fources of the Caftalian fpring, and may justly be faid to draw his inspiration from the well-bead of pure poefy.

Shakespear faw how useful the popular Superstitions had been to the ancient Poets : he felt that they were neceffary to Poetry . itself. We need only read fome modern French heroic poems, to be convinced how poorly Epic Poetry subsists on the pure elements of History and Philofophy: Taffo, though he had a fubject fo popular, at the time he wrote, as the deliverance of Jerufalem, was obliged to employ the operations of magic, and the interpofition of angels and dæmons, to give the marvellous, the fublime, and, I may add, that religious air to his work, which ennobles the enthufiafm, and fanctifies the fiction of the poet. Ariofto's excurfive mufe wanders through the regions of Romance, attended by all the superb train of chivalry, giants, dwarfs, and enchanters; and however thefe Poets, by fevere and frigid critics, may have been condemned for giving ornaments not purely claffical,

I 4

claffical, to their works

;

I believe every

reader of taste admires, not only the fertility of their imagination, but the judgment with which they availed themselves of the superstition of the times, and of the customs and modes of the country, in which they laid the scenes of action.

To recur, as the Learned fometimes do, to the Theology and Fables of other ages, and other countries, has ever a poor effect: Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo, only embellish a modern ftory, as a print from their statues adorns the frontispiece. We admire indeed the art of the sculptors who give their images with grace and majesty ; but no devotion is excited, no enthusiasm kindled, by the representations of characters whose divinity we do not acknowledge.

When the Pagan temples ceased to be revered, and the Parnaffian mount existed no longer, it would have been difficult for the Poet of later times to have preserved the divinity of his muse inviolate, if the western

world

.

world too had not had its facred fables. While there is any national fuperftition which credulity has confecrated, any hallowed tradition long revered by vulgar faith; to that sanctuary, that asylum, may the Poet refort. Let him tread the holy ground with reverence; refpect the established doctrine exactly observe the accustomed rites, and the attributes of the object of veneration; then shall he not vainly invoke an inexorable or absent deity. Ghofts, Fairies, Goblins, Elves, were as propitious, were as affiftant to Shakespear, and gave as much of the Sublime, and of the Marvellous, to his fictions, as Nymphs, Satyrs, Fawns, and even the triple Geryon, to the works of ancient Bards. Our Poet never carries his præternatural Beings beyond the limits of the popular tradition. It is true, that he boldly exerts his poetic genius, and fascinating powers in that magic circle, in which none e'er durft walk but he: but as judicious as bold, he contains himself within it. He calls up all the stately phantoms in the regions of fuperftition, which our faith will

receive

He throws into

receive with reverence. their manners and language a myfterious folemnity, favorable to Superftition in general, with fomething highly characteristic of each particular Being which he exhibits. His witches, his ghosts, and his fairies, seem Spirits of health or goblins damn'd; bring with them airs from heaven, or blafts from bell. His ghofts are fullen, melancholy, and terrible. Every fentence, utter'd by the Witches, is a prophecy or a charm; their manners are malignant, their phrases ambiguous, their promifes delufive. The witches cauldron is a collection of all that is most horrid, in their fuppofed incantations. Ariel is a fpirit, mild, gentle, and fweet, poffefs'd of fupernatural powers, but fubject to the command of a great magician.

The Fairies are fportive and gay; the innocent artificers of harmless frauds, and mirthful delufions. Puck's enumeration of the feats of a fairy is the most agree-able recital of their fuppofed gambols.

To

To all thefe Beings our Poet has affigned tafks, and appropriated manners adapted to their imputed difpofitions and characters which are continually developing through the whole piece, in a series of operations conducive to the catastrophe. They are not brought in as fubordinate or cafual agents, but lead the action, and govern the fable; in which respect our countryman has entered more into theatrical propriety than the Greek tragedians.

Every fpecies of poetry has its diftinct duties and obligations. The drama does not, like the epic, admit of episode, unneceffary perfons, or things incredible; for, as it is obferved by a critic of great ingenuity and tafte, * "that which paffes in Represen"tation, and challenges, as it were, the

66

fcrutiny of the eye, must be truth itself, or "fomething very nearly approaching to it." It should indeed be what our Imagination will adopt, though our Reason would reject * Hurd, on Dramatic Imitation.