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Globe theatre. The high reputation of Shakspere's performances (to mention a circumstance which in the

course

This Fire-stone, who occasionally interposes in the course of the dialogue, is called, in the list of Persons Represented-"The Clowne and Heccat's son."

Again, the Hecate of Shakspere says to her sisters :

I'll charm the air to give a sound,

"While you perform your antique round, &c."

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The Hecate of Middleton says on a similar occasion:

Come, my sweete sisters, let the aire strike our tune,
Whilst we shew reverence to yond peeping moone.'

[Here they dance and Exeunt.

In this play, the motives which incline the witches to mischief, their manners, the contents of their cauldron, &c. seem to have more than accidental resemblance to the same particulars in Macbeth. The hags of Middleton, like the weird sisters of Shakspere, destroy cattle because they have been refused provisions at farm-houses. The owl and the cat (Grey Malkin) give them notice when it is time to proceed on their several expeditions. Thus Shakspere's Witch:

"Harper cries;-'tis time, 'tis time."

Thus too the Hecate of Middleton:

"Hec.] Heard you the owle yet?
66 Stad.] Briefely in the copps.
"Hec.] 'Tis high time for us then."

The

course of these observations will be more than once insisted upon) likewise strengthens this conjecture; for it is very improbable, that Middleton, or any other poet of that time, should have ventured into those

The Hecate of Shakspere, addressing her sisters, observes, that Macbeth is but a wayward son, who loves for his own ends, not for them. The Hecate of Middleton has the same observation, when the youth who has been consulting her retires :

"I know he loves me not, nor there's no hope on't."

Instead of the grease that's sweaten from the murderer's gibbet, and the finger of birth-strangled babe, the witches of Middleton employ "the gristle of a man that hangs after sun-set," (i. e. of a murderer, for all other criminals were anciently cut down before evening) and the "fat of an unbaptized child." They likewise boast of the power to raise tempests that shall blow down trees, overthrow buildings, and occasion shipwreck; and, more particu larly, that they can make miles of woods walk." too the Grecian Hecate is degraded into a presiding witch, and exercised in superstitions peculiar to our own country. So much for the scenes of enchantment; but even other parts of Middleton's play coincide more than once with that of Shakspere. Lady Macbeth says, in at 11.

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Here

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those regions of fiction, in which our author had

already expatiated:

Shakspere's magick could not copy'd be, Within that circle none durst walk but he."

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"And Gasper there and all :-List!-fast asleepe; "He cryes it hither.I must disease you straight,

Sir;

"For the maide-servants, and the girles o'th' house,
"I spic'd them lately with a drowsie posset,
"They will not hear in haste.".

And Francisca, like lady Macbeth, is watching late at night to encourage the perpetration of a murder.

The expression which Shakspere has put into the mouth of Macbeth, when he is sufficiently recollected to perceive that the dagger and the blood on it were the creations of his own fancy," There's no such thing!"-is likewise appropriated to Francisca, when she undeceives her brother, whose imagination had been equally abused.

From the instances already produced, perhaps the reader would allow, that if Middleton's piece preceded Shakspere's, the originality of the magick introduced by the latter might be fairly questioned; for our author (who, as actor, and manager, had access to unpublished dramatick performances) has so often condescended to receive hints from his contemporaries, that our suspicion of his having been a copyist, in the present instance, might not be without foun

dation.

Other pieces of equal antiquity may, perhaps, be hereafter discovered, for the names of several ancient plays are preserved, which are not known to have been ever printed. Thus we hear of Valentine and Orson, plaied by

dation. Nay, perhaps, a time may arrive, in which it will become evident from books and manuscripts, yet undiscovered and unexamined, that Shakspere never attempted a play on any argument, till the effect of the same story, or at least the ruling incidents in it, had been already tried on the stage, and familiarized to his audience. Let it be remembered, in support of this conjecture, that dramatick pieces on the following subjects,-viz. King John, King Richard II. and III. King Henry IV. and V. King Henry VIII. King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of a Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors, had appeared before those of Shakspere, and that he has taken somewhat from all of them that we have hitherto seen. I must observe, at the same time, that Middleton, in his other dramas, is found to have borrowed little from the sentiments, and nothing from the fables of his predecessors. He is known to have written in concert with Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Rowley; but appears to have been unacquainted, or at least unconnected, with Shakspere.

It is true that the date of THE WITCH cannot be ascertained. The author, however, in his dedication (to the trulie-worthie and generously-affected Thomas Holmes, Esquire) observes, that he recovered this ignorant-ill-fated labour of his (from the play-house, I suppose) not without much difficultie. Witches (continues he) are, ipso facto, by the law condemn'd,

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by her Majestie's players-The tragedy of Ninus and Semiramis-Titirus and Galathea― Godfrey of Bulloigne-The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom-The Cradle of Securitie-Hit the Nail o' the Head-Sir Thomas More—(Harl.MS. 7368) -The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe―The comedy of Fidele and Fortunatus-The famous tragedy of The De

struction

and that onely, I thinck, hath made her lie so long in an imprison'd obscuritie. It is probable, therefore, from these words, as well as from the title-page, that the play was written long before the dedication, which seems to have been added soon after the year 1603, when the act of K. James against witches passed into a law. If it be ob jected, that THE WITCH appears from this title-page to have been acted only by his Majesty's servants, let it be remembered that these were the very players, who had been before in the service of the Queen; but Middleton, dedicating his work in the time of James, speaks of them only as dependants on the reigning prince.

Here too it may be remarked, that the first dramatick piece, in which Middleton is known to have had a hand, viz. The old Law, was acted in 1599; so that THE WITCH might have been composed, if not performed, at an earlier

That dramatick pieces were sometimes written long before they were printed, may be proved from the example of Marlowe's Rich Jew of Malta, which was entered on the books of the Stationers-Company in the year 1594, but was not published till 1633, as we learn from the preface to it written by Heywood. It appears likewise, from the same registers, that several plays were written, that were never published at all.

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