Per. So long could I Stand by, a looker on. Paul. Either forbear, Quit presently the chapel; or resolve you By wicked powers. Leo. What you can make her do, I am content to look on: what to speak, Paul. It is requir'd, You do awake your faith: Then, all stand still; I am about, let them depart. Leo. Proceed; No foot shall stir. Paul. Music; awake her: strike. [Music. 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more: approach; Start not: her actions shall be holy, as, You kill her double: Nay, present your hand: Leo. O, she's warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating. Pol. She embraces him. Cam. She hangs about his neck; If she pertain to life, let her speak too. [Embracing her. Pol. Ay, and make't manifest where she has liv'd, Or, how stol'n from the dead? Paul. That she is living, Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale; but it appears, she lives, 17 Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.— [Presenting PERDITA, who kneels to HERMIONE. Her. You gods, look down, And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head!-Tell me, mine own, Where hast thou been preserv'd? where liv'd? how found Gave hope thou wast in being,-have preserv'd Paul. There's time enough for that; Leo. O peace, Paulina ; Thou should'st a husband take by my consent, As I by thine, a wife: this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave: I'll not seek far (For him, I partly know his mind,) to find thee An honourable husband :-Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand: whose worth, and honesty, By us, a pair of kings.-Let's from this place.- My ill suspicion.-This your son-in-law, And son unto the king, (whom, heavens directing,) [Exeunt.? [9! This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is naturally conceived and strongly represented. JOHNSON. OBSERVATIONS. MACBETH.] In order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is always necessary to examine the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies; but a survey of the notions that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally admitted, to his advantage, and was far from over-burdening the credulity of his audi ence. The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been credited by the common people, and in most, by the learned themselves. The phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown, that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient to drive them out of the world. The time in which this kind of credulity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantments or diabolical opposition, as they ascribed their success to the assistance of their military saints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to believe (Supplement to the Introduction to Don Quixotte) that the first accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by |