[Footnote 6:  Dyer was a Jacobite printer, whose News-letter was twice in trouble for ‘misrepresenting the proceedings of the House,’ and who, in 1703, had given occasion for a proclamation against ’printing and spreading false ‘news.’]

[Footnote 7:  ‘’The British Princes’, an Heroick Poem,’ by the Hon. Edward Howard, was published in 1669.  The author produced also five plays, and a volume of Poems and Essays, with a Paraphrase on Cicero’s Laelius in Heroic Verse.  The Earls of Rochester and Dorset devoted some verses to jest both on ‘The British Princes’ and on Edward Howard’s Plays.  Even Dr. Sprat had his rhymed joke with the rest, in lines to a Person of Honour ’upon his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem, intitled ‘The British Princes’.’  Edward Howard did not print the nonsense here ascribed to him.  It was a burlesque of his lines: 

  ’A vest as admir’d Vortiger had on,
  Which from this Island’s foes his Grandsire won.’]

* * * * *

No. 44.  Friday, April 20, 1711.  Addison.

      ‘Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi.’

      Hor.

Among the several Artifices which are put in Practice by the Poets to fill the Minds of [an] [1] Audience with Terror, the first Place is due to Thunder and Lightning, which are often made use of at the Descending of a God, or the Rising of a Ghost, at the Vanishing of a Devil, or at the Death of a Tyrant.  I have known a Bell introduced into several Tragedies with good Effect; and have seen the whole Assembly in a very great Alarm all the while it has been ringing.  But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our ‘English’ Theatre so much as a Ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody Shirt.  A Spectre has very often saved a Play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the Stage, or rose through a Cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one Word.  There may be a proper Season for these several Terrors; and when they only come in as Aids and Assistances to the Poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded.  Thus the sounding of the Clock in ‘Venice Preserved’, [2] makes the Hearts of the whole Audience quake; and conveys a stronger Terror to the Mind than it is possible for Words to do.  The Appearance of the Ghost in ‘Hamlet’ is a Master-piece in its kind, and wrought up with all the Circumstances that can create either Attention or Horror.  The Mind of the Reader is wonderfully prepared for his Reception by the Discourses that precede it:  His Dumb Behaviour at his first Entrance, strikes the Imagination very strongly; but every time he enters, he is still more terrifying.  Who can read the Speech with which young ‘Hamlet’ accosts him, without trembling?

  Hor.  Look, my Lord, it comes!