-To black Hecate's fummons The fhard-born beetle with his drowsey hum, Hath rung night's yawning peal.

Macbeth, who had committed one murder in perfon, who intended to commit another by proxy, and was about to acquaint his wife with his intention, could not be very likely to talk of Hecate fummoning the beetle With his drowsy bum to ring night's yawning peal;' nor to recollect that fuch beetle had its place of nativity under a tile fhard.* The imagination must be indeed fertile, which could produce this ill placed exuberance of imagery. The Poet, when compofing this paffage, must have had in his mind all the remote ideas of Hecate, a heathen goddess, of a beetle, of night, of a peal of bells, and of that action of the mufcles, commonly called a gape or yawn.

* Shakespeare was remarkably fond of descriptive minuteness; his beetle is hard-born, his bat is cloyfter'd, with many other inftances of the fame kind, introduced with more or less propriety.

Dr.

Dr. Hill, in his Natural History of Animals, has objected to the cause affigned by Gray, for the hollowing of the owl the voice of that bird, he thinks, is not the voice of complaint, but rather of joy or exultation. Perhaps we are not fufficiently acquainted with the œconomy of nocturnal fowls, to decide pofitively what is the real occafion of their clamour. That it is produced by moleftation, we have no reason to believe, because they are feldom molested, and often clamorous; that it is produced by pleasure, we have no certainty, nor are we more certain that it proceeds from hunger. Owls have been noticed to be more vociferous in the fame places, in fome years, and in fome feafons of the year, than in others. During the breeding time, when the feathered race in general are most noify, it is remarkable that this genus is uncommonly filent two of these animals often feem to answer each other's voices; and a fin

gle one has fometimes feemed to chuse a fituation, wherein its own voice might be returned by an echo. The paffage in question, however, is truly poetical; and though it may affign a wrong cause, in a matter where we cannot affign a right one, few perfons perhaps will wish it had been omitted.

V. 13. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew trees fhade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring

heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet fleep.

The breezy call of incenfe-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the strawbuilt fhed,

The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more fhall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth fhall
burn,

Or bufy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lifp their fire's return,
Or climb his knees the envy'd kiss to share.

Oft

Oft did the harvest to their fickle yield,

Their furrow oft the ftubborn glebe has* broke :

How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy ftroke!

The rural day is here most beautifully depicted: the images are fo obvious, fo natural in themselves, and fo naturally connected, that one is furprized to find them now firft placed in this pleafing point of combination. All the circumstances, except the morning breeze, which is perhaps too poetically made the voice of a profopopoiea, • The breezy call, &c.' are expreffed without diminution of dignity, in the fimpleft

* The other members of this ftanza are fimilar, with regard to the notation of time; the verbs are all in the fimple preterite; and if the measure of the verfe would have allowed the omiffion of the auxiliar has, this line would have been of the fame ftructure, and been better. If any auxiliar were admitted, I think it should be the preterpluperfect had, as speaking of acts performed previous to a certain point of past time, viz. that of the peafant's decease.

manner imaginable; cottage life is delineated in the moft pleafing colours, every thing amiable is introduced, every thing disgusting or ridiculous is fup-. preffed. There is, however, a love of order in fome minds, which would have been better fatisfied with a different arrangement of these ftanzas: the rural morning, as in nature, might have been immediately fucceeded by the rural midday, and the rural mid-day by the rural evening. By this means alfo, the mind would have reposed on the pleasing and interesting idea of the peasant surrounded by his children.

The breezy call of incenfe-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built
fhed,

The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more fhall rouse them from their lowly bed.

Oft did the harveft to their fickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:

How