If a reverse in fortune is to be exhibited, they fairly bring us to the prison-grate and the alms-basket.

A poor man on our stage is always a gentleman; he may be known by a peculiar neatness of apparel, and by wearing black.

Our delicacy, in fact, forbids the dramatizing of distress at all.

It is never shown in its essential properties; it appears but as the adjunct of some virtue, as something which is to be relieved, from the approbation of which relief the spectators are to derive a certain soothing of self-referred satisfaction.

We turn away from the real essences of things to hunt after their relative shadows, moral duties; whereas, if the truth of things were fairly represented, the relative duties might be safely trusted to themselves, and moral philosophy lose the name of a science.
* * * * * THOMAS MIDDLETON.
_The Witch_ .-- Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms in Macbeth and the incantations in this play, which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare.