unnatural) is always sure of applause.  Our audiences come to the theatre to be complimented on their goodness.  They compare notes with the amiable characters in the play, and find a wonderful similarity of disposition between them.  We have a common stock of dramatic morality out of which a writer may be supplied without the trouble of copying from originals within his own breast.  To know the boundaries of honour, to be judiciously valiant, to have a temperance which shall beget a smoothness in the angry swellings of youth, to esteem life as nothing when the sacred reputation of a parent is to be defended, yet to shake and tremble under a pious cowardice when that ark of an honest confidence is found to be frail and tottering, to feel the true blows of a real disgrace blunting that sword which the imaginary strokes of a supposed false imputation had put so keen an edge upon but lately; to do, or to imagine this done in a feigned story, asks something more of a moral sense, somewhat a greater delicacy of perception in questions of right and wrong, than goes to the writing of two or three hackneyed sentences about the laws of honour as opposed to the laws of the land or a commonplace against duelling.  Yet such things would stand a writer nowadays in far better stead than Captain Ager and his conscientious honour; and he would be considered a far better teacher of morality than old Rowley or Middleton if they were living.

* * * * *

Though some resemblance may be traced between the Charms in Macbeth and the Incantations in this Play, which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare.  His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences.  These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional consultation.  Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men.  From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth’s, he is spellbound.  That meeting sways his destiny.  He can never break the fascination.  These Witches can hurt the body:  those have power over the soul.  Hecate in Middleton has a Son, a low buffoon:  the hags of Shakspeare have neither child of their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent.  They are foul Anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending.  As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations.  They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music.  This is all we know of them.—­Except Hecate, they have no names; which heightens their mysteriousness.  Their names, and some of the properties, which Middleton has given to his Hags, excite smiles.  The Weird Sisters are serious things.  Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth.  But in a lesser degree the witches of Middleton are fine creations.  Their power too is, in some measure, over the