s
Our captains Macbeth and Banquo?--Yes;

--Dismay'd not this
Our captains _brave_ Macbeth and Banquo?--Yes.

Such harmless industry may, surely, be forgiven, if it cannot be
praised: may he, therefore, never want a monosyllable, who can use it
with such wonderful dexterity.

Rumpatur quisquis rumpitur invidia!

The rest of this edition I have not read, but, from the little that I
have seen, think it not dangerous to declare that, in my opinion, its
pomp recommends it more than its accuracy. There is no distinction made
between the ancient reading, and the innovations of the editor; there is
no reason given for any of the alterations which are made; the
emendations of former criticks are adopted without any acknowledgment,
and few of the difficulties are removed which have hitherto embarrassed
the readers of Shakespeare.

I would not, however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure
him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom
I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without
indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he
has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have
studied the arts of policy, and "can teach a small state how to grow
great," should, like him, disdain to labour in trifles, and consider
petty accomplishments as below their ambition.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft
and sorcery, is, at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of
God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament: and the
thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in
its turn, borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well-attested,
or by prohibitory laws, which, at least, suppose the possibility of
commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone, Commentaries iv. 60. The
learned judge, however, concludes with calling it a "dubious crime,"
and approves the maxim of the philosophic Montesquieu, whom no one
would lightly accuse of superstition, that "il faut etre tres
circonspect dans la poursuite de la magie et de l'heresie." Esprit
des Lois, xii. 5. Selden attempted to justify the punishing of
witchcraft capitally. Works, iii. 2077. See Spectator, 117.
Barrington's Ancient Statutes, 407.

[2] In Nashe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is said, that no less than six
hundred witches were executed at