hanges in these popular traditions he altogether forfeits
his right to them, and merely holds up his idle fancies to our
ridicule. Shakespeare's picture of the witches is truly magical: in
the short scenes where they enter he has created for them a peculiar
language, which, altho composed of the usual elements, still seems to
be a collection of formulae of incantation. The sound of the words, the
accumulation of rimes, and the rhythm of the verse form, as it were,
the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been abused for using
the names of disgusting objects; but he who fancies the kettle of the
witches can be made effective with agreeable aromatics is as wise as
those who desire that hell should sincerely and honestly give good
advice. These repulsive things, from which the imagination shrinks,
are here emblems of the hostile powers which operate in nature; and
the repugnance of our senses is outweighed by the mental horror. With
one another the witches discourse like women of the very lowest class;
for this was the class to which witches were ordinarily supposed to
belong: when, however, they address Macbeth they assume a loftier
tone: their predictions, which they either themselves pronounce, or
allow their apparitions to deliver, have all the obscure brevity, the
majestic solemnity, of oracles.

We here see that the witches are merely instruments; they are governed
by an invisible spirit, or the operation of such great and dreadful
events would be above their sphere. With what intent did Shakespeare
assign the same place to them in his play which they occupy in the
history of Macbeth as related in the old chronicles? A monstrous crime
is committed: Duncan, a venerable old man, and the best of kings, is,
in defenseless sleep, under the hospitable roof, murdered by his
subject, whom he has loaded with honors and rewards. Natural motives
alone seem inadequate, or the perpetrator must have been portrayed as
a hardened villain. Shakespeare wished to exhibit a more sublime
picture--an ambitious but noble hero yielding to a deep-laid hellish
temptation, and in whom all the crimes to which, in order to secure
the fruits of his first crime, he is impelled by necessity, can not
altogether eradicate the stamp of native heroism. He has, therefore,
given a threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The first idea
comes from that being whose whole activity is guided by a lust of
wickedness.

The weird sisters surpriz