"As it does not appear that the poet intended to make Caliban violate grammar, SHE ought, at once, in the text, to be altered to HER!" See alfo Vol. 11. p. 199. The grave-digger fays, "I think it be thine," which Mr. S. corrects, "Instead of is thine !" Such alterations remind us of a chapter entitled by the facetious Gabriel John, in his Effay towards the Theory of the invisible World, p. 153. "How old authors ought to be transfus'd into modern languages, in fuch manner that the fpirit of them may evaporate, &c." Nor can we always approve the manner in which Mr. S. fupplies what he is pleased to term deficiencies. For inftance, fee Vol. 11, p. 345. "More than their own! What then? how then? "Here is a deficiency; and conjecture to supply it must be vague: perhaps fomething like this has been loft: "Or play their pranks, more than their own! How then?" We imagine, for a moment, that one of the kings of Brentford in the rehearsal fuggefted this elegant infer tion: "1. King. Did you obferve their whispers, brother king?" 2. King. I did; and heard, befides, a grave bird fing, That they intend, fweet-heart, to play us pranks !" From fuch emendations, of which we could fele&t more, and from thefe brief animadverfions, we turn with pleasure to paffages of more judgement or ingenuity; and shall close our account with the following extracts from the pen both of Mr. S. and of his coadjutors. The table's full.” "In the late reprefentations of this play, at one of the great theatres in the capital, Macbeth is feen "To ftart and tremble at the vacant chair," according to the conception of Mr. Lloyd, in his poem called The Actor. It would be deemed only a waste of criticism to combat an opinion fo defenceless, which prefumes that Macbeth's agitations are merely the refult of phrenfy; whereas there can hardly be a ferious doubt that the poet defigned the real introduction of the spectre; and the fuperftition, wherever it prevailed, has been, that though the ghost was fometimes invisible to all except the fpecial object of its vifitation, yet it was really and bona fide prefent. "What "What I am going to advance will not obtain quite fo ready an affent, though I am almost as firmly perfuaded of its propriety. "I think two ghofts are feen; Duncan's firft, and afterwards that of Banquo; for what new terror, or what augmented pertur bation, is to be produced by the re-appearance of the fame object in the fame scene? or, if but one dread monitor could gain accefs to this imperial malefactor, which had the fuperior claim, or who was the more likely to harrow the remorfeful bofom of Mac. beth-" the gracious Duncan," he who had "borne his faculties fo meek," had been "fo clear in his great office," and in "the deep damnation of whofe taking off," not only friendship, kindred, and allegiance, but facred hofpitality, had been profaned, or Banquo, his mere " partner," of whom it only could be faid, that he was brave, and to be feared;" that wifdom guided his valour, and that under him the genius of Macbeth fuftained rebuke? Which, I demand, of these two facrifices to his "vaulting ambition" was the more likely, at the regal banquet, to break in upon and confound the ufurper? Befides this obvious general claim to precedence, exhibited by Duncan, how elfe can we apply these lines ?— "If charnel houses, and our graves, must fend "For they will not fuit with Banquo, who had no grave of charnel-houfe affigned to him, (having been left in a ditch, to find a monument in the maws of kites ;) but muft refer to Duncan, who, we may naturally suppose, received the formal oftentatious rites of fepulture. I do not overlook the words "Thou canst not fay I did it," &c.— which may be urged against my argument; but if this fentence will stand, in the cafe of Banquo, as the fubterfuge of one who had, by deputy, and not in perfon, done the murder, it furely will accord with the cafuiftry of him, who knows he ftruck a Seeping victim; and this, with the pains that had been taken to fix the murder on the grooms, may fufficiently defend the application of the remark to the royal fpectre. Befides, to whom, except Duncan, can these words refer? "If I ftand here, I faw him." "The ghoft being gone, and Macbeth" a man again," he reafons like a man, and gives this anfwer to his wife, who had reproached him with being " unmann'd in folly:" but if Banquo were the object alluded to in this declaration, it must be unintelligible to the Lady, who had not yet heard of Banquo's murder. The ghoft of Duncan having performed his office, and departed, Macbeth Macbeth is at leifure to ruminate on the prodigy; and he naturally reflects, that if the grave can thus caft up the form of buried Duncan, Banquo may likewife rife again, regardless of the "trenched gashes, and twenty mortal murders on his crown." The Lady interrupts this reverie, and he proceeds to "mingle with fociety;" and when, infidioufly, with the raised goblet in his hand, he invokes the health of his friend whofe life he had deftroyed, juft at that moment his friend's ghoft confronts him. All this, indeed, is only conjecture, but conjecture, I traft, on the ground of ftrong probability; a bafis that, in the eftimation of those who are best acquainted with the fubject, will, I doubt not, be deemed at least as fecure as the authority of Meffrs. Heminge and Condell, which, unhappily, is the only plot we have yet had to build upon." Vol. 1. p. 208. We must say, however, that we do not at all agree to this fuggeftion of Mr. S., nor allow the force of his arguments. -This Cardinal, "Though from an humble flock, undoubtedly "Was fashion'd to much honour: from his cradle "I am furprised to find Theobald's clear punctuation of this paffage rejected both by Mr. Malone and the last editor. "Was fabion'd to much honour from his cradle.” "There is no violence (at least poetic precedent fully war. rants it) in faying a man was formed by nature for greatnefs; that he was ennobled by nature at his birth; but to fay that any one was born a fcholar, and a ripe scholar, cannot be reconciled to any thing like truth or propriety of expreffion: befides, the paffage quoted from Holinfhed, which unquestionably was before our author when he wrote these lines, appears to be dẹcifive on the fide of Theobald: "This Cardinal was a man undoubtedly born to honour,” Vol. 1. p. 409. Cafar doth not wrong but with just cause." "I wish that Mr. Tyrwhitt, who undertook to defend this expreffion, as it is fuppofed originally to have stood, had favoured us with an example, in any other English author, of "wrong's" being used with a meaning different from that of injury. Until this can be shown, I fear the votaries of Shakspeare's mufe muft abide the farcasms of Jonfon, how foever they difrelifh his ma. lignity, The paffage cited by Mr. Malone from the Rape of Lucrece to fupport Mr. Tyrwhitt, I fear, is infufficient, as the word "wrong" there, feems to have been adopted merely for the fake of the jingle and alliteration; and, as to what Mr, Steevens produces from K. Henry IV, where Justice Shallow tells tells Davy, that his friend fhall have no wrong, I cannot dif cover any other meaning in it than that the fellow, although ❝ an errant knave," fhould not be treated with unjust rigour. But, even if both those cafes were applicable, how would it mitigate or remove the feverity of Ben, to prove that the inaccuracy which he was expofing was not only really exiftent but common with our poet." Vol. 11. p. 18. 251. " As I did fleep "I dreamt my mafter and another fought, "Mr. Steevens makes a long remark upon this, fuppofing that Balthazar is honeftly reporting, as a dream, what his terrified imagination only had unrealized; this, indeed, might have been the cafe with Paris's page, who found himself almost afraid to ftand alone but Balthazar, with a steady fpirit, refolves to watch his master, and was not of a temper to be fo mistaken; his difingenuoufnefs on this occafion is the natural and venial refult of his reflecting on the danger he would be exposed to, if he acknowledged himself an unactive fpectator of what had passed. "As I did fleep," &c. "This paffage is not in the first quarto. The fervant of Romeo muft have been a fot indeed, fo foon, at fuch a crifis, and in fuch a place, to have fallen afleep; and more fo, having dreamt that his master had killed a man, that he did not go to the entrance of the monument to be afcertained of the fact.-I cannot admit the paffage to be genuine, although I allow the comment to be judicious. Mr. Steevens chufes to affert, that this belief of Balthazar's is a touch of nature.-I cannot difcern in it any thing that is natural; nor do I fee what Rhefus, in Homer, or the applaufe of Dacier and Euftathius, has to do with the subject -in the firft and third quartos, Paris defires the boy to stay un der a yew tree; in the latter, particularly, he is defired to lie "all along on the ground, under the yew trees."-If any one dept there it was the boy, and not Romeo's man; yet the boy was placed there to watch the approach of any one, and fled at the encounter, to call the watch. B. STRUTT. "Mr. Seymour's interpretation of this paffage may derive ftrong fupport from a recent fact that occurred during the civil horrors that have afflicted Ireland.-A deep-laid plot of affaffination was revealed by a fervant, in a feigned dream, while he was fuppofed to be sleeping. CAPEL LOFFT. 363. ——— Never was a ftory of more woe.” "I fuppofe there are few who read this tragedy, or witness its reprefentation on the ftage, that do not lament the fatal cataftrophe, and with the poet had not ultimately facrificed the lovers, whofe tenderness, misfortunes, and fidelity deferved a gentler doom; doom; for this purpofe, an expedient was at hand, in the Apo thecary, who would readily have been pardoned for deceiving Romeo, with fome harmlefs drug, instead of the poison; but, befides that this might be objectionable, in too much resembling the Friar's device, with Juliet, it was impoffible, without violating probability and decorum, to difmifs the pair to happiness, as the prince muft have condemned Romeo for not only difregarding the decree of banishment, but adding to his former offence the death of Paris. There is, further, in the moral, a three-fold motive for this conduct of the poet, who meant to exhibit, at once, the deftructive effects of feudal animofity, the chattifement of filial difobedience, and, above all, I believe, the mifery too often produced by parental defpotifm. There is obfervable, in the dialogue of this drama, a striking diffimilarity, which yet I do not regard as the refult of corruption. Mr. Malone, in his conjectural Chronologic Lift, places Romeo and Juliet pretty , high, and I believe he is right: but I think, further, that the play had been sketched out, and only the first act written, long before the time when it was brought upon the stage. The abor tive introduction of Rosaline, together with the rhymes, conecits, and clinches occurring in the early fcenes, perfuade me they were written before our poet had digested his plan, or was poffeffed of that vigorous and masterly ftyle of compofition which he afterwards acquired, and which is abundantly displayed in the fequel and progrefs of the prefent tragedy." Vol. 1. p. 417. With these specimens we take leave of Mr. Seymour; and conclude our account of four connected articles of British Literature. ART. VIII. Obfervations on the Hypothefes which have been affumed to account for the Caufe of Gravitation from Mechanical Principles. By the Rev. S. Vince, A. M. F.R.S. Plumian Profeffor of Aftronomy and Experimental Philosophy. 26 pp. 1s. Lunn. 1806. 8vo. SOME very eminent philofophers upon the continent haying attempted to explain the government of the world from caufes merely mechanical, this author was requefled to confider the fubject, and give his opinion: accordingly, he examined the various hypothefes which have been invented in order to folve the phænomena, that is, to account for gravitation from material operations only. Sir I. Newton propofed an hypothefis, and left it for further examination, not having been fatisfied about it, for want of further experi ments. |