The illness fhould attend it. What thou wouldst

highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldft wrongly win.

So much inherent ambition in a character, without other vice, and full of the milk of human kindness, though obnoxious to temptation, yet would have great struggles before it yielded, and as violent fits of subsequent remorse.

If the mind is to be medicated by the operations of pity and terror, furely no means are fo well adapted to that end, as a ftrong and lively reprefentation of the agonizing struggles that precede, and the terrible horrors that follow wicked actions. Other poets thought they had fufficiently attended to the moral purpose of the drama in making the furies purfue the perpetrated crime. Our author waves their bloody daggers in the road to guilt, and demonstrates, that as foon as a man begins to hearken to ill fuggeftions, terrors environ, M

and

and fears diftract him.

Tenderness and

conjugal love combat in the breasts of a Medea and a Herod in their purposed vengeance. Perfonal affection often weeps on the theatre, while jealoufy or revenge whet the bloody knife; but Macbeth's emotions are the struggles of confcience; his agonies are the agonies of remorfe. They are leffons of justice, and warnings to innocence. I do not know that any dramatic writer, except Shakespear, has fet forth the pangs of guilt separate from the fear of punishment. Clytemnestra is reprefented by Euripides as under great terrors, account of the murder of Agamemnon; but they arise from fear, not repentance. It is not the memory of the affaffinated husband which haunts and terrifies her, but an apprehenfion of vengeance from his furviving fon : when he is told Oreftes

on

dead, her mind is again at eafe. It must be allowed, that on the Grecian stage, it is the office of the chorus to moralize, and to point out, on every occafion, the advantages

of

of virtue over vice. But how much lefs affecting are their animadverfions than the teftimony of the perfon concerned ! Whatever belongs to the part of the chorus has hardly the force of dramatic imitation. The chorus is in a manner without perfonal character, or intereft, and no way an agent in the drama: We cannot fympathize with the cool reflections of thefe idle fpectators, as we do with the fentiments of the perfons in whofe circumftanees and fituation we are interested:

The heart of man, like iron and other metal, is hard, and of firm resistance, when cold, but, warmed, it becomes malleable and ductile, It is by touching the paffions, and exciting fympathetic emotions, not by fentences, that the tragedian must make his impreffions on the spectator. I will appeal to any person of taste, whether the following fpeeches of Wolfey, in another play of Shakespear, the first a foliloquy, the fecond addressed to his fervant Cromwell,

in which he gives the teftimony of his experience, and the refult of his own feelings, would make the fame impreffion, if uttered by a set of speculative fages in the episode of a chorus.

WOLSEY.

So farewell to the little good you bear me !
Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow bloffoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him,
The third day comes a frost, a killing froft,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root;
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
Like little wanton boys, that swim on bladders,
These many fummers in a fea of glory,
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with fervice, to the mercy
Of a rude ftream, that muft for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new open'd. Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours !.
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet afpect of princes, and our ruin,

More

More

pangs

and fears than war or women have :

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,

Never to hope again.

And in another place,

Let's dry our eyes, and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And when I am forgotten, as I fhall be,

And fleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me muft more be heard, fay then, I taught thee,
Say, Wolfey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And founded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rife in;
A fure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that which ruin'd me;
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition,
By that fin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his maker, hope to win by't?

Love thyself laft; cherish those hearts, that hate

-Corruption wins not more than honefty.

Still in thy right-hand carry gentle peace,

To filence envious tongues, be juft, and fear not.

Let all the ends, thou aim'ft at, be thy country's,

Thy god's, and truth's; then if thou fall'ft, O Crom

well,

Thou fall'st a bleffed martyr. Serve the king;