He speaks of Macbeth with a sort of indifference which betrays his blindness to its highest merits. He praises the propriety of its fiction, and the solemnity, grandeur and variety of its actions. He adds, “_but_ it has no nice discrimination of character. The events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, etc. The danger of ambition _is well described_; and I know not whether it may not be said _in defence_ of some parts which now seem _improbable_, that, in Shakspeare’s time, it was necessary to warn credulity against vain and illusive predictions.” And in our _own time_, what leads every criminal astray, but some “vain and illusive prediction,” not uttered by three weird sisters, by an armed head, or the “apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand,” but by the temptations of the world and the treacherous passions of the human heart? What was it which told Napoleon— “Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care, Who chafes, who frets, and where conspirers are?” Who told Robespierre— “Be bloody, bold and resolute, laugh to scorn, The power of man,” etc.? It was not the spectres, in the witches’ case—nor the express conditions added. “Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him.” Or, “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.” But who can doubt that the principle of evil, had held forth, before both their minds, some illusive hope which led them to ruin? As another instance of the careless errors committed by the commentators, and Johnson among the rest, take the following. The note occurs in Cawthorn’s (successor to Bell) edition, London, 1801, and although without Johnson’s name, is found between two notes of his, (p. 41,) and is, I believe, from his pen. The passage referred to is in the second act of the Tempest, where the King of Naples, after the shipwreck, is wandering about the island with some of his suite. The reader will remember that the storm raised by Prospero overtakes them as the King Alonso is coming to Naples from Tunis, where he had been to marry his daughter Claribel. Great regret has been expressed that this marriage should have ever been thought of, since it is the cause of their present misfortune. The king himself is sorry and the rest are some of them angry and satirical. Sebastian says, “’Twas a _sweet marriage_, and we _prosper well_ in our return.” The match is thought absurd by most of them, and when, in answer to Antonio’s question, “Who’s the next heir to Naples?” Sebastian replies, “Claribel,” Antonio rejoins the following passage; “She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples Can have no note, unless the sun were post, (The man in the moon’s too slow) till new born urchins Be rough and razorable,” On this there is the following note: