> 
§ 
—? 
A” 
1808.] 
Inthe White Devil, by Webster, the 
dead body of Marcello is brought in. 
Cornelia, his mother, says, “ Fetch a 
looking-glass, see if his breath will not 
stain.it; or pull out some feathers from 
my pillow, and lay them to his lips: will 
you lose him for a little pains-taking ?” 
Like that of Lear, #1 know when one is 
‘ dead, and when one lives. She’s dead 
as earth! Lend me a looking-glass; if 
that her breath will mist» or stain the 
stone, why then she lives. —This feather 
stirs, she lives,” &c, I have only met 
with two more instances of coincidences 
of expression. Helen talks of ** draw- 
» ing the arched brows, the hawking eye, 
aud curls” of Bertram “ in her heart's’ 
table.” Biancha in one of these plays 
uses the same words. “I'll write this 
love within the tables of my heart.” In 
the following passages there is so close a 
connection between the ideas, and the 
-mauner of applying them, that I cannot 
help thinking one of them must have 
been suggested by the other. I cannot 
however say which, as Mr. Lamb has 
not furnished his readers with dates, (a 
defect which may be supplied, in many 
cases, at least, im a future edition); but I 
should be inclined to think that Shak- 
speare had borrowed from, and improved 
.upon, Webster, as he has given a very 
fine and natural turn to what in Webster 
' is a metaphysical conceit. The Duchess | 
of Malfy, just before she dies, says, “ Yet 
stay, heaven-gates are not so highly arch- 
~ed as princes’ palaces; they that enter 
there must go upon their knees.” The 
assage in Shakspeare, which every one 
is acquainted with, runs thus :— 
£¢ See, boys! this gate 
Tustructs you how t’ adore the Heay’ns ; and 
es 
bows you ’ 
To morning’s holy office. The gates of mo- 
narchs 
Are arch"d so high, that giants may get 
through, 
“And keep their impious turbans on, without 
Good morrow to the Sun.” 
The most obvious drawback- on the in- 
yentive powers of Shakspeare’s muse is 
the Witch of Middleton. Mr. Lamb has, 
however, drawn the line of distinction 
with such strength and delicacy, and has 
pointed out what Shakespear has done 
_ with sucha full feeling of his unrivalled 
power over the imagination, that I can- 
not resist the temptation of copying out 
his remarks upon the subject, p. 174. 
“Though some resemblance may be 
traced between the charms im Macbeth, 
andthe incantations in this play, which 
» 
Shakspeare and contemporary DramaticWriters. 11s 
is supposed to have preceded it, this co- 
incidence will not detract much from the 
originality of Shakspeare, His witches 
are distinguished: from the witches of 
Middleton by essential differences. These 
are creatures, to whom man or woman 
plotting some dire mischief might resort 
for occasional consultation. Those orie 
ginate deeds of blood, and begin bad im= 
pulses to men, From the moment that 
their eyes first meet Macbeth’s, he is 
spell-bound. “ That méeting sways his 
destiny. Hecan never break the fasci- 
nation. These witches can hurt the 
body ; those have power over the soul, 
Hecate in Middleton has ason, alow 
buffoon: the hags of Shakspeare have neis 
ther child of their own, nor seem to be 
descended from any parent, They are 
foul anomalies, of whom-we know not 
whence they are, nor whether they have 
beginuing or ending. As they are with- 
out human passions, so they seem to be 
without human relations, They come 
with thunder and lightning, and vanish 
to airy music, This is all we know of 
them. Except Hecate, they have no 
names, which heightens their mysterious- 
ness. The names and some of the pro- 
perties which Middleton has given to his 
hags, excite smiles. The Wierd Sisters 
are Serious things, Their presence can- 
not co-exist with mirth. But in a lesser 
degree the witches of Middleton are fine 
creations. ‘Their power, too, is in some 
measure over the mind, They raise jars, 
jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf o'er 
life.” 
In pacarTor. 
—————— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
HE suggestion of Mr. Hall in Num- 
ber 171, p. 401, of a plan for trans- 
mitting to posterity the pronunciation 
of words, and his appeal to your literary 
friends, whether the cries of the inferior 
animals would not constitute a standard 
of human enunciation, are of such an in- 
teresting nature as to induce me to pay 
attention to his inquiries. ; 
The philosophy of language is unques- 
tionably a science in esse, though not 
hitherto reduced into certain and distinet 
rules; and it is of such long standing in 
literature, that the learned Varro, in his 
Analysis of Nouns, gives an example of 
birds which derive their sames from their 
peculiar songs—De heis plereque a sucis 
vocibus, ut ha Upupae, (Me Cordus, 
Hirundo, Ulula, Bubo. De Ling. Lat. lib. 
4to, . But in, order to accomplish the 
suggestion 
