SHAKESPEAR's Charm. "A Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. Twice and once the hedge-pig whin'd. " 2d Harper cries, 'tis time, 'tis time! Round about the cauldron go, "In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under the cold ftone "Days and nights has thirty-one "Swelter'd venom fleeping got, "Boil thou firft i' th' charmed pot. "All. Double, double, toil and trouble, "Fire burn and cauldron bubble! "2d Witch. Fillet of a fenny fmake "In the cauldron boil and bake; "Eye of newt and toe of frog, "Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble ! "All. Double, double, toil and trouble, "Fire burn and cauldron bubble! "3d Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, "Witch's mummy, maw and gulf "Of the ravening falt-fea fhark, "Root of hemlock, digg'd i'th' dark; "Liver of blafpheming Jew, "Add Add thereto a tyger's chawdron For th' ingredients of our cauldron. " Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood- JONSON's Charm. The owl is abroad, the bat and the toad, The moon it is red and the stars are fled, 2d Charm. Deep, oh deep, we lay thee to fleep, We leave thee drink by, if thou chance to be dry, "Both milk and blood, the dew and the flood. "We breathe in thy bed, at the foot and the head; "We cover thee warm, that thou take no harm, And when thou doft wake, dame earth fhall "quake, &c. . 3d Charm. A cloud of pitch, a fpur and a switch, ** To hafte him away, and a whirlwind play VOL. IV. L 4th I fhould obferve that thefe quotations from Jonfon are felected partially and not given in continuation, as they are to be found in the Mafque, which is much too long to be given entire: They are accompanied with a commentary by the author full of dæmonological learning, which was a very courtly study in the time of James the firft, who was an author in that branch of fuperftitious pedantry. I am aware there is little to gratify the reader's curiofity in thefe extracts, and ftill less to diftract his judgment in deciding between them: They are fo far curious however as they fhew fhew how ftrongly the characters of the poets are diftinguished even in these fantastic specimens; Jonfon dwells upon authorities without fancy, Shakespear employs fancy and creates authorities. N° CX. Ufus vetufto genere, fed rebus novis., BE EN JONSON in his prologue to the comedy of The Fox fays that he wrote it in the fhort space of five weeks, his words are To these there needs no lie but this his creature, And tho' he dares give them five lives to mend it, This he delivers in his ufual vaunting stile, The magic move movements of Shakespear's mufe had been fo noted and applauded for their furprising rapidity, that the public had contracted a very ridiculous refpect for hafty productions in general, and thought there could be no better teft of a poet's genius than the dispatch and facility with which he wrote; Jonfon therefore affects to mark his contempt of the public judgment for applauding hafty writers in the couplet preceding thofe above quoted And when his plays come out, think they can flout "èni But at the fame time that he fhews this con tempt very juftly, he certainly betrays a degree of weakness in boasting of his poetical dispatch, and feems to forget that he had noted Shakespear with fomething lefs than friendly cenfure for the very quality, he is vaunting himself upon. Several comic poets fince his age have feemed to pride themselves on the little time they expended on their productions; fome have had the artifice to hook it in as an excufe for their errors, but it is no lefs evident what share vanity has in all fuch apologies: Wycherley is an inftance amongst these, and Congreve tells of his 'expedition in writing the Old Bachelor, yet the fame man afterwards in his letter to Mr. Dryden pompously |