Em. (Recollecting.) Oh-'tis the letter! Wal. Are spirits floating here invisibly, That such a horror siezes on my heart?

Em. (Drawing out a parchment.) Now, be not angry with me for this fault. Carefully in the tumult of our plays This letter have I guarded, but at last I had forgotten it quite-The schoolmaster Received it first; but it belongs to thee.

Wal. (The knife still in his right hand; the left convulsively on his forehead.) Wo! whither would my frenzied brain have driven me?

Had the deed been accomplished, whither

then?

The scaffold? Oh ye beams and mouldering walls

Fall down and cover me! ye clouds of night Concealme! Through the force of wild emotion,

Ever am I the slave of evil! yawn, and hide me from the powers of

Oh grave

Hell!

Em. (Coming up to him.) Father! Wal. Unhappy boy! Away! Each word Of thine becomes an implement of Satan! Away, I tell thee, from this house! SCENE IX.

Wal. Em. Lew. and Soph. (rushing in.) Soph. Oh! Walter !

Lew. Horst! what is thine intent! a murderous weapon

Grasped for the second time to day? On blood

us,

'I look with trembling.

Wal. From myself I turn

With horror, more than words can e'er unfold

I am nor man nor beast-bear, tiger, wolf, And lion spares his young-Wo, wo, to me!

I am insane-Madness alone can lift

His murderous arm against an innocent child.

Lew. Compose yourself!-Heaven only has allowed you

To stagger to the brink; thus to point out The danger of thy soul's blind impulsesThat Providence not yet forsakes thee wholly, This letter, for a silent token serves.-Look,

now, Who was the writer.

(He takes the letter from Emilius; and on giving it to Walter, notices the superscription.)

How?" To Jacob Horst !"

Wal. (terrified.) For whom?-My father?
Lew. Hasten to find out

To whom his death so long remains unknown. Soph. I should with apprehension watch the import,

If yet a harder fate were possible? Lew. (To Walter.) Well, then? Wal. (Having broke the seal hastily, and glanced over the contents.) 'Tis a certificate of baptism, Of" Agnes May."

Oh! Heaven!Agnes!-my own!-my wife !

(Embracing her.) Soph. (Resisting.) Walter, thou rav'st! Wal. Were this a wonder, when one instant changes Hell into Heaven?

Lew. (Taking up the letter) Is this then possible?

Whence comes this letter?

Wal. (Beating his breast and almost breathless.)

How shall we sustain

The overpowering weight of too much joy! Em. Taking his hand.) My father! Soph. (On the other side.) Walter! speak! how is this?

Wal. Kneel down, kneel down, Thank Heaven-weep-pray-adore the boundless grace

Of God-the light of our dark pilgrimage! Pray, child! even thou hast deeply sinned in this,

That thou wert weary of thy life.-Kneel, Agnes,

And pray with tears, because we both have sinned,

In doubting of that mercy which kind Heaven

Pours on the guilty. Thus I bring to thee, Oh! Universal Father, this torn heart, Sav'd by a hair's breadth from destruction's gulph

Now by repentance ruled, and gratitude. (All three remain for a few seconds in the attitude of prayer.)

Lew. The justice of our Heavenly Fa-
ther here,

Indeed is manifest. A dark illusion
Formed of my brother's crime, the punish-

he must die-and if her curse have any power, it extends only to a fit of the ague, as in the noted case of Goody Blake, and Harry Gill; murders and suicides depend now on other principles, and aged women have scarcely the means of getting themselves hanged. It was otherwise in the days of Ford and of Dekker, and old Mother Sawyer herself taught them the poetry of witchcraft.

All literary witches, that is the witches of literature, it may be conceived, owe some sort of derivation to the Thessalian witches of the ancients; for Horace's witch goes very near to making candles of infant's fat. Lucan's Erictho is a thorough witch, except, perhaps, that her invocations are too lofty. The Erictho of Marston in the Wonder of Women,' is something of the same family; and is moreover a gowl, and a nightmare, and a succuba. Middleton's Hecate is little better, though she and her train are immortal, as being the supposed models of the witches in Macbeth. Ben Johnson's witch, in the Sad Shepherd, is the best popular witch perhaps in all our literature; and we are let into her character at once, by seeing her sitting like a hare in her form. But of all witches who walk on the ground, and know not the use of broomsticks, she of Edmonton bears off the bell; and our own excellent Scottish witch, Miss Weir, sister to the worthy Major, did not perform her final part on the platform, more completely in character, than, as we shall see by and by, did old Mother Sawyer.

It would, in our opinion, be a much easier thing to describe a sorceress than a witch. There is a sublime imagination of magic, as a science above human knowledge, and of preterhuman power acquired by that science. Such personages, therefore, are men or women of high acquisition, like Sir Humphrey Davy, or Miss Porden, and they act on principle. They invent safety-lamps, and are the authors of systems. Accordingly, they do just whatever they choose, and nobody is entitled to call their conduct in question, unless a greater magician than themselves. All Mr Southey's sorcerers perform whatever they think most adviseable-so does Manfred and Dr Faustus, and Professor Leslie. Just set them once fairly a-going, and a sorcerer or magician will never stop;

he will eat fire, and make ice; and the very elements are not sure of themselves when he is a-stir. But there is also a foul and obscene imagination of magic, as a power obtained by desperate violation of natural laws, and by giving up the soul to the dominion of baleful desires, and the courses of a hideous life. Of this last magic are witches. There are here elements of poetical power; but the real witch, with her damnable practices, and hellish lusts, seems to drag down the popular imagination when it conceives of her, and to debase it. Yet the poet may there find these wild elements of power; he sees a dark and troubled region gleaming with flashes of lurid light; a wild play of human desires in conflict with nature's laws; and a strange disturbance of the realities of the world, and an escaping from, or overcoming them by dark agencies, and the suddenly appearing force of inscrutable relations to all which there is added a general grim and grotesque feature, that heightens the strangeness of the whole. Let any man attempt first a sorcerer, and then a witch, and he will find the former comparatively easy.

;

Shakspeare's witches are of a class by themselves. They are neither sorceresses nor old women. It has been said that he must have been in Scotland-they are so truly Scottish. We have lived long in Scotland, and have had some solitary midnight walks through scenes terrifying enough, but we never saw nor heard of any beings in the Highlands, even cousins, sixteen times removed, to those things so withered and so wild in their attire. Shakspeare has created our witches for us, and we are all very much obliged to him-particularly the good people of Forres. Let us not seek for them a more ancient origin. Shakespeare, no doubt, was on that very blasted heath, whether personally or not we shall not say and he knew by inspiration what things should hurry through the rueful skies of Albyn, and over her black heath-wildernesses, and through the heart of the thunder, lightning, and rain, of those dismal regions. Neither their characters nor their forms are distinct, for depend upon it, Shakspeare did not see them distinctly-nor Banquo nor Macbeth.— No more does one see distinctly the raven that alights near his feet during some stormy midnight, and on some

wild moor with sughing wings and the croak of a demon. But critics must make every thing out, forget ting that no creatures are so poetical, as those that are imperfect and ob scure and even contradictory-and exhibiting the senses under the influence of the imagination warring with themselves. The causes of the motions in the minds of Shakspeare's witches are not more obscure to our eyes, than they were to their own; for, in the bosom of creatures not human, we dream that the very desires move blindly and in blindness. There is a hint somewhere dropt, that those creatures are to be rewarded for their labours against Macbeth-but we can hardly believe that any more than themselves; and they seem to meet and part upon no imaginable motives, as if they were but half-willers in their own agency. At one time they seem to have no divination, but call up heads and spectres to shew the future; at another they predict, of themselves, to Macbeth and Banquo. No one can guess at the limits of their knowledge, or of their power, or at the nature of their impulses and desires. They cannot be said to love lofty agency, for they swim like tailless rats in sieves to revenge themselves on 66 rump-fed ronyons" by the death of masters of small trading vessels; nor can they be said to be exclusively fond of low company, for they speak imperiously to kings, and hold in their skinny hands, and utter with their shrivelled lips, the doom and destiny of empires. They brew toad-broth-and they fly from lapping it on the wings of the wind. They are consistent in nothing, but in a dim, vague, indefinite, glimmering, and gloomy spirit of evil, which involves all nature, animate or inanimate in its atmosphere; now settling on the mountain-tops, now creeping along the marshes-now shewing "all things wild and terrible-and now bringing out bats and worms, from mean or slimy obscurity. Yet, after all they are nothing" the earth hath bubbles as the water hath, and those are of them."

But we must leave the witches of Shakspeare, and return to her of Edmonton. Without farther preface, let us give an analysis and specimens of this strange play.

The first scene is laid in Edmon-
VOL VI.

ton, in the house of Sir Arthur Cla rington, and introduces to us Frank Thorney (the wretched hero of the tale, and son of a respectable yeoman) in conversation with his fellow-servant Winnifrede, whom he has just married, after an illicit amour. There is sincere affection subsisting between them, and it is expressed in several speeches of considerable beauty. Winnifrede. Ay, ay: in case No other beauty tempt your eye, whom you Like better, I may chance to be remember'd, And see you now and then. 'Faith! I did hope You'd not have used me so: 'tis but my fortune. And yet, if not for my sake, have some pity Upon the child I go with; that's your own. And 'less you'll be a cruel-hearted father, You cannot but remember that. Heaven knows how

Frank.

To quit which fear at once,
As by the ceremony late perform'd,

I plighted thee a faith, as free from challenge,
As any double thought; once more, in hearing
Of Heaven and thee, I vow that never henceforth

Disgrace, reproof, lawless affections, threats,
Or what can be suggested 'gainst our marriage,
Shall cause me falsify that bridal oath

That binds me thine. And, Winnifrede, whenever
The wanton heats of youth, by subtle baits
Of beauty, or what woman's art can practice,
Draw me from only loving thee, let Heaven
Inflict upon my life some fearful ruin!
I hope thou dost believe me.

Win.

Swear no more;

I am confirm'd, and will resolve to do
What you think most behoveful for us.

It appears, however, that though Winnifrede is sincerely attached to her new-married husband, she had, unknown to him, been seduced by her master Sir Arthur Clarington, who, unacquainted with the marriage that has just taken place, makes his appearance, and as Winnifrede leaves the stage, threatens and bribes Thorney to wed her. Thorney first accepts the bribe, and then avows his marriage, beseeching Sir Arthur not to inform his father of the event, lest the old man should disinherit him. The scene concludes with an interview between poor Winnifrede and her seducer, in which we are greatly interested in the character of this humble heroine. We see that she has thoroughly repented of the crime into which she had been basely betrayed; and at the same time we feel, as if her duplicity to her husband was one day or other to be punished, in spite of the sincerity both of her affection and repentance. Winnifrede and Thorney are but in very humble life-but even in their destinies we see the punishment of frailty and of crime; and while we anticipate calamity to the lowly pair, perhaps feel as deeply the mournful darkness of our human lot, as if we were watching the fortunes of the very highest personages. As Sir Ar

3 F