affingunt; fed, quia theatris aut Milefiis fabulis funt aptiora quam hif"Multa bic fabulofe quidam noftrorum toria, ea omitto. RERUM SCOT. HIST. L. VII. But there was no translation of Buchanan's work till after our author's death.

This tragedy was written, I believe, in the year 1606. See the notes at the end; and An attempt to ascertain the order of Shakspeare's plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

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English forces:

Young Siward, his Son.

Seyton, an Officer attending on Macbeth.

Son to Macduff.

An English Doctor. A Scotch Doctor.
A Soldier.

A Porter. An old Man.

Lady Macbeth.*

Lady Macduff.

Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
Hecate, and three Witches.

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.

The Ghost of Banquo, and feveral other Apparitions.

SCENE, in the end of the fourth act, lies in England; through the rest of the play, in Scotland; and, chiefly, at Macbeth's cafle.

Lady Macbeth.] Her name was Gruach. See Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland, II. 332. RITSON.

M

A C B E T H.

ACT I. SCENE I.

An open place,

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

1. WITCH. When fhall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2. WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,' When the battle's loft and won:

3-burlyburly's-] However mean this word may feem to modern cars, it came recommended to Shakspeare by the authority of Henry Peacham, who in the year 1577 published a book profeffing to treat of the ornaments of language. It is called the Garden of Eloquence, and has this paffage. Onomatopeia, when we invent, devife, fayne, and make a name imitating the fownd of that it fignifyeth, as burliburly, for an uprore and tumultuous flirre." HENDERSON.

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So, in a tranflation of Herodian, 12mo. 1635, p. 26:

66

there was a mighty burlyburly in the campe," &c. Again, p. 324:

-

great hurliburlies being in all parts of the empire," &c.

REED.

4 When the battle's loft and won:] i. e. the battle, in which Macbeth was then engaged. WARBURTON.

So, in King Richard III :

while we reafon here,

"A royal battle might be won and loft."

So alfo Speed, fpeaking of the battle of Towton: "by which only ftratagem, as it was conftantly averred, the battle and day was loft and won." Chronicle, 1611. MALONE.

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