"The

the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. wordes of the three weird sisters alfo greatly encouraged him, (to the murder of Duncan] but specially his wife lay fore upon him to attempt the thing, as the that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable defire to beare the name of a queene." Edit. 1577, p. 244.

This part of Holinshed is an abridgement of Johne Bellenden's tranflation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edingburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the passage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all wemen ar) specially quhare they ar defirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to purfew the thrid weird, that sche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris, fen he durst not affailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit findry otheris hes affailzeit fic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they had not fic fickernes to fucceid in the end of thair lauboris as he had." P. 173.

But we can demonstrate, that Shakspeare had not the story from Buchanan. According to him, the weïrd-fifters falute Macbeth, "Una Angufiæ Thamum, altera Moraviæ, tertia regem." Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c. but according to Holinthed, immediately from Bellenden, as it ftands in Shakspeare: "The first of them spake and fayde, All hayle Makbeth, thane of Glammis, -the second of them faid, Hayle Makbeth, thane of Cawder; but the third fayde, All hayie Makbeth, that hereafter shall be king of Scotland." P. 243.

"

1. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

"

2. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

3. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!"

Here too our poet found the equivocal predictions, on which his hero so fatally depended. "He had learned of certain wyfards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe; and furely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch whom he had in great trust, had tolde, that he should neuer be flain with man born of any woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the caftell of Dunfinane." P. 244. And the scene between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almost literally taken from the Chronicle.

Macbeth was certainly one of Shakspeare's latest productions, and it might possibly have been fuggefted to him by a little performance on the fame subject at Oxford, before King James, 1605. І will tranfcribe my notice of it from Wake's Rex Platonicus: "Fabulæ ansam dedit antiqua de Regiâ profapiâ historiola apud Scoto-Britannos celebrata, quæ narrat tres olim Sibyllas occurriffe duobus Scotiæ proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, & illum prædixiffe Regem futurum, fed Regem nullum geniturum; hunc Regem non futurum, fed Reges geniturum multos. Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus comprobavit. Banchonis enim è stirpe potentiffimus Jacobus oriundus." P. 29.

A stronger argument hath been brought from the plot of Hamlet. Dr. Grey and Mr. Whalley affure us, that for this, Shakspeare must have read Saxo Grammaticus in Latin, for no tranflation hath been made into any modern language. But the truth is, he did not take it from Saxo at all; a novel called The Hystorie of Hamblet, was his original: a fragment of which, in black letter, I have been favoured with by a very curious and intelligent gentleman, to whom the lovers of Shakspeare will fome time or other owe great obligations.

It hath indeed been faid, that "IF fuch an bistory exifts, it is almost impossible that any poet unacquainted with the Latin language (fuppofing his perceptive faculties to have been ever fo acute,) could have caught the characteristical madness of Hamlet, defcribed by Saxo Grammaticus, fo happily as it is delineated by Shakspeare.

Very luckily, our fragment gives us a part of Hamlet's speech to his mother, which fufficiently replies to this observation :- " It was not without cause, and juste occafion, that my gestures, countenances and words seeme to proceed from a madman, and that I defire to haue all men esteeme mee wholy depriued of fence and reasonable understanding, bycause I am well assured, that he that hath made no confcience to kill his owne brother, (accustomed to murthers, and allured with defire of gouernement without controll in his treasons,) will not spare to faue himselfe with the like crueltie, in the blood, and flesh of the loyns of his brother, by him massacred: and therefore it is better for me to fayne madnesse then to use my right fences as nature hath bestowed them upon me. The bright shining clearnes therof I am forced to hide vnder this shadow of diffimulation, as the fun doth hir beams vnder fome great cloud, when the wether in fummer time ouercasteth: the face of a mad man, ferueth to couer my gallant countenance, and the gestures

7

"Falfitatis enim (Hamlethus) alienus haberi cupidus, ita aftutiam veriloquio permifcebat, ut nec dictis veracitas deeffet, nec acuminis modus verorum judicio proderetur." This is quoted, as it had been before, in Mr. Guthrie's Effay on Tragedy, with a small variation from the Original. See edit. fol. 1644, P. 50.

of a fool are fit for me, to the end that guiding my felf wifely therin I may preferue my life for the Danes and the memory of my late deceased father, for that the defire of reuenging his death is so ingrauen in my heart, that if I dye not shortly, I hope to take fuch and fo great vengeance, that these countryes shall for euer fpcake thereof. Neuertheless I must stay the time, meanes, and occafion, left by making ouer great haft, I be now the cause of mine own fodaine ruine and ouerthrow, and by that meanes, end, before I beginne to effect my hearts defire: hee that hath to doe with a wicked, disloyall, cruell, and difcourteous man, must vse craft, and politike inuentions, fuch as fine witte can best imagine, not to discouer his interprife: for feeing that by force I cannot affect my defire, reafon alloweth me by dissimulation, fubtiltie, and fecret practises to proceed therein."

But to put the matter out of all question, my communicative friend, above-mentioned, Mr. Capell, (for why should I not give myself the credit of his name?) hath been fortunate enough to procure from the collection of the Duke of Newcastle, a complete copy of the Hystorie of Hamblet, which proves to be a tranflation from the French of Belleforest; and he tells me, that "all the chief incidents of the play, and all the capital characters are there in embryo, after a rude and barbarous manner: fentiments indeed there are none, that Shakfpeare could borrow; nor any expreffion but one, which is, where Hamlet kills Polonius behind the arras: in doing which he is made to cry out as in the play, “a rat, a rat!"-So much for Saxo Grammaticus!

It is scarcely conceivable, how industriously the puritanical zeal of the last age exerted itself in destroying, amongst better things, the innocent amufc

ments of the former. Numberless Tales and Poems are alluded to in old books, which are now perhaps no where to be found. Mr. Capell informs me, (and he is in these matters, the most able of all men to give information,) that our author appears to have been beholden to some novels, which he hath yet only seen in French or Italian: but he adds, "to say they are not in fome English dress, profaic or metrical, and perhaps with circumstances nearer to his stories, is what I will not take upon me to do: nor indeed is what I believe; but rather the contrary, and that time and accident will bring fome of them to light, if not all."

W. Painter, at the conclusion of the fecond Tome of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, advertises the reader, bicause sodaynly (contrary to expectation) this volume is risen to a greater heape of leaues, I doe omit for this present time fundry nouels of mery deuife, referuing the fame to be joyned with the reft of an other part, wherein shall fucceede the remnant of Bandello, specially futch (fuffrable) as the learned French man François de Belleforest hath selected, and the choysest done in the Italian. Some alfo out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabofco, Cynthio, Straparole, Sanfouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of Nauarre, and other authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue and shall come forth." - But I am not able to find that a third Tome was ever published: and it is very probable, that the interest of his bookfellers, and more especially the prevailing mode of the time, might lead him afterward to print his fundry novels separately. If this were the cafe, it is no wonder, that such fugitive pieces are recovered with difficulty; when the two Tomes, which Tom. Rawlinfon would have called jufta volumina, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after books of