e poets to
fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to
thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending
of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or
at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several
tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very
great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing
which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost,
especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often
saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage,
or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one
word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when
they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not
only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the
clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience
quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible
for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a
masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances
that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is
wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede
it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination
very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying.
Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without
trembling?

"_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes!

"_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd;
Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell;
Be thy events wicked or charitable;
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me.
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again? What may this mean?
That thou dead corse again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?"

I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned,
when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable
sentiments and expressions in the writ