at full length in The Witch, while only the two first words of them are printed in Macbeth, favour

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In this play, the motives which incline the witches to mifchief, their manners, the contents of their cauldron, &c. feem to have more than accidental refemblance to the fame particulars in Macbeth. The hags of Middleton, like the weird fifters of Shakspeare, deftroy cattle because they have been refufed provifions at farm-houses. The owl and the cat (Gray Malkin) give them notice when it is time to proceed on their feveral expeditions. Thus Shakspeare's Witch:

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Harper cries; 'tis time, 'tis time.

Thus too the Hecate of Middleton:

The Hecate of Shakspeare, addreffing her fifters, observes,、 that Macbeth is but a wayward fon, who loves for his own ends, not for them. The Hecate of Middleton has the fame observation, when the youth who has been confulting her, retires:

"I know he loves me not, nor there's no hope on't." Inftead of the greafe that's fweaten from the murderer's gibbet, and the finger of birth-ftrangled babe, the witches of Middleton employ "the griftle of a man that hangs after funfet," (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 raife tempefts that fhall blow down trees, overthrow buildings, and occafion fhipwreck; and, more particularly, that they can "make miles of woods walk." Here too the Grecian Hecate is degraded into a prefiding witch, and exercifed in fuperftitions peculiar to our own country. So much for the fcenes of enchantment; but even other parts of Middleton's play coincide more than once with that of Shakspeare. Lady Macbeth fays, in A& II: the furfeited grooms

"Do mock their charge with fnores. I have drugg'd their poffets."

So too Francifca, in the piece of Middleton :

they're now all at reft,

"And Gafpar there and all:— Lift !

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faft afleepe;

"He cryes it hither. I muft difeafe you ftrait, fir:
"For the maide-fervants, and the girles o' th' house,

the fuppofition that Middleton's piece preceded that of Shakspeare; the latter, it should seem, think

"Ifpic'd them lately with a drowfie poffet,

They will not hear in hafte. And Francifca, like lady Macbeth, is watching late at night to encourage the perpetration of a murder.

The expreffion which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Macbeth, when he is fufficiently recollected to perceive that the dagger and the blood on it, were the creation of his own fancy, "There's no fuch thing," is likewife appropriated to Francifca, when fhe undeceives her brother, whofe imagination had been equally abused.

From the infances already produced, perhaps the reader would allow, that if Middleton's piece preceded Shakspeare's, the originality of the magick introduced by the latter, might be fairly queflioned; for our author (who as actor, and manager, had access to unpublished dramatick performances) has fo often condefcended to receive hints from his contemporaries, that our fufpicion of his having been a copyift in the prefent inftance, might not be without foundation. Nay, perhaps, a time may arrive, in which it will become evident from books and manufcripts yet undiscovered and unexamined, that Shakspeare never attempted a play on any argument, till the effect of the fame ftory, or at leaft the ruling incidents in it, had been already tried on the flage, and familiarized to his audience. Let it be remembered, in fupport of this conjecture, that dramatick pieces on the following fubjects, viz. King John, King Richard II. and III. King Henry IV. and V. King Henry VIII. King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Meafure for Meafure, the Merchant of Venice, the Taming of a Shrew, and the Comedy of Errors, had appeared before thofe of Shakspeare, and that he has taken fomewhat from all of them that we have hitherto feen. I must obferve at the fame time, that Middleton, in his other dramas, is found to have borrowed little from the fentiments, and nothing from the fables of his predeceffors. He is known to have written in concert with Jonson, Fletcher, Mafinger, and Rowley; but appears to have been unacquainted, or at leaft unconnected, with Shakspeare.

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It is true that the date of THE WITCH cannot be afcertained. The author, however, in his dedication (to the trulie-worthie

ing it unneceffary to fet down verfes which were probably well known, and perhaps then in the

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and generously-affected Thomas Holmes Efquire) obferves, that he recovered this ignorant-ill-fated labour of his (from the playhouse, I fuppofe,) not without much difficultie. Witches (continues he) are, ipfo facto, by the law condemn'd, and that onely, I thinck, hath made her lie fo long in an imprifon'd obfcuritie. It is probable, therefore from thefe words, as well as from the title-page, that the play was written long before the dedication, which feems to have been added foon after the year 1603, when the act of King James againft witches paffed into a law. If it be objected, that THE WITCH appears from this title-page to have been acted only by his majefty's fervants, let it be remembered that thefe were the very players who had been before in the fervice of the Queen; but Middleton, dedicating his work in the time of James, fpeaks of them only as dependants on the reigning prince.

Here too it may be remarked, that the firft dramatick piece in which Middleton is known to have had a hand, viz. The Old Law, was acted in 1599; fo that THE WITCH might have been compofed, if not performed at an earlier period than the acceffion of James to the crown; for the belief of witchcraft was fufficiently popular in the preceding reigns. The piece in queftion might likewife have been neglected. through the caprice of players, or retarded till it could be known that James would permit fuch reprefentations; (for on his arrival here, both authors and actors who fhould have ventured to bring the midnight mirth and jollity of witches on the ftage, would probably have been indicted as favourers

That dramatick pieces were fometimes 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 likewife from the same regifters, that several plays were written, that were never publifhed at all. STEEVENS.

The spelling in the MS. is fometimes more antiquated than any to be met with in the printed copies of Shakspeare, as the following inftances may prove: Byn for been -follempnely for folemnly dampnation for damnation quight for quite grizzel for griftle-doa for doeollyff for olive, &c. STEEVENS.

poffeffion of the managers of the Globe theatre. The high reputation of Shakspeare's performances

of magick and enchantment;) or, it might have fhrunk into obfcurity after the appearance of Macbeth; or perhaps was forbidden by the command of the king. The witches of Shakspeare (exclufive of the flattering circumftance to which their prophecy alludes) are folemn in their operations, and therefore behaved in conformity to his majefty's own opinions. On the contrary, the hags of Middleton are ludicrous in their conduct, and leffen, by ridiculous combinations of images, the folemnity of that magick in which our fcepter'd perfecutor of old women moft reverently and potently believed.

The conclufion to Middleton's dedication has likewife a degree of fingularity that deferves notice," For your fake alone, fhe hath thus conjur'd herself abroad; and bears no other charmes about her, but what may tend to your recreation; nor no other fpell, but to poffefs you with a beleif, that as fhe, fo he, that first taught her to enchant, will alwaies be," &c. "He that taught her to enchant, would have

fufficiently expreffed the obvious meaning of the writer, without aid from the word first, which feems to imply a covert cenfure on fome perfon who had engaged his Hecate in a Secondary courfe of witchcraft.

The reader must have inferred from the fpecimen of incantation already given, that this MS. play (which was purchased by Major Pearfon out of the collection of Benjamin Griffin, the player, and is in all probability the prefentation copy) had indubitably paffed through the hands of Sir William D'Avenant; for almost all the additions which he pretends to have made to the scenes of witchcraft in Macbeth (together with the names of the fupplemental agents) are adopted from Middleton. It was not the intereft therefore of Sir William, that this piece fhould ever appear in print: but time that makes more important difcoveries, has likewife brought his petty plagiarifm to light. *

* Sir William D'Avenant might likewife have formed his play of Albovine King of Lombardy on fome of the tragick fcenes in this unpublifhed piece by Middleton. Yet the chief circumftances on which they are both founded, occur in the fourth volume of the Hiftoires Tragiques, &c. par François de Belle-foreft, 1580, p. 297, and at the beginning of Machiavel's Florentine Hiftory. STEEVENS,

(to mention a circumftance which in the course of thefe obfervations will be more than once infifted upon) likewise strengthens this conjecture; for it is very improbable, that Middleton, or any other poet of that time, fhould have ventured into those regions of fiction, in which our author had already expatiated;

"Shakspeare's magick could not copy'd be,

"Within that circle none durft walk but he."

Other pieces of equal antiquity may, perhaps, be hereafter difcovered; for the names of feveral ancient plays are preferved, which are not known to have been ever printed. Thus we hear of Valentine and Orfon, plaied by her Majefties players, The tragedy of Ninus and Semiramis,- Titirus and Galathea,+Godfrey of Bulloigne,—The Cradle of Securitie, Hit the Naile 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 Destruction of Jerufalem, by Dr. Legge,-The Freeman's Honour, by William Smith, Mahomet and Irene, the Faire Greek, The 'play of the Cards, Cardenio, - The Knaves, The Knot of Fools, Raymond Duke of Lyons,―The Nobleman, by Cyril Tourneur,-[the laft five, acted in the year 1613,] The honoured Loves,-The Parliament of Love, and Nonfuch, a comedy; all by William Rowley;-The Pilgrimage to

I should remark, that Sir W. D. has corrupted several words as well as proper names in the fongs, &c. but it were needlefs to particularize his mistakes, as this entire tragicomedy will hereafter be published for the fatisfaction of the curious and intelligent readers of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.