Beggars’ Opera, is not so good a jest as it used to be:  by the force of the police and of philosophy, Lillo’s murders and the ghosts in Shakespeare will become obsolete.  At last there will be nothing left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life.  A question has been started with respect to the originality of Shakespeare’s Witches, which has been well answered by Mr. Lamb in his notes to the Specimens of Early Dramatic Poetry: 

“Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms in Macbeth and the incantations in this play (the Witch of Middleton), which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakespeare.  His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences.  These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional consultation.  Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men.  From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth’s, he is spellbound.  That meeting sways his destiny.  He can never break the fascination.  These Witches can hurt the body; those have power over the soul.—­Hecate in Middleton has a son, a low buffoon:  the hags of Shakespeare have neither child of their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent.  They are foul anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending.  As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations.  They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music.  This is all we know of them.—­Except Hecate, they have no names, which heightens their mysteriousness.  The names, and some of the properties which Middleton has given to his hags, excite smiles.  The Weird Sisters are serious things.  Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth.  But, in a lesser degree, the Witches of Middleton are fine creations.  Their power too is, in some measure, over the mind.  They raise jars, jealousies, strifes, ‘like A thick scurf o’er life.’

JULIUS CASESAR

Julius Caesar was one of three principal plays by different authors, pitched upon by the celebrated Earl of Halifax to be brought out in a splendid manner by subscription, in the year 1707.  The other two were the King and No King of Fletcher, and Dryden’s Maiden Queen.  There perhaps might be political reasons for this selection, as far as regards our author.  Otherwise, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is not equal, as a whole, to either of his other plays taken from the Roman history.  It is inferior in interest to Coriolanus, and both in interest and power to Antony and Cleopatra.  It, however, abounds in admirable and affecting passages, and is remarkable for the profound knowledge of character, in which Shakespeare could scarcely fail.  If there is any exception to this remark, it is in the hero of the piece himself.  We do not much admire the representation here given of Julius Caesar, nor do we think it answers to the portrait given of him in his Commentaries.  He makes several vapouring and rather pedantic speeches, and does nothing.  Indeed, he has nothing to do.  So far, the fault of the character might be the fault of the plot.