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length in The Witch, while only the two firſt words of them are printed in Macbeth, favour the ſuppoſition that Middle-
Again, the Hecate of Shakeſpeare ſays to her ſiſters:—
“ I’ll charm the air to give a ſound,
“ While you perform your antique round, &c.
[Muſick. The witches dance and vaniſh.”
The Hecate of Middleton ſays on a ſimilar occaſion:
“ Come, my ſweete ſiſters, let the aire ſtrike our tune,
“ Whilſt we ſhew reverence to yond peeping moone.
[Here they dance and Exeunt.”
In this play, the motives which incline the witches to miſchief, their manners, the contents of their cauldron, &c. ſeem to have more than accidental reſemblance to the ſame particulars in Macbeth. The hags of Middleton, like the weird ſiſters of Shakeſpeare, deſtroy cattle becauſe they have been refuſed proviſions at farm houſes. The owl and the cat (Gray Malkin) give them notice when it is time to proceed on their ſeveral expeditions.—Thus Shakeſpeare’s Witch:—
“ Harper cries;—’tis time, ’tis time,”
Thus too the Hecate of Middleton:
“ Hec.] Heard you the owle yet?
“ Stad.] Briefely in the copps.
“ Hec.] ’Tis high time for us then.”
The Hecate of Shakeſpeare, addreſſing her ſiſters, obſerves, that Macbeth is but a wayward ſon, who loves for his own ends, not for them. The Hecate of Middleton has the ſame obſervation, when the youth who has been conſulting her, retires:
“ I know he loves me not, nor there’s no hope on’t.”
Inſtead of the greaſse that’s ſweaten from the murderer’s gibbet, and the finger of birth-ſtrangled babe, the witches of Middleton employ “ the griſtle of a man that hangs after ſunſet,” (i. e. of a murderer, for all other criminals were anciently cut down before evening) and the “ fat of an unbaptized child.” They likewiſe boaſt of the power to raiſe tempeſts that ſhall blow down trees, overthrow buildings, and occaſion ſhipwreck; and, more particularly, that they can “ make miles of woods walk.” Here too the Grecian Hecate is degraded into a preſiding witch, and exerciſed in ſuperſtitions peculiar to our own country. So much, for the ſcenes of enchantment; but even other parts of Middleton’s play coincide more than once with that of Shakeſpeare. Lady Macbeth ſays, in act II:
“ the ſurfeited grooms
“ Do mock their charge with ſnores. I have drugg’d their poſſets.”
So too Franciſca in the piece of Middleton:
