1944-4

MACBETH,

A

TRAGEDY,

BY

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

ACCURATELY PRINTED

FROM THE TEXT OF

Mr. STEEVENS's LAST EDITION.

Drnamented with plates.

London:

PUBLISHED BY E. HARDING, NO. 98, PALL-MALL;

J. WRIGHT, PICCADILLY; G. SAEL, STRAND;

AND VERNOR AND HOOD, POULTRY,

1798.

OBSERVATIONS.

IN order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is always neceffary to examine the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the affiftance of supernatural agents, would be cenfured as tranfgreffing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales inftead of tragedies; but a furvey of the notions that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that Shakspeare was in no danger of such cenfures, fince he only turned the fyftem that was then univerfally admitted, to his advantage, and was far from overburdening the credulity of his audience.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not ftrictly the fame, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been credited by the common people, and in moft, by the learned themfelves. The phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as the darkness of ignorance has been more grofs; but it cannot be shown, that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been fufficient to drive them out of the world. The time in which this kind of credu. lity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantments or diabolical oppofition, as they afcribed their fuccess to the affiftance of their military faints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to believe (Suppl. to the Introduction to Don Quixote) that the first accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by those who returned from their eastern expeditions. But there is always fome distance between the birth

and maturity of folly as of wickedness: this opinion had long exifted, though perhaps the application of it had in no foregoing age been fo frequent, nor the reception so general. Olympiodorus, in Photius's extracts, tells us of one Libanius, who practifed this kind of military magic, and having promised xúpis öπílav κατὰ βαρβάρων ἐνεςδεῖν, to perform great things againft the Barbarians without foldiers, was, at the inftance of the emprefs Placidia, put to death, when he was about to have given proofs of his abilities. The emprefs fhowed fome kindness in her anger, by cutting him off at a time fo convenient for his reputation.

But a more remarkable proof of the antiquity of this notion may be found in St. Chryfoftom's book de Sacerdotio, which exhibits a scene of enchantments not exceeded by any romance of the middle age: he fuppofes a spectator overlooking a field of battle attended by one that points out all the various objects of horror, the engines of deftruction, and the arts of flaughter. Δεικνύτο δὲ ἔτι παρὰ τοῖς ἑνανίοις καὶ πετομένες ἵππος διά τινος μαγγανείας, καὶ ὁπλίτας δὲ ἀέρος φερομένως, καὶ πάσην γοητείας δύναμιν nai idéav. Let him then proceed to show him in the oppofite armies borfes flying by enchantment, armed men transported through the air, and every power and form of magic. Whether St. Chryfoftom believed that fuch performances were really to be seen in a day of battle, or only endeavoured to enliven his defcription, by adopting the notions of the vulgar, it is equally certain, that fuch notions were in his time received, and that therefore they were not imported from the Saracens in a later age; the wars with the Saracens however gave occafion to their propagation, not only as bigotry naturally discovers prodigies, but as the scene of action was removed to a great distance.

The Reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though day was gradually increasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft ftill continued to hover in the twilight. In the time of queen Elizabeth was the remarkable trial of the witches of Warbois, whofe conviction is ftill commemorated in an annual fermon at Huntingdon. But in the reign of king James, in which this tragedy was written, many circumstances concurred to propagate and confirm this opinion. The king, who was much celebrated for his knowledge, had, before his arrival in England, not only examined in perfon a woman accused of witchcraft, but

had