ds and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused but
to be applauded."

The reader may be reminded that Shakespeare has evinced a very
decided partiality for ghosts. In "The Second Part of King Henry VI.,"
Bolingbroke, the conjurer, raises up a spirit. In "Julius Caesar,"
Brutus is visited in his tent by the ghost of the murdered Caesar. In
"Hamlet," we have, of course, the ghost of the late king. In "Macbeth"
the ghost of Banquo takes his seat at the banquet, and in the caldron
scene we are shown apparitions of "an armed head," "a bloody child,"
"a child crowned, with a tree in his hand," and "eight kings" who pass
across the stage, "the last with a glass in his hand." In "Richard
III." quite a large army of ghosts present and address themselves
alternately to Richard and to Richmond. The ghosts of Prince Edward,
Henry VI., Clarence, Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan, Hastings, the two
young Princes, Queen Anne, and Buckingham invoke curses upon the
tyrant and blessings upon his opponent. It would be hard to find in
the annals of the drama another instance of such an assembly of
apparitions present upon the stage at the same time.

In Otway's tragedy of "Venice Preserved," the ghosts of Jaffier and
Pierre, which confronted the distracted Belvidera in the last scene,
were for a long time very popular apparitions, although in later
performances of the play it was thought proper to omit them, and to
allow the audience to imagine their presence, or to conclude that
Belvidera only fancied that she saw them. Here, however, is the
extract from the original play:

BELVIDERA. Ha! look there!
[_The Ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre rise together, both bloody._
My husband bloody, and his friend too! Murder!
Who has done this? Speak to me, thou sad vision!
[_Ghosts sink._
On these poor trembling knees, I beg it. Vanished!
Here they went down. Oh! I'll dig, dig the den up.
You shan't delude me thus. Ho! Jaffier, Jaffier,
Peep up and give me but a look. I have him!
I've got him, father! Oh, now I'll smuggle him!
My love! my dear! my blessing! help me! help me!
They have hold on me, and drag me to the bottom.
Nay, now they pull so hard. Farewell. [_She dies._

MAID. She's dead.
Breathless and dead.

This may seem very sad stuff, but it would be unfair to judge Otway's
plays by this one extract. "V