Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

[485:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, book iii. chap. 1, 2. pp. 40-42.

[485:B] Works apud Winton, pp. 112, 113.

[486:A] King James's Works apud Winton, pp. 111. 135, 136.

[486:B] Among these we find the mighty name of Bacon; this great man attributing, in the Tenth Century of his Natural History, the achievements and the confessions of witches and wizards to the effects of a morbid imagination.

[487:A] To the traditions of Boethius and Holinshed, we may add a modern authority in the person of Sir John Sinclair, who tells us that "In Macbeth's time, Witchcraft was very prevalent in Scotland, and two of the most famous witches in the kingdom lived on each hand of Macbeth, one at Collace, the other not far from Dunsinnan House, at a place called the Cape. Macbeth applied to them for advice, and by their counsel built a lofty Castle upon the top of an adjoining hill, since called Dunsinnan. The moor where the Witches met, which is in the parish of St. Martin's, is yet pointed out by the country-people, and there is a stone still preserved which is called the Witches Stone."—Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xx. p. 242.

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CHAPTER XII.

OBSERVATIONS ON JULIUS CÆSAR; ON ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA; ON CORIOLANUS; ON THE WINTER'S TALE; ON THE TEMPEST; DISSERTATION ON THE GENERAL BELIEF OF THE TIMES IN THE ART OF MAGIC, AND ON SHAKSPEARE's MANAGEMENT OF THIS SUPERSTITION, AS EXHIBITED IN THE TEMPEST—OBSERVATIONS ON OTHELLO; ON TWELFTH NIGHT, AND ON THE PLAYS ASCRIBED TO SHAKSPEARE—SUMMARY OF SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMATIC CHARACTER.

The Roman tragedy of Shakspeare, including the three pieces of Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, exhibit the poet under a new aspect. We have seen him dramatise the annals of his own country with matchless skill and effect; we have beheld him touching with a discriminative pencil the heroes of ancient Greece, and he now brings before us, clothed in the majesty of republican greatness, or surrounded with the splendour of illimitable power, the most illustrious patriots and warriors of the Roman world.