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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
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 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN us A. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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In compliance with current 
 
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 atljara, Nem ^Jorb 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED. BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE 
 
 BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES 
 
 (Never before published) 
 
 MACBETH 
 
 " Shepliera. But what's this I was gaun to say ? ou, ay ! — heard ye 
 ever Knowles's lectures on dramatic poetry ? 
 
 " North. I have ; they are admirable, full of matter, elegantly written 
 and eloquently delivered. Knowles is a delightful fellow and a man of 
 true genius." 
 
 Nodes Ambrosiana. 
 
 FRANCIS HARVEY 
 
 4 ST. JAMES'S STREET 
 LONDON 
 
 1875 
 
 0). 
 
CHISWICK press:— PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, 
 
■ HE Lectures upon Dramatic Literature hy James 
 Sheridan Knowles, delivered more than forty years 
 ago, have never been published. 
 
 A few presentation copies have lately been 
 printed from the original MB. found in memorandum-books. The 
 lectures are very fragmentary and piecemeal, shipping from booh 
 to booh. Sometimes one booh, serving also as a diary or pochet- 
 tablet, contains portions of two or three different lectures, with only 
 the subject matter to distinguish them. Mr. Sydney Wells Abbott, 
 of the British Museum, has deciphered them and made a sequence 
 of their contents. 
 
 The memorandum-boohs are nom carefully preserved in morocco 
 cases. 
 
 From these Lectures the following pages have been selected for 
 publication at this time, when the production of Macbeth at the 
 Lyceum Theatre is the theme of general interest in artistic and 
 literary circles. 
 
 London, November, 1876. 
 
MACBETH 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 exemplify those features in the acting 
 dramatic poem, which contribute mainly 
 to its success, we shall have recourse to 
 Shakespeare; from among those incom- 
 parable records which he has left us of his genius, we 
 shall select the tragedy of " Macbeth," as one of the most 
 felicitous in plot and execution. Of this play we shall 
 examine the first act. 
 
 In the tragedy of " Macbeth," the historical and the 
 romantic are blended with singular effect. The materials 
 with which history has furnished Shakespeare, are ex- 
 tremely few : the success of Macbeth against the 
 Norwegians, his murder of Duncan at the instigation of 
 Lady. Macbeth, his usurpation of the throne, and his 
 
 B 
 
2 MACBETH. 
 
 death by the hand of Macduff. Of these four incidents, 
 which are however sufficiently favourable to unity and 
 climax of action, consists the groundwork of this play. 
 These are the only Unks of his plot for which Shake- 
 speare is indebted to history, all the rest are his own. 
 With those Unks to guide him, he could doubtless have 
 constructed a sufficiently interesting chain of natural 
 situations and events; but the opportunity, which the 
 remote period of the history presented him with, of 
 indulging in the marvellous and supernatural, was too 
 tempting to an imagination like his, not to be profited by. 
 Accordingly, the powers of the air, the mysterious, im- 
 palpable ministers that wait on nature's mischief, were 
 summoned to his aid, and in all the potency of prophecy, 
 illusion and charm, appeared at the invocation of the 
 enchanter. 
 
 The great aim of the dramatist, so far as the success 
 of the acting dramatic poem is concerned, should be to 
 excite expectation, and to keep it 'up throughout. To 
 effect the latter, every new stage of his action should 
 present some new object of interest. His subject should 
 be proposed as soon as possible, and from that moment 
 he should never allow his plot to stand stiU. I have 
 witnessed plays so wretchedly deficient in this respect, 
 that a whole act has passed, without the audience having 
 any idea what the author was about. How different is 
 Shakespeare's management in this admirable play. Scarcely 
 
MA CBETR. 3 
 
 has the curtain risen when the story begins to unfold 
 itself: 
 
 " Ist Witch. Wlien shall we three meet again, 
 In thunder, lightning, or in rain ? 
 
 2nd Witch. Wlien the hurly hurly's done, 
 'ViTien the battle's lost and won. 
 
 3rcl Witch. That will be ere set of sun. 
 
 1st Witch. Where the place ? 
 
 2nd Witch. Upon the heath. 
 
 8rd Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. 
 
 1st Witch. I come, Graymalkin. 
 
 2nd Witch. Paddock calls. 
 
 3rd Witch. Anon. 
 
 All. Pair is foul, and foul is fair : 
 Hover through the fog and filthy air." 
 
 Here is the hand of the incomparable master. Here, by a 
 scene composed of about half-a-dozen lines, is our interest 
 already strongly excited. There is not in the whole 
 course of the drama beside, ancient or modern, an in- 
 stance where so much is effected in so narrow a compass. 
 We are at once upon the tiptoe of definite expectation. 
 We exclaim to ourselves — " There's matter here ! " Such 
 personages do not busy themselves about nothing, nor can 
 he have a common part to act who is the theme of their 
 conversation, the subject of their solicitude. 
 
 This impression is improved in the second scene, in 
 which we are partly enlightened as to the character of 
 Macbeth, by the Sergeant and by Macduff, who suc- 
 cessively describe his prowess to the King, and whose 
 relation tends powerfully to exalt our opinion of the 
 
4 MA CBETH. 
 
 importance of the hero, and to increase our anxiety to 
 see him. 
 
 The third scene opens — and opens as it ought — with 
 the witches, the purport of whose approaching interview 
 with Macbeth is clearly inferred from the dialogue which 
 precedes his entrance, and which thoroughly develops 
 the evil quality of the beings that have come to give 
 him meeting. I must here, however, protest against 
 the grotesque effect which is generally given to these 
 members of the dramatis personce. It is equally a 
 violation of historical and poetical truth. What can 
 be more preposterous, than to represent an object of 
 terror, in such a manner as to produce something like 
 a laugh at its appearance? How the stage-director can 
 fall into such an error, with the thunder and lightning 
 themselves to admonish him, is inexplicable. The cir- 
 cumstances under which the witches appear, the work 
 they have in hand, the very description of their persons 
 by Banquo, suggest anything rather than a low-comedy 
 iot<A(t r^tiw group. They are the presiding, directing spirits of 
 - "''^^'^'^"1 tragedy; they are the furies of Jdlschylus, whose appal- 
 ling presence, we are told, frustrated the mother's long- 
 cherished hope, and strangled infancy with the strong 
 convulsions of terror. How emphatically does the 
 kindred genius of the artist reprove such management. 
 There you see them, as doubtless Shakespeare saw them 
 in the mirror of his fancy, embodied spirits, the ministers 
 
MACBETH. 5 
 
 of evil ; unearthly, wild, blasted things to cower and feel 
 troubled at ; less welcome than the storm that brings them ; 
 creatures accurst, whose looks bespeak their errand; the 
 traffickers in things forbid ; abominable and unutterable. 
 
 Macbeth at length enters, and. never did tragic hero 
 enter with greater effect. Alexander in his car is nothing 
 to him. He does not immediately perceive the witches — 
 an instance of the subtle perception of Shakespeare, which 
 allows nothing to escape it that can enhance the effect of 
 the action. Another author would probably have brought 
 him and them face to face at once, but Shakespeare turns 
 the impatience of his audience to better account : he in- 
 creases it, to render its gratification the greater. The 
 remark of Macbeth, in this short interval, is in fine keep- 
 ing. It most appropriately turns upon the atmospherical 
 phenomena, that have been produced by the supernatural x 
 agency of which he himself is the unconscious, yet igno- 
 rant, object. At length he sees them — not directly though, 
 but through the instrumentahty of Banquo. Another 
 happy hit! Who does not feel obliged to Banquo for 
 pointing them out to him? How finely, too, the wonder 
 "with which he must contemplate them is felt through 
 the wonder of his friend. 
 
 Their greeting is sublime. It is at once their errand 
 and their salutation. It is a beautiful example of that 
 condensation, for which the dialogue of Shakespeare is 
 conspicuous : — 
 
6 MACBETH. 
 
 " Isi Witch. All hail, Macbeth 1 hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 
 2nd Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor ! 
 3rd Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter." 
 
 Shakespeare effects a thing, with half the effort which 
 it would cost another author, while, at the same time, 
 he executes it a thousand times more feKcitously, In 
 this, as much as in anything else, does the Shakesperian 
 drama stand alone. Observe, again, the management of 
 the master. The effect of this salutation upon him who 
 is the object of it, is announced not by any word which 
 he himself breathes, but by the remark of his companion- 
 in-arms — 
 
 " Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear 
 Things that do sound so fair ? " 
 
 Macbeth cannot, dares not trust his utterance, but he 
 cannot refrain from betraying what he feels. The remark 
 of Banquo is the officious tongue of Macbeth's thought : 
 it lays open his soul to you to the bottom, as the salutation 
 of the third witch falling upon Macbeth's ear, rouses the 
 slumbering demon within him, like a flash of Ughtning illu- 
 minating a cavern and revealing to you a startled monster 
 couching there. How happily does Shakespeare here 
 bring in the questioning of the witches by Banquo, not 
 only to allow the other time to recover himself, but to 
 give him an early foretaste of the fruits of guilty am- 
 bition : — 
 
MACBETH. 7 
 
 " I' the name of truth. 
 Are ye fantastical, or that indeed 
 Which outwardly ye. show ? My noble partner 
 You greet with present grace, and great prediction 
 Of noble having, and of royal hope, 
 That he seems rapt withal ; to me you speak not : 
 If you can look into the seeds of time, 
 And say which grain will grow, and which will not, 
 Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear, 
 Your favours, nor your hate." 
 
 At length, Macbeth addresses the witches. He is 
 stimulated to that act by their preparing to depart : — 
 
 " Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more : 
 By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis ; 
 But how of Cawdor ? The thane of Cawdor lives, 
 A prosperous gentleman ; and to be king 
 Stands not within the prospect of belief, 
 No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence 
 You owe this strange intelligence ? or why 
 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way 
 With such prophetic greeting ? — Speak, I charge you." 
 
 [Witches vanish. 
 
 The abrupt vanishing of the witches — much as we 
 join with Macbeth in wishing them to stay — ^is an in- 
 stance of that master perception which knew how to 
 husband an enjoyment for us. They go when they have 
 accomplished their errand, the quickening of the evil seed 
 that is to shoot up apace and flourish in baleful, irre- 
 pressible rankness. Here occurs one of those thoughts 
 of Shakespeare which are pecuUarly his own — 
 
MA CBETH. 
 
 " Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, 
 And these are of them." 
 
 The witches have vanished; but their -svork goes on 
 in the partial fulfihnent of their prediction, by the arrival 
 of Rosse and Angus, with the news of Macbeth's acces- 
 sion to the title of the revolted thane of Cawdor ; which 
 intelligence supplies a new source of interest, in the effect 
 that it produces on Macbeth, developing stiU further the 
 spirit of the future traitor and regicide, and keeping our 
 attention upon the strain tiU the close of the scene. 
 Seldom is the conception of Shakespeare done justice to 
 in the acting of this scene. Judge what an effect this 
 communication must produce upon a man in the situation 
 of Macbeth. Recollect his start at the prophetic salu- 
 tation of the third witch. Reflect upon the stamp of 
 authority which that salutation receives from the fulfil- 
 ment of the second prophetic " All hail ! " Conceive the 
 deep absorption of his soul. Would you not expect him 
 to be off his guard, to forget that the eyes of Rosse, 
 Angus, and Banquo are upon him, to be lost to the 
 consciousness of all external perception? Shakespeare 
 intended that he should be so; nor does he leave it to 
 be guessed by you. He sets it down in terms intel- 
 ligible, distinct, and positive. The immediate natural 
 action of a person who receives good news, the truth of 
 which he distrusts, is an exclamation of incredulity ; that 
 
MACBETH. 9 
 
 incredulity removed, the next natural action in a man 
 with self-possession is a tribute of thanks to the messen- 
 ger, especially when both are upon the same footing 
 in point of rank. Macbeth cannot believe that he is 
 thane of Cawdor. 
 
 " The thane of Cawdor lives : why do you dress me 
 In horrow'd robes ? 
 
 Ang. Wlio was the thane Uves yet : 
 
 But under heavy judgment bears that life 
 Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was 
 Combined with Norway ; or did line the rebel 
 With hidden help and vantage : or that with both 
 He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not ; 
 But treasons capital, confessed and proved. 
 Have overthrown him." 
 
 All ground of doubt is removed. There stand Rosse 
 and Angus to receive the tribute which courtesy and 
 gratitude award them. Does Macbeth render it? No, 
 he overlooks both them and their news in gloating upon 
 the crown which infallible prophecy has placed upon his 
 
 head. 
 
 " Glamis, and thane of Cawdor : 
 The greatest is behind." 
 
 He suddenly recollects himself. He finds he has been 
 forgetful. He repairs his error 
 
 " Thanks for your pains." 
 
 But more than this. He fears that his abstraction may 
 
 c 
 
10 MACBETH. 
 
 have been perceived by Banquo — Banquo who heard the 
 prediction of the witches — Banquo who saw him start 
 when the name of king was put upon him — Banquo whose 
 sagacity may penetrate the guilty cause of his absence of 
 mind. Banquo's thought must be made to look another 
 way. Macbeth must seem to have been occupied by 
 anything but the reflections that have been actually 
 passing within him. 
 
 " Do you not hope your children shall he kings, 
 When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me, 
 Promised no less to them ? " 
 
 Banquo, free from suspicion, replies : — 
 
 " That, trusted home. 
 Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, 
 Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange : 
 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm. 
 The instruments of darkness tell us truths ; 
 Win us with honest trifles, to betray us 
 In deepest consequence." 
 
 Macbeth does not hear a word of this. He is ab- 
 stracted again. He scarcely recovers his self-possession 
 ere he relapses. Ask him what Banquo has just been 
 saying to him, he will be as — as if Banquo had not 
 spoken at all. Do you doubt it? Why, he is utterly un- 
 conscious that his friend has taken Rosse and Angus 
 apart to confer with them. 
 
 What business has this Kne here if Macbeth is aware 
 
MACBETH. 11 
 
 of what has just been passing? Why interrupt his own 
 meditations, and intrude upon the private conversation of his 
 friends for the now superfluous purpose of thanking Rosse 
 and Angus, unless because he has relapsed, — becomes sud- 
 denly conscious of his abstraction, — is unconscious of his 
 being at liberty to indulge in it, and from the recollection 
 of his having committed one error is apprehensive of 
 being guilty of a second ? I have seen some of our first- 
 rate actors leisurely turn round and address their thanks 
 to Rosse and Angus standing at the back of the stage, 
 thus obhterating as it were one of the finest traits of the 
 scenic picture. No, Macbeth believes Rosse and Angus 
 to be still standing on the spot where first he saw them ; 
 he has become thoroughly abstracted again ; he suddenly 
 recovers his recollection; hastens to repair a breach of 
 decorum of which he suspects himself to have been guilty, 
 supposing Rosse and Angus to be standing where last he 
 saw them ; turns to do it ; finds they have removed to a 
 distance with Banquo, and then resumes the former train 
 of his thought. 
 
 The scene changes. From what we perceive of Mac- 
 beth when he is first introduced to us, he is evidently a 
 man whose nature is not exactly attempered to the com- 
 mission of crime. He can admit the thought of the 
 murder, but he cannot entertain it without shuddering. 
 He wants provocation to nerve his hand for the dagger, 
 and Shakespeare finds it for him in this scene in the 
 
12 MA CBETH. 
 
 advancement of Duncan's eldest son to the principality of 
 Cumberland. The interest of this scene is still further 
 enhanced by Duncan's announcing his intention to visit 
 Macbeth's castle, thus presenting, as it were, to Macbeth 
 the opportunity for despatching him. 
 
 " Scene IV. — Forres, A Boom in tJie.Palace. 
 Flourish, Enter Duncan, Maj,col¥, Donalbain, Lenox, and Attendants. 
 
 Sun, Is execution done on Cawdor ? Are not 
 Tho"se in commission yet returned ? 
 
 Mai, My liege. 
 
 They are not yet come back. But I have spoke 
 With one that saw him die ;• who did report. 
 That very frankly he confessed his treasons ; 
 Implored your highness' pardon ; and pet forth 
 A deep repentance : nothing in his life 
 Became him like the leaving it ; he died 
 As one that had been studied in his death, 
 To throw away the dearest thing he owed, 
 As 'twere a careless trifle. 
 
 Dun. There's no art 
 
 To find the mind's construction in the face : 
 He was a gentleman on whom I built 
 An absolute trust. O worthiest cousin ! 
 
 Enter Macbeth, Banqito, Eossb, and Angits. 
 
 The sin of my ingratitude even now 
 Was heavy on me i thou art so far before. 
 That swiftest wing of recompense is slow 
 To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved. 
 That the proportion both of thanks and payment 
 Might have been mine ! Only I have left to say. 
 More is thy due than more than all can pay. 
 Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe. 
 In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part 
 
MACBETH. 13 
 
 Is to receive our duties : and our duties 
 Are to your throne and state, children and servants ; 
 Which do hut what they should, hy doing every thing 
 Safe toward your love and honour. 
 
 Dun. Welcome hither : 
 
 I have hegun to plant thee, and will lahour 
 To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo, 
 That hast no less deserved, nor must be known 
 No less to have done so ; let me enfold thee, 
 And hold thee to my heart. 
 
 Ban. There if I grow, 
 
 The harvest is your own. 
 
 Dun. My plenteous joys 
 
 Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves 
 In drops of sorrow. — Sons, kinsmen, thanes, 
 And you whose places are the nearest, know. 
 We will establish our estate upon 
 Our eldest, Malcolm ; whom we name hereafter 
 The Prince of Cumberland : which honour must 
 Not, unaccompanied, invest him only. 
 But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine 
 On all deservers, — From hence to Inverness, 
 And hind us further to you. 
 
 Macb. The rest is labour, which is not used for you : 
 I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful 
 The hearing of my wife with your approach ; 
 So, humbly take my leave. 
 
 Dun. My worthy Cawdor ! " 
 
 Here tlie exit speech of Macbeth admirably describes 
 bis settled purpose, and tbe degree in which his nature 
 recoils at the idea of carrying that purpose into exe- 
 cution : — 
 
 " The Prince of Cumberland ! — That is a step. 
 On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap. 
 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires 1 
 
14 MACBETH. 
 
 Let not light see my black and deep desires ; 
 The eye wink at the hand ! yet let that be, 
 Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see." 
 
 We cannot take our leave of this scene without 
 pointing out an instance of that perfect self-identification 
 with his characters, in which Shakespeare leaves every 
 other dramatist so far behind him. I allude to the 
 different manners in which Macbeth and Banquo respec- 
 tively acknowledge the gracious reception given them by , ^ 
 the King. The reply of the latter comes from the heart, ^'^ \ . rj-^ 
 is brief and effortless, breathing the workings of an honest' '^'^ "^ ' 
 and grateful nature overpowered by excessive kindness; 
 while that of the former comes from the head alone, is a 
 tissue of fine-spun reasoning upon an obvious proposition 
 — in a word, the speech of a man who is conscious of a 
 false heart, and feels the necessity of masking it with as 
 fair a face as possible. 
 
 I The historical fact, that Macbeth was instigated by 
 his wife to murder Duncan, suggested to Shakespeare the 
 character of Lady Macbeth. From this single trait, he 
 inferred the whole of a character, for fidelity of keeping 
 and force, if not superior to(any, at least inferior to none 
 in the wide range of his immortal drama. Here he has, 
 indeed, reahzed the highest feat of the terrible in romance, 
 by embodying the spirit of a fiend in a human form ; — a 
 being composed of flesh and blood, and not without the 
 sympathies which result from the Hving union of such 
 
MACBETH. 15 
 
 ingredients, but possessing them in utter subserviency to 
 the presiding evil principle ; susceptible of conjugal attach- 
 ment, yet reckless of sacrificing the honour, the virtue, 
 the peace of her husband to the gratification of her own 
 ambition ; no stranger to the instinct that links the parent 
 to her offspring, yet capable of conceiving and supporting 
 the idea of the babe that milks her, at one moment smiling 
 at her breast, and the next a corpse upon the ground, its 
 brains dashed out by her own hand ; a daughter too, but 
 the filial knot availing only to awaken a momentary com- 
 punction from the effects of which no sooner does she 
 recover, than she is if possible twice the demon that she 
 was before. She takes no more account of blood, than 
 if it were water. That from the sight of which unused 
 nature instinctively recoils, though shed for a salutary 
 purpose, under circumstances the most revolting, only 
 serves to furnish her with an image of pleasure — 
 
 " If he do bleed, 
 I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal." 
 
 She does so, and never hastens to wipe her hands, but 
 brings them reeking, to taunt her pale and quaking hus- 
 band with their colour. This is a character, our feehng 
 of the masterly conceptions and delineations of which 
 must ever transcend any attempt to describe it. It was 
 a theme every way worthy the genius of Shakespeare, and 
 
16 MACBETH. 
 
 fully did tliat genius prove that it was equal to the task. 
 Shakespeare doubtless saw the want of such an accom- 
 plice, to spur the resolution of a man — a gallant, generous 
 soldier, who had much that was noble in him despite his 
 vaulting ambition. And such has Shakespeare drawn 
 him. A man alive to the claims of moral duty : — 
 
 " He's here in double trust : 
 First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, 
 Strong both against the deed ; then, as his host, 
 Who should against his murderer shut the door. 
 Not bear the knife myself." 
 
 /- 
 
 Jealous of honour : — 
 
 " He hath honoured me of late ; and I have bought 
 Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
 Wliich would be worn now in their newest gloss, 
 Not cast aside so soon." 
 
 Who can conceive and appreciate the beauty of 
 virtue : — 
 
 " Besides, this Duncan 
 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
 So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
 The deep damnation of his taking off." 
 
 Who has a thought of heaven : — 
 
 " But, in these cases, 
 We still have judgment here ; that we but teach 
 Bloody instructions, which being taught, return 
 To plague the inventor." 
 
 Act li. '^C- '< 
 hA Cc Y 
 
MACBETH. 17 
 
 I say the assistance of such an accompKce was neces- 
 sary to confirm the bloody purpose in such a man ; to 
 screw up his courage to the sticking place, and keep it 
 there. 
 
 This extraordinary creation of the bard is introduced 
 to us in the fifth scene, and awakens a new interest ; bxit 
 at the same time all is perfectly in keeping. She enters 
 reading a letter from Macbeth, communicating the ex- 
 traordinary encounter he has had, the predictions he has 
 heard, and the partial fulfilment of those predictions. 
 
 But who that remembers the stage, some twenty years 
 ago, can ever revert to this letter without associating with 
 it the idea of the tongue that used to read it, as it was 
 universally allowed it had never been read before, and 
 may almost be allowed it never will be read again ? What 
 a specimen of histrionic art was the reading of that letter ! 
 the figure, the action, the eye, the tone, — such a com- 
 bination as one would be tempted to deny that Nature 
 could surpass, and to doubt if she could repeat. One 
 would almost think as soon of looking for another Shake- 
 speare, as looking for another Siddons. Years have 
 passed since her retirement from the stage. Candidate 
 after candidate has presented herself ; but in the pecuhar 
 walk of that actress — the towering of tragedy — in whom 
 have we acknowledged her successor? When we, who 
 saw her, look back upon the acting of that empress 
 of her art ; while we thrill with the bare recollection 
 
 D 
 
18 MACBETH. 
 
 of what her genius could achieve ; while we ask our- 
 selves what would we not give to witness its workings 
 again ; does the faintest hope arise to our minds that we 
 shall ever hear the characters of Elvira, Zara, Volumnia, 
 Queen Catherine, and Lady Macbeth alluded to, and 
 associate with them the personation of any other actress ? 
 With less of mannerism than her talented brother, she 
 possessed a thousand times the genius ; her scenes — those 
 in which the characters she represented took the lead — 
 were one continuous flashing of intensely excited imagi- 
 nation ; passion with her rose to the topmost pitch, but 
 never to offending, for it was genuine. It did not re- 
 semble the artificial storm got up by the artists of the 
 theatre ; it was the tempest itself ; it was the liquid sea 
 put into motion and chafed by the very winds of heaven, 
 and tossing and resounding amidst the thunders and hght- 
 nings of heaven. When her Elvira, about to be led out 
 to die, denounced Pizarro, you trembled for Pizarro, not 
 for Elvira. 
 
 Zara threatening Alphonso made palpable to you all 
 that you had ever heard or fancied of the fierce and 
 opposite extremes of passion ; — how the same love that 
 now could make us feed another's life with our own, anon 
 could strangle its object. Her Volumnia was indeed the 
 Roman matron : it showed you the original of the historic 
 portrait, which it not only vindicated from the suspicion 
 of exaggeration, but even transcended. Her Queen 
 
 >- 
 
MACBETH. 19 
 
 Catherine was the perfect embodying of conscious royalty, 
 her mere 
 
 " Lord Cardinal, to you I speak," 
 
 brought Wolsey from his chair to her feet ; while that 
 stateliness of soul, which instead of bending under wrong 
 and insult, only towered the more in the personation of 
 this inimitable actress, was felt by the audience no less in 
 their own perception, than in the effect which it produces 
 upon the voluptuous tyrant whose barbarity puts it to the 
 test. But the Lady Macbeth of Mrs. Siddons was her 
 masterpiece. Not that she was not equally happy in her 
 conception of other characters, but that here her fine 
 genius had greater scope for its development ; and here 
 what terms of eulogy are rich enough to sum up the 
 amount of her merits ? -+ 
 
 The Lady Macbeth of Mrs. Siddons was the Genius of 
 guilty ambition personified ; — express in form, in feature, 
 motion, speech. An awe invested her. You felt as if 
 there was a consciousness in the very atmosphere that 
 surrounded her, which communicated its thrill to you. 
 There was something absolutely subduing in her presence 
 — an overpowering something, that commanded silence ; 
 or if you spoke, prevented you from speaking above 
 your breath. It was a thing, once witnessed, never 
 to be forgotten, more to be remembered than the most 
 gorgeous pageant that ever signalized the triumph of 
 
20 MACBETH. 
 
 human pride, or fulfilled the imaginings of human ad- 
 miration. 
 
 " They met me in the day of success ; and I have learned by the per- 
 fectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I 
 burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves — air." 
 
 In the look and tone with which she delivered that word, 
 you recognized ten times the wonder with which Macbeth 
 and Banquo actually beheld the vanishing of the witches. 
 
 " Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, 
 who all-hailed me ' Thane of Cawdor ; ' by which title, before, these weird 
 sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with ' Hail, 
 King that shalt be!'" 
 
 The expression which she gave to the dehvery of the 
 word " King " in this sentence was such, that it needed 
 not her tongue to teU you of the dagger which was destined 
 to be sheathed in the heart of Duncan. But 'tis im- 
 possible to indulge in minute criticism. Were we to do 
 so, we could occupy, in the description of Mrs. Siddons's 
 Lady Macbeth, as many lectures as have been comprised 
 in the entire course; and after aU, we should remain 
 unsatisfied with ourselves. Her acting in the scene 
 where she reproves her vacillating husband, and abso- 
 lutely shames him into resolution; her acting in the 
 scene where the murder is perpetrated, where with un- 
 hesitating, collected step she enters the chamber of blood, 
 
MA CBETH. 21 
 
 to replace the daggers of the grooms, and as calmly issues 
 from it again as if she had but newly lifted her head from 
 the pillow of innocent sleep ; her acting in the banquet- 
 scene where the self-possession of Lady Macbeth is put 
 to the severest trial — when by the disturbed, distempered 
 conscience of her feeble husband she is placed upon the 
 brink of a precipice, and stands there as cool as if the 
 airy void before her were firm as the solid footing whence 
 she surveys it ; her acting in these scenes, were things no 
 more to be embodied in description than the speed and 
 brightness of the Ughtning flash, which nothing can give 
 you a conception of except the lightning. The reproof of 
 her scorn was blasting. Though Macbeth's resolution to 
 proceed no further in the business, had been fifty times 
 as strong as it was, it must have crouched before her; 
 and he must have gone on, though a hundred Duncans 
 stood in his way. 
 
 But the sleeping scene, where she walks and dreams! 
 I could pity a murderess who should look upon that 
 scene. The ghostly group that enter the tent and 
 surround the couch of Richard, bring with them not 
 the tithe of the horror that attends that silent woman, 
 Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. Though pit, gallery, 
 and boxes were crowded to suflfocation, the chill of the 
 grave seemed about you while you looked on her ; — there 
 was the hush and the damp of the charnel-house at 
 midnight; you had a feehng as if you and the medical 
 
22 3IA CBETH. 
 
 attendant, and lady-in-waiting, were alone with her; 
 your flesh crept and your breathing became uneasy ; you 
 felt the tenaciousness of the spot which she was trying 
 to rub out upon her hand; the scent of blood became 
 palpable to you ; while the sigh of her remorse seemed 
 to ascend from an unfathomable abyss of misery and 
 despair. 
 
 We return to the fifth scene. The reading of Macbeth's 
 letter is followed by a sohloquy where his character is 
 briefly but admirably sketched, while that of Lady Mac- 
 beth begins to develop itself. 
 
 " Glamis thou art, and Cawdor ; and shalt be 
 What thou art promised : — yet, do I fear thy nature ; 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness. 
 To catch the nearest way : Thou wouldst be gi'eat. 
 Art not without ambition ; but without 
 The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, 
 That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false. 
 And yet wouldst wrongly win : thou'dst have, great Glamis, 
 That which cries, ' Thus thou must do, if thou have it : 
 And that which rather thou dost fear to do. 
 Than wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither. 
 That I may pour my spirits in thine ear. 
 And chastise, with the valour of my tongue. 
 All that impedes thee from the golden round. 
 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
 To have thee crowned withal." 
 
 The announcement of the King's approaching visit 
 reveals her fully in the most appalling adjuration that 
 was ever breathed by human lips. 
 
Ma CBETR. 23 
 
 " Come you spirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me liere ; 
 And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full 
 Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood. 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse ; 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
 The effect and it ! Come to my woman's breasts. 
 And t^ke my milk for gall, you murdering ministere, 
 ^^Tierever in your sightless substances 
 You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell ! 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark 
 Tocry, 'Hold, hold!'" 
 
 The arrival of Macbeth forms the last incideBt of 
 this scene, bringing us to a further and more interesting 
 stage of the action, in the avowal of Lady Macbeth's 
 determination to have the murder of her confiding guest 
 and monarch perpetrated under her o'^vn roof. 
 
 We come to the sixth scene, which has been instanced 
 by a celebrated artist and critic — ^Sir Joshua Reynolds — 
 as an example of relief, analogous to what is technically 
 called repose in painting. The artist and critic I allude 
 to considers this to be the effect of design on the part of 
 Shakespeare— that it is intended by him to relax the 
 tension, the extreme tension of that interest which has 
 been hitherto excited in the audience, and kept constantly 
 upon the strain. Notwithstanding the eloquence of the 
 remark, and the ingenuity with which it is enforced, I am 
 
24 MACBETH. 
 
 incKned to take a different view of the subject, and to 
 consider this scene as another and a higher step in the 
 climax of the action. That Duncan should contemplate 
 with satisfaction the pleasant seat of Macbeth's castle, 
 and that Banquo should participate in the feelings of the 
 King, are perfectly natural ; but that the audience should 
 partake this \'iew, is as preposterous as to suppose that Ave 
 could see a man about to step into a cavern which we 
 know to be the den of a wild beast, and participate in his 
 admiration of the foliage which might happen to adorn its 
 entrance. So far, if I mistake not, from there being any 
 relaxing of the interest here, there is an absolute straining 
 of it. The unconsciousness of the destined victim to the 
 fate that awaited it, the smiling flowers that dressed it, 
 and its playful motions as it walked to the altar of sacri- 
 fice must have served, not to assuage, but to aggravate in 
 the beholder the feeling of its predicament. There is 
 no relief — no repose here. How often in witnessing this 
 scene have I felt a wish that some suspicion of foul play 
 would flash across the mind of Banquo, and that he would 
 hang upon the robes of the king and implore him not 
 to enter. 
 
 Here again we perceive that fine keeping of character 
 which distinguishes all the portraits of Shakespeare. Whom 
 does he send to receive ? Not Macbeth ; not the man who 
 cannot meditate a damning deed and look up clear — who 
 alters favour : but her who could at once, and while con- 
 
MA CBE TIL ^ 25 
 
 scious nature shuddered all around her, remain imperturb- 
 able as the weapon in her hand. 
 
 The closing scene of this act is a higher point of the 
 chmax still: the last debate as to innocence and crime. 
 It commences mth the soliloquy of Macbeth, which I 
 confess I have seldom heard spoken with that perturbation 
 Avhich appears to me to suit it. The manner in which 
 this sohloquy is generally delivered reminds me of the 
 seaman who is accustomed to the gale, and sits cool and 
 collected at the helm, though at every yard there yawns 
 a grave before him. I would have it an entirely different 
 thing. Macbeth is no such seaman. There should be 
 infinite discomfiture and confusion in it. It should be 
 delivered by fits and starts. I would attempt to give a 
 reading of it did I not know that conception and execution 
 are different things. The one is the soul and the other 
 the body, and the body does not alwaj'^s correspond to the 
 soul. This soliloquy is in fine keeping with the character 
 of Macbeth, and furnishes rich groundwork for the dia- 
 logue which immediately follows between him and Lady 
 Macbeth, and which advances the action to another stage 
 — that where the murder of Duncan is eventually deter- 
 mined upon. 
 
PART THE SECOND. 
 
 EVER had dramatist the art of enhancing 
 the effect of a crisis or capital incident or 
 situation, as Shakespeare had. A brief 
 review of the first act of " Macbeth " will 
 serve to establish this fact. 
 
 The act consists of seven scenes, each succeeding one 
 of which increases in interest, and all of which bear upon 
 one and the same argument — the guilty ambition of the 
 hero. 
 
 The first scene announces Macbeth in the brief, preg- 
 nant dialogue of the weird sisters. An extraordinary 
 scene, consisting of ten irregular four-feet Unes, yet full 
 of power, begetting a lively interest, perfect in keeping, 
 everything congenial to the work in hand, the time, the 
 place, the circumstances. 
 
MA CBETH. 27 
 
 The time, — at set of sun :— 
 
 " When the hurly burly's done. 
 When the battle's lost and won." 
 
 The place, — the heath, the abode of savage sterility 
 and solitude. The circumstances, — thunder, lightning or 
 rain. See how subtly he awakens the feeUng most con- 
 genial to his theme. We cower and draw together, and 
 ask ourselves what is to come. 
 
 The second scene is the hall of majesty ; but thither, 
 though unseen, do the witches accompany us, for there 
 we hear again of him whom they are to meet ere set of 
 sun upon the heath, amid thunder, lightning or rain^ 
 Macbeth. Here we learn who and what the hero is, — 
 the renowned champion of his king and of his country. 
 He is described to us by his deeds; deeds of prowess 
 almost superhuman. One single arm decides the mul- 
 titudinous strife of blood, and it is his. The single arm 
 of Macbeth! And what transpires here of paramount 
 importance ? One of the King's nobles — the Thane of 
 Cawdor — proves a traitor. He is condemned to the block, 
 and messengers are despatched to invest Macbeth with his 
 forfeited title. Except for .this preparatory step, one of 
 the most striking incidents in the following scene would 
 have been deprived of half its force. The fulfilment of 
 the second witch's prophetic "All hail!" -without it would 
 have appeared a mere trick of the dramatist, whereas now 
 
28 MACBETH. 
 
 it falls out naturally. 'Tis by such means, that of all 
 dramatists Shakespeare comes the nearest to nature. 'Tis 
 thus that he gives plausibiUty to nature. 'Tis thus that 
 he gives plausibiKty even to the supernatural when he has 
 occasion to resort to it. Mark the progress here. Mark 
 the building of the climax. 
 
 In the first scene we inquire who Macbeth is: in the 
 second we find it out — but only by report. We have to 
 see him yet. We have to become personally acquainted 
 Avith him; and accordingly the Heath opens upon us in 
 the third scene Avith full efi'ect. There it is, and there 
 are the thunder and the lightning and the rain, and there 
 are the -witches, and they are welcome. But where is 
 Macbeth, for the sake of whom they are so? Where is the 
 man about whom we heard the weird sisters consult? 
 — whose deeds of valour we have just heard recited to the 
 king? — whom the king in gratitude has sent his servants 
 to greet with the title of the revolted Thane of Cawdor? 
 Where is he? Are you not impatient to see him.? You 
 are, and Shakespeare knows it ; but he knows better than 
 to let you see him yet. To introduce Macbeth now 
 would be an obvious thing — a thing of course. No, he 
 diverts your mind from the subject. He rivets your 
 attention upon the Avitches themselves. He entangles 
 you in a dialogue which takes place between them con- 
 cerning a grudge which one of them owes to a sailor's 
 
MACBETH. 29 
 
 wife and means to repay; and when you are engrossed 
 in the examination of 
 
 " the pilot's thumb, 
 Wreck'd as homeward he did come," 
 
 the drums of Macbeth startle you, and most gratefully 
 recall your attention to the object of paramount solici- 
 tude ; that attention refreshed and invigorated by partial 
 diversion. Now for the drift of the mysterious, precon- 
 certed interview. How gradually and impressively it is 
 unfolded ! Let us pause to contemplate the extraordinary 
 power of this scene, which for our own sakes Ave shall 
 allow to speak for itself. 
 
 Enter Macbeth and Banquo. 
 
 Mach. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. 
 
 Ban. How far is't called to Forres ? — What are these 
 So withered and so wild in their attire, 
 That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth. 
 And yet are on't ? Live you ? or are you aught 
 That man may question ? You seem to understand me. 
 By each at once her choppy finger laying 
 Upon her skinny lips :— you should be women, 
 And yet your beards forbid me to interpret 
 That you are so. 
 
 Mach. Speak, if you can : what are you ? 
 
 \st Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 
 
 2nd WitcJi. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor ! 
 
 3rd Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! that shalt be king hereafter ! 
 
 Ban. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear 
 Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth 
 A.re ye fantastical, or that indeed 
 
30 • MACBETH. 
 
 Which outwardly ye show ? My noble partner 
 
 You greet with present grace and great prediction 
 
 Of noble having, and of royal hope, 
 
 That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. 
 
 If you can look into the seeds of time, 
 
 And say, which gi-ain will grow and which will not, 
 
 Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear 
 
 Your favours nor your hate. 
 
 1st Witch. Hail ! 
 
 2nd Witch. Hail! 
 
 ^rd Witch. Hail ! 
 
 \st Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 
 
 2n(^ Witch, Not so happy, yet much happier. 
 
 3rd Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. 
 So all hail ! Macbeth and Banquo ! 
 
 1st Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! 
 
 Much. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more : 
 By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis ; 
 But how of Cawdor ? The thane of Cawdor Uves, 
 A prosperous gentleman ; and to be king 
 Stands not within the prospect of belief. 
 No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence 
 You owe this strange intelligence ? or why 
 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way 
 With such prophetic greeting ? Speak, I charge you. [ Witches vanish. 
 
 Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has. 
 And these are of them. Whither are they vanished ? 
 
 Mach. Into the air, and what seemed corpoi'al, melted 
 As breath into the wind. — Would they had stayed ! 
 
 Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
 Or have we eaten of the insane root, 
 That takes the reason prisoner ? 
 
 Mach. Your children shall be kings. 
 
 Ban. You shall be king. 
 
 Mach. And thane of Cawdor too : went it not so ? 
 
 Ban. To the self-same tune and words. Who's here ? 
 
 Enter Eosse and Angcts. 
 Basse. The king hath happily received, Macbeth, 
 
MACBETH. 31 
 
 The news of tliy success ; and when he reads 
 Thy personal venture in the rehel's fight, 
 His wonders and his praises do contend, 
 WTiich should be thine, or his : silenced with that. 
 In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day. 
 He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks ; 
 Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make. 
 Strange images of death. As thick as tale, 
 Came post with post ; and everyone did hear 
 Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence. 
 And poured them down before him. 
 
 Ang. We are sent 
 
 To give thee, from our royal master, thanks ; 
 To herald thee into his sight, not pay thee. 
 
 Eosse. And, for an earnest of a greater honour. 
 He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor : 
 In which addition, hail, most worthy thane ! 
 For it is thine. 
 
 Ban. A^Tiat, can the devil speak true ? 
 
 Macb. The thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me 
 In borrowed robes ? 
 
 Ang. Who was the thane lives yet : 
 
 But under heavy judgment bears that life 
 Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was 
 Combined with Norway, or did line the rebel 
 With hidden help and vantage, or that with both 
 He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not ; 
 But treasons capital, confessed and proved, 
 Have overthrown him. 
 
 Macb. [aside] Glamis, and thane of Cawdor ! 
 The greatest is behind. [To Bosse and Angus.] 
 Thanks for your pains. 
 
 [To Ban.] Do you not hope your children shall be kings. 
 When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me 
 Promised no less to them ? 
 
 Ban. That, trusted home. 
 
 Might yet enkindle you unto the crown. 
 Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange : 
 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm. 
 
32 MACBETH. 
 
 The instruments of darkness tell us truths, 
 Win us with honest trifles, to betray us 
 In deepest consequence. 
 Cousins, a word, I pray you. 
 
 Macb. [asid^,'] Two truths are told. 
 
 As happy prologues to the swelling act 
 Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen. 
 [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting 
 Cannot be ill, cannot be good : if ill. 
 Why hath it given me earnest of success, 
 Commencing in a truth ? I am thane of Cawdor : 
 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair. 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 
 Against the use of nature ? Present fears 
 Are less than hoiTible imaginings : 
 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical. 
 Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
 Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is, 
 But what is not. 
 
 Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt. 
 
 Macb. [ciside.'] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me 
 Without my stir. 
 
 Ban. New honours come upon him 
 
 Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould 
 But with the aid of use. 
 
 Macb. [aside.'] Come what come may, 
 
 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. 
 
 Ban. Woi-thy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. 
 
 Macb. Give me your favour : my dull brain was wrought 
 With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains 
 Are registered where every day I turn 
 The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king. — 
 Think upon what hath chanced ; and, at more time, 
 The interim having weighed it, let us speak. 
 Our free hearts each to other. 
 
 Ban. ^^ery gladly. 
 
 Macb. Till then, enough. Come, friends." 
 
MACBETH. 33 
 
 You mark the regular progression here. Everything 
 occurs in its proper time and place, gradually increasing 
 in importance until the interest attains to a high pitch of 
 intensity. First, the object of the witches in seeking this 
 interview with Macbeth — revealed dimly, but not the less 
 impressively on that account; secondly, the new argu- 
 ment set before you in their prophecies with regard to 
 Banquo, which you feel assured they do not idly con- 
 trast with those that affect Macbeth; thirdly, Macbeth's 
 discredit of the second prophetic " All hail ! " showing you 
 that he is yet ignorant of his new good fortune, and 
 giving increased importance to the incident that confers 
 it; fourthly, the mysterious vanishing of the witches, just 
 when you hope with Macbeth that they are going to tell 
 him more; fifthly,- the arrival of the messengers, whom in 
 the preceding scene you saw despatched by the king to 
 salute Macbeth with the title that has so unexpectedly 
 fallen to him. How you long for them to speak ! How 
 you anticipate the astonishment of Macbeth ! Sixthly and 
 lastly, the effect of their communication, developing the 
 thoughts and feehngs of the future regicide and usurper. 
 How you enjoy his abstraction, his return to recollection, 
 his relapse, his recovery again, his efforts to excuse him- 
 self, and to prevent Banquo from suspecting the cause 
 which — 
 
 " Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
 Is smothered in surmise ; and nothing is, 
 But what is not." 
 
 F 
 
34 MACBETH. 
 
 In the fourtli scene we find the climax still ascending. 
 The action consists of an interview between the King 
 and his sons, his nobles, and subsequently Macbeth and 
 Banquo. The interest here is heightened by the King's 
 announcement of his intention of visiting Macbeth's castle. 
 The victim of his own ambition, and of the evil agency 
 which called it into activity, reveals himself less question- 
 ably here. He precedes the King, to announce to Lady 
 Macbeth the high honour that awaits her. The King's 
 eldest son, Malcolm, has just been nominated the successor 
 to the crown, by being promoted to the dignity of Prince 
 of Cumberland. Action and promptness must now take 
 place of delay and hesitation. The die is almost cast. 
 Macbeth exclaims to himself, as he repairs to execute the 
 gracious errand of the king, — 
 
 " The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step, 
 On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap ; 
 For in my way it lies," <fec. 
 
 The fifth scene opens. What is the climax of action 
 now? Rising in interest still! Here you are introduced 
 to a new and most important personage — Lady Mac- 
 beth: her whose fiat is destiny to her feeble, fluctu- 
 ating, and half-sinning husband. Here, that nothing may 
 be wanting, Shakespeare in the most artful, yet natural 
 manner, indirectly recapitulates the action of the third 
 scene, by Lady Macbeth reading part of a letter written 
 
MACBETH. 35 
 
 by her husband to her immediately after his interview 
 with the witches and with the messengers of Duncan : — 
 
 " They met me ia the day of success : and I have learned by the per- 
 fectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I 
 bm-ned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into 
 which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives 
 from the King, who all-hailed me ' Thane of Cawdor ; ' by which title, before, 
 these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with 
 ' Hail, King that shalt be !' This have I thought good to deliver thee, my 
 dearest partner of greatness ; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, 
 by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, 
 and farewell. " 
 
 Now comes a brief soHloquy, which artfully recalls to 
 recollection that of Macbeth in the preceding scene : — 
 
 " Glamis thou art, and Cawdor ; and shalt be 
 
 What thou art promised : — Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness. 
 
 To catch the nearest way : thou wouldst be great ; 
 
 Art not without ambition ; but without 
 
 The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, 
 
 That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false. 
 
 And yet wouldst wrongly win : thou'dst have, great Glamis, 
 
 That which cries, ' Thus thou must do, if thou have it ; 
 
 And that which rather thou dost fear to do. 
 
 Thou wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither, 
 
 That I may pour my spirits in thine ear ; 
 
 And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
 
 All that impedes thee from the golden round. 
 
 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
 
 To have thee crowned withal." 
 
 Everywhere in Shakespeare you meet with this perfect 
 preserving of individuality in his characters. In their 
 
36 3fA CBETH. 
 
 sentiments, their passions, their actions, their reports of 
 others, they are the same. Does not this soliloquy, 
 especially the conclusion of it, remind you of the King's 
 promise to visit Macbeth's castle? You know from the 
 letter that Lady Macbeth has not the least anticipation 
 of an occurrence so favourable to her guilty wishes. Are 
 you not on the alert for the arrival of Macbeth with the 
 news? How will she receive it? Shall he enter at once 
 with it? Ha! that would be confounding things, jumbling 
 high matters, such as the meeting, the welcome, the 
 news, the consequence. The news must stand by itself, 
 or it is good for nothing. A servant shall bring it, — not 
 directly though, but by second hand. The actual bearer is 
 almost dead with speed — has no more breath than would 
 make up his errand at the gate — matter corroborative of 
 the truth of the news. Here Lady Macbeth thoroughly 
 opens her heart to you, thereby adding tenfold interest 
 to the expected arrival of Macbeth. He arrives; and 
 the contrast between the husband and the wife com- 
 pletes this inimitable scene, and leaves us all astir with 
 horrible conjecture. 
 
 Another scene! Yes, and the climax rising still. 
 You are not sure that the King will fulfil his promise 
 of visiting Macbeth till he is actually at the gate of the 
 castle. You must see him then; you must contemplate" 
 in her complete character the extraordinary woman to 
 whom you have just been introduced. You must see 
 
MACBETH. 37 
 
 her lesson to Macbeth practised to perfection by the 
 teacher — 
 
 " Look like the innocent flower, 
 But be the serpent under it." 
 
 There is indeed the serpent under the flower; hidden! 
 not a Avarning scale to be seen, covered thoroughly and 
 thickly and impenetrably by the most winning blandish- 
 ments of duty and grace and sweetness! You could 
 scarcely believe that the tongue which speaks so blandly 
 its welcome to the King, could arm her husband's hand 
 with a dagger for the King's heart. 
 
 Scene the seventh. What ! another scene yet? Yes ! 
 And still the climax ascending? Yes ! The master-scene 
 of the action. The victim of ambition is yet free from 
 guilt. His thought of heaven, his dread of retribution, 
 his respect for the claims of consanguinity, for the rights 
 of hospitahty, his sense of the virtues of the King, keep 
 for a space aloof the demon whose fangs are on the watch 
 for him. Lady Macbeth enters, perceives his pHght, 
 taunts him, reproaches him, threatens him, works upon 
 his false pride, shames him with the boast of what she 
 herself would do, and confirms him in the bloody purpose 
 which but a minute before he had half abandoned. The 
 murder of Duncan is fuUy, irrevocably resolved upon 
 and arranged, and you are brought to the close of an 
 act which is in itself a play, — unrivalled, unapproached 
 in modern or ancient times, perfect in symmetry and 
 
38 MACBETH. 
 
 dignity and vigour, with respect to which I defy human 
 ingenuity to suggest addition or amendment or subtrac- 
 tion in any material point. I have been familiar with 
 this play for upAvards of forty years, and it is only now 
 that its beauties are beginning to open upon me — now 
 that I am attempting to analyze it. I have a feeling 
 that were I permitted to live forty years more, and to 
 attempt the same thing again, I should blush for my 
 present work, so short, I fear, does it come of this 
 almost superhuman creation. We are now prepared 
 thoroughly for the second act. 
 
 Midnight; the deed is to be done. Blood ! Shall it be 
 set about at once? Not with the concurrence of Shake- 
 speare. Where there is interest, there is generally a 
 charm in gradual progression. Were the whole firma- 
 ment to darken, to flame, and go out again in the transit 
 of a moment, we should not be a thousandth part so much 
 affected as by a single flash in any one quarter, from a 
 crisis towards which we have watched the elements gradu- 
 ally approximating. The railroad abridges the royal 
 pageant of half the impressiveness that is possessed upon 
 the ordinary highway. How the funeral of Nelson swal- 
 lowed up the soul in solemn, deep absorption as the 
 procession marched, inch by inch as it were, up the 
 Strand on its progress to St. Paul's. Speed, when not 
 in itself the object of interest, contracts and impairs the 
 
MACBETH. 39 
 
 impression of the senses. The long, fluctuating, rum- 
 bling roll of the thunder, communicates to us the full 
 conception of sublimity; but a single clap, howsoever 
 sudden and loud, affects us little more than the close 
 report of a piece of ordnance, or even a fowhng piece 
 discharged unexpectedly. Few would count the days 
 till the arrival of some great echpse of the sun or the 
 moon, were the eclipse to occupy only a few minutes 
 of time, whereas milUons now welcome the pheno- 
 menon. How impressively deepening is the one con- 
 tinuous interest from the first infringement of the disc 
 till the engulphing of the orb in total obscuration, and 
 thence to the emerging, the going through, and the 
 thorough extrication of Hght from darkness. Shakespeare 
 always takes care that he is not to blame if you forget 
 the stages of his action. If you lose a link in the chain 
 of his incidents and situations, this fault shaH be your 
 own. There is the hall of Macbeth's castle. It is pitch 
 dark. You need not be reminded of the scene that 
 closed the last act, and vowed the hand of Macbeth to the 
 dagger, at the thought of which it shook at setting out. 
 The flare of a torch approaches. It is Macbeth ! No, it 
 is Banquo! Banquo enters and speaks, and to the pur- 
 pose. But not only is it with an indefinite prophetic 
 feeling of the storm that is to come, that the mind of 
 Banquo is labouring; the effects of the one that has 
 
40 MACBETH. 
 
 passed are not yet subsided. His reflections not only refer 
 you to what has passed, but. are in keeping with all that 
 is to come, as the first bar of a dirge is in tone with those 
 that are to follow. The after-swell of storm will at times 
 hold on till you wonder and question whence it comes, "and 
 cannot guess, though it comes from the storm. So the 
 effect of something that agitates violently the spirits wUl 
 continue, till you note it without connecting it with the 
 cause that produced it. The impression which the inter- 
 view with the witches has produced upon Banquo may be 
 clearly inferred from his comment, when the fulfilment of 
 the second prophetic " All hail! " is announced to Rosse 
 and Angus. 
 
 " What ! Can the devil speak true ? " 
 
 Coupling with that impression his emotions at the prophe- 
 cies of the witches regarding himself, you cannot wonder 
 if his soul, agitated from its most secret depths, still 
 labours with the convulsion that has so disturbed it, 
 without his connecting the storm with the swell. There 
 is something of the sublime in the obscure, unaccountable 
 depression of spirits under which Banquo tells us he is 
 labouring. The flare of another torch. It is Macbeth ! 
 Yes. 
 
 " I think not of them." 
 
 This is precisely in time with the remarks which Macbeth 
 addressed to Banquo on the heath in order to divert his 
 
MACBETH. 41 
 
 mind from the suspicion that he, Macbeth, attached any 
 importance to the third prophetic salutation. But mark 
 what follows. Mark the inconsistency, the instability of 
 dissimulation : — 
 
 " Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, 
 Would spend it in some words upon that business, 
 If you would grant the time." 
 
 He has thought of them, and betrays it the very moment 
 after he has denied it. What is the meaning of this ? A 
 sudden thought of precaution that when the murder is 
 discovered — as of course it must be, this mention of a 
 consultation with reference to the third prophetic " All 
 hail,"— the promise of royal having — this hint of some 
 enterprise to be attempted with a view to the fulfilment 
 of that promise (for it is nothing else but a hint to that 
 effect) may help to keep him clear from suspicion on the 
 part of Banquo that he has had any hand in letting out 
 the blood that is destined to flow that very night. Ban- 
 quo's reply clearly estabhshes the fact : — 
 
 "So I keep- 
 My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear, 
 I shall be counselled." 
 
 It is a matter that may involve the question of honour 
 and loyalty. Banquo retires. Now for the deed ! Not 
 yet; there is an attendant to be dismissed. 
 
 G 
 
42 MA CBETH. 
 
 " Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready. 
 She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed." 
 
 He is gone. Here is situation ! The man wlio has made 
 up his mind to murder his sovereign, kinsman, and guest, 
 stands now alone in his castle-hall at midnight, when 
 every one else has retired to rest — every one, except the 
 spiriting accomplice who has arranged with him the signal 
 when all is ready, when every head save his and hers is 
 fast upon its pillow, and he is at liberty to set about 
 the deed. How do we feel ? Why we feel that were we 
 not aware of the dagger aerial that is about to invite the 
 hand of Macbeth, we should start as much as he does 
 when he sees it. 
 
 " Is this a dagger, which I see before me. 
 
 The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee : — 
 
 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
 
 Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
 
 To feeling, as to sight ? or art thou but 
 
 A dagger of the mind ; a false creation. 
 
 Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ? 
 
 I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
 
 As this which now I draw. 
 
 Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going ; 
 
 And such an instrument I was to use. 
 
 Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 
 
 Or else worth all the rest : I see thee still : 
 
 And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood, 
 
 Which was not so before. There's no such thing : 
 
 It is the bloody business, which informs 
 
 Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half world 
 
31 A CBETIL 43 
 
 Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
 
 The curtained sleeper; now witchcraft celebrates 
 
 Pale Hecate's offerings ; and withered murder, 
 
 Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, 
 
 A^Tiose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, 
 
 With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design 
 
 Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, 
 
 Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 
 
 Thy very stones prate of my where-about, 
 
 And take the present horror from the time. 
 
 Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives ; 
 
 Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. \_A hell rings. 
 
 I go, and it is done ; the bell invites me. 
 
 Hear it not, Duncan ; for it is a knell 
 
 That summons thee to heaven, or to hell." 
 
 I have long entertained the opinion that this dagger is 
 not, as Macbeth assumes it to be, simply 
 
 " A dagger of the mind 
 
 Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ; " 
 
 but on the contrary, an apparition coming and vanishing, 
 as the witches themselves do, and that consequently it 
 ought to be actually presented, as indeed it used to be. 
 In miy mind the whole thing is too circumstantial, bears 
 too much upon the action, to justify the common interpre- 
 tation which coincides with that of Macbeth. It is a 
 phantom raised by the witches to draw Macbeth on to his 
 conclusion. It is the supernatural coadjutor of Lady 
 Macbeth, dumbly but irresistibly persuading him to the 
 deed. He falters yet. Yes ! upon the very threshold of 
 
44 MACBETH. 
 
 guilt he is faltering. But the evil agency of which he is 
 the victim is at hand with the dagger, shows him the 
 instrument he was to use, presents it to him with its 
 handle towards him, inviting him to clutch it as he 
 attempts to do, marshals for him with it the way he was 
 to go ; nor withdraws it then, but while he is yet in 
 doubt whether it is substance or shadow that he looks 
 upon, ends the debate by exhibiting it to him stained with 
 gouts of blood — 
 
 " "Wliich was not so before." 
 
 Macbeth's interpretation of the vision is not to be taken as 
 the truth. It is not 
 
 " The bloody business which informs 
 Thus to his eyes." 
 
 He enters the fatal portal still preserving the identity of 
 his character, courting the very horror which his infirmity 
 aggravates. Scarcely has he crossed the threshold, when 
 Lady Macbeth stands in the hall. Here is situation 
 again. Macbeth about the murder ; Lady Macbeth on 
 the watch for the issue ! Let us see what Shakespeare 
 will make of this situation. 
 
 From what we have already seen of Lady Macbeth, 
 we can hardly wonder at anything she performs, in the 
 way of daring and guilty achievement ; yet the question 
 
MACBETH. 45 
 
 may be asked us, "Is it ^vithin the scope of human 
 capabihty that, woman as she is, she should present 
 herself at all; far less to toAver over her husband as she 
 does, at such a crisis as this ? Shakespeare is always pre- 
 pared for such cases. Possibihty is not enough for him. 
 The thing must be probable also. He knows that in all 
 natural incidents, there are bounds to credibiKty, and 
 that when credibility stops, interest refuses to go on. 
 Say that Lady Macbeth has no business in this scene? — 
 the moment she enters she makes her ample, consistent 
 apology— 
 
 " That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold ; 
 What hath quenched them, hath given me fire." 
 
 Howsoever coolly we plan a desperate thing, the execution 
 tries us — ay, though our nerves be iron! She feels this 
 when the hour of action is at hand, and she fortifies herself 
 by the means whereby she disguises the drugs that chain 
 the grooms of the King to their couches ; and whatsoever 
 obscure promptings she may experience of mistrust or fear, 
 she easily and thoroughly drowns — for what? That she 
 may go and see if all is prepared for the deed — if the King 
 sleeps — if the drugs have taken effect upon the grooms — 
 if it is safe to steal the daggers from their sheaths and lay 
 them ready. Don't wonder at her coming into the hall. 
 She has already been in the chamber that is about to flow 
 with blood. She hears a shriek, — 
 
46 MACBETH. 
 
 " Hark ! Peace ! 
 It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman 
 That gives the stern'st good-night. — He is about it. 
 The doors are open ; and the surfeited grooms 
 Do mock their charge with snores : I have drugged their possets, 
 That death and nature do contend about them. 
 Whether they live, or die. 
 
 Maeh. Who's there ? What, ho ! 
 
 Lady Mach. Alack ! I am afraid, they have awaked. 
 And 'tis not done : — the attempt, and not the deed, 
 Confounds us. Hark ! — I laid their daggers ready : 
 He could not miss them. — Had he not resembled 
 My father as he slept, I had done it." 
 
 She has been at the bedside of the King with the 
 daggers of the grooms, and she would then and there 
 have anticipated Macbeth, and done the deed herself, had 
 not the King's resemblance to her father arrested her. 
 ^ Some critics are fond of giving Lady Macbeth a great deal 
 of credit for this incident; but what is the real nature of 
 her compunction? What does the filial principle induce 
 her to abstain from? A gratuitous act of murder, an 
 act which she knows her husband is certain to perform 
 ere the flight of a quarter of an hour. How she must 
 thirst for the blood of the King ! Where had been the 
 dagger had she entertained a doubt about the matter ? 
 In the King's heart, as sure as she held it in her hand. 
 For my part, what would shake me more would be, 
 not that she abstained from the murder, but that under 
 the existing circumstances she ever thought of per- 
 
 ■~o-aj 
 
MACBETH. 47 
 
 petrating it herself. You may depend upon it that 
 Shakespeare never introduced this incident with the view 
 of mitigating our abhorrence of his heroine. A great 
 stress is sometimes laid upon the passage, — 
 
 " I have given suck ; and know 
 How tender 'tis to love the habe that milks me," 
 
 as presenting a redeeming trait in Lady Macbeth's 
 character. But we have only her own assertion ; and 
 granting it to be true, what value do we attach to Lady 
 Macbeth's notion of tenderness ? Is it the tenderness of 
 which a humane and gentle and truly feminine mother is 
 susceptible? May we not assume, too, that she colours 
 the circumstance with the view of shaming her husband 
 into guilty resolution, by telhng him how in defiance of na- 
 ture's most holy law, she would have cleaved to her oath ? 
 She would have dashed out her infant's brains had she so 
 sworn to it as Macbeth had sworn to murder Duncan! 
 And yet. she knows how tender 'tis to love the babe that 
 milks her. I think we may infer, from the nature of her 
 boast, the tenderness of her maternal feelings. I form 
 my idea of Lady Macbeth's character, not from what she 
 says, but from what she does. 
 
 Macbeth enters. 5he exclaims immediately upon 
 seeing him, " My husband ! " This is very fine. This is 
 
48 MACBETH. 
 
 truth of feeling on the part of Shakespeare — subtle per- 
 ception of the workings of the heart. She quails for 
 a moment, she fears Macbeth has miscarried in the 
 attempt which perhaps he had never made except for 
 her. We have never heard her call him anything be- 
 fore but Glamis, Cawdor, Thane. What is the term 
 which the thought of utter ruin now suggests to her? 
 That which is a pledge for protection and cleaving — 
 "My husband!" 
 
 " Mach. I have done the deed." 
 
 All's right, and she is herself again, collected, firm. The 
 dialogue here is epigrammatic and almost monosyllabic; 
 but every word teems with import. 
 
 " Didst thou not hear a noise ? 
 Lady Mach. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry ; 
 Did not you speak ? 
 
 Macb. When ? 
 
 Lady Macb. 'Now ! 
 
 Macb. As I descended ? 
 
 Lady Math. Ay ! 
 
 Macb. Hark!" 
 
 Here is situation. Who breathes? It is a false alarm. 
 Some actors, to make manifest to the audience the 
 horror and terror of Macbeth during this critical pause, 
 bring their hands together so as to cause the blades to 
 vibrate audibly against one another. Here is the danger 
 of studying partial effects. This was forestalling Shake- 
 
MACBETH. 49 
 
 speare. This was attracting Lady Macbeth's attention to 
 the daggers before the time. Would she not have heard 
 them? As sure as she was Lady Macbeth. Macbeth re- 
 covering from his momentary alarm, continues : — 
 
 " Who lies in the second chamber ? 
 
 Lady Mach. Donalbain. 
 
 Macb. This is a sorry sight ! 
 
 Lady Macb. A foolish thought to say a sorry sight. 
 
 Mach. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried ' Murder ! ' 
 That they did wake each other ; I stood and heard them : 
 But they did say their prayers, and addressed them 
 Again to sleep. 
 
 Lady Macb. There are two lodged together. 
 
 Macb. One cried ' God bless us ! ' and, ' Amen,' the other ; 
 As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. 
 Listening their fear, I could not say, ' Amen,' 
 T^Tien they did say, ' God bless us ! ' 
 
 Lady Macb. Consider it not so deeply — 
 
 Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce * Amen ? ' 
 I had most need of blessing, and ' Amen ' 
 Stuck in my throat." 
 
 This is the shock of guilt. This is the collapse of the 
 soul. The moment crime is perpetrated, the mind is 
 shaken in its propriety, and the tongue utters what is 
 uppermost without regard to relevancy or reason. 
 
 " Lady Math. These deeds must not be thought 
 
 After these ways ; so, it will make us mad." 
 
 Here on her part begins the gnawing of the mental cancer 
 that in the fourth act heaves her, sleeping, from her 
 
 H 
 
50 MACBETH. 
 
 pillow to walk the chamber in a dream. Here she half 
 suspects the impossibihty of silencing the importunate 
 remembrancer — conscience. 
 
 " Mad). Methought, I heard a voice cry, ' Sleep no more ! 
 Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep ; 
 Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, 
 The deatli of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast.' " 
 
 This rushing crowd of figures is all truth. Passion is the 
 mistress of imagination, and ever, when highly excited, 
 brings imagination into play. He now fully appreciates 
 the murder which he has committed upon his own peace, 
 while its consequences rise up hke so many phantoms, and 
 rapidly arrange themselves before him. The sleep, the 
 rich blessing of which perhaps he had never thought of 
 before, now looking back upon him as it bids him an 
 eternal farewell, points, as it were, to all the modes in 
 which it ministers to the refreshment, the solace, the be- 
 guilement, the comfort, the enjoyment of those to whom 
 its heavenly visitations are permitted. 
 
 " Lady Mach. What do you mean?" 
 
 He continues: — 
 
 " Still it cried, ' Sleep no more ! ' to all the house." 
 
 How loud is the cry of conscience in the guilty ! 
 
MACBETH. 51 
 
 " Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
 Shall sleep no more : Macheth shall sleep no more !" 
 
 Here is a Mnt to conscience. Examine the effect which 
 this scene produces upon yourselves, and from your own 
 impression calculate how its effect may tell upon the 
 mind that feels a temptation to break within " the bloody 
 house of life ; " and then debate whether there is utter 
 rashness in asserting that this scene has been instrumental 
 in preventing the commission of murder. And if it has 
 not, it is hard to conceive how any homily or sermon has 
 ever been attended with that result. And if you demand 
 a corroborative argument in support of that assertion, I 
 give you what I conceive to be next to the absolute 
 establishment of the fact, the most conclusive one — in the 
 dead stillness of a whole theatre of Hving human beings 
 converted for the time into statues by the petrifying 
 horror of this scene ! 
 
 " Lady Macb. Who was it that thus cried ? "Why, worthy Thane, 
 You do unbend your noble strength, to think 
 So brainsickly of things : — Go, get some water. 
 And wash this filthy witness from your hand." 
 
 And now for the first time she sees the daggers. 
 
 " Why did you bring these daggers from the place ? " 
 
 Here Macbeth's inaptness for the deed betrays itself 
 again. In the preceding scene he himself had suggested, 
 that to throw suspicion upon the grooms, their daggers 
 
52 MA CBETH. 
 
 should be used. In his confusion he forgets his own act 
 of forethought. He has brought the daggers away. He 
 is unconscious that he still retains them. He looks at his 
 hands, but he sees nothing except the blood. The stain 
 of his soul is everjrsvhere within him and without him 
 and all around him. He is incapable of being cognizant 
 of anything else ! 
 
 " Why did you bring these daggers from the place ? 
 They must lie there. Go carry them ; and smear 
 The sleepy grooms with blood." 
 
 The commands of her of whose reproaches, scoffs, and 
 threats he has hitherto been the slave, are yirtueless here. 
 No ! the whole world could not tempt him or compel him 
 to go back. 
 
 " Mach. I'U go no more : 
 
 I am afraid to think what I have done ; 
 Look on't again, I dare not." 
 
 Hear Lady Macbeth. Hear the woman that knows how 
 tender 'tis to love the babe that milks her; that is dis- 
 suaded from murdering with her own hand the sleeping 
 King by the remembrance of Tier father : — 
 
 " Lady Mach. Infirm of purpose ! 
 
 Give me the daggers. The sleeping, and the dead, ^ 
 Are but as pictures." 
 
 That is, they have as much perception. 
 
MACBETH. 53 
 
 " 'Tis the eye of childhood, 
 That fears a painted devil. If he do hleed, 
 I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal, 
 For it must seem their guilt." 
 
 It is singular that even Mrs. Siddons should have missed 
 the true import of these lines, which are quite superfluous 
 and impertinent except as a taunt at Macbeth, reminding 
 him of his own arrangement, and the imbecility that 
 prevents him from carrying it into execution. 
 
 " WDl it not he received, 
 When we have marked with hlood those sleepy two 
 Of his own chamher, and used their very daggers. 
 That they have done 't ? " 
 
 She enters the chamber and Macbeth is left horribly 
 alone, aU sense and consciousness swallowed up in the 
 perdition of the deed which he has committed. He stands 
 chained to the spot by guUt ; and the audience sit chained 
 as fast to their seats. What shall astound him now as 
 not the loudest clap of thunder could? A knock at the 
 castle-gate. The thought of a single human eye has now 
 more terror in it than the glaring of a thousand lightnings. 
 "What does he think of now ? The blood upon his hands. 
 
 '•' Much. Whence is that knocking ? 
 
 How is't with me, when every noise appals me ? 
 What hands are here ! Ha ! they pluck out mine eyes ! 
 Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
 
54 MACBETH. 
 
 Clean from my hand ? No ; this my hand will rather 
 The multitudinous seas incarnardine. 
 Making the greeu — one red ! " 
 
 Here Lady Macbeth enters, fortunately for herself and 
 her husband. He is now incapable of thought, volition, 
 or action. He could not stir though the roof were falling 
 upon him, — or worse, — though the gate Avere opening, 
 and the visitors just about to enter. 
 
 " Lady Macb. My hands are of your colour ; hut I shame 
 To wear a heart so white." 
 
 The knocking is repeated : — 
 
 " I hear a knocking 
 At the south entry : — retire we to our chamher : 
 A little water clears us of this deed : 
 How easy is it then ! Your constancy 
 
 Hath left you unattended. — [^Knoching again.'] Hark ! more knocking : 
 Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us, 
 And show us to he watchers : — be not lost 
 So poorly in your thoughts." 
 
 She reasons with him, she counsels him, she reproves him, 
 she grasps him by the arm and shakes him. She looks 
 for consciousness in a block of marble. As the knocking 
 is more and more repeated, she grows more and more 
 desperate, and at last endeavours by main force to drag 
 him from the precipice on the brink of which he stands, 
 fascinated by the very danger which threatens him with 
 toppling over. The last violent appeal is successful. 
 
MACBETH. 55 
 
 '•■ Macb. To know my deed, — 'twere best not know myself." 
 
 [Knoclcing again.^ 
 
 What does he in his now desperation? He calls frantic- 
 ally to the unwelcome, untimely summons — 
 
 " "Wake, Duncan, with thy knocking ! Ay, would, thou couldst ! " 
 
 Here the porter enters, and to gain time there is given a 
 soliloquy which is noAV judiciously omitted, and for the 
 nature of portions of which we must blame Shakespeare's 
 times and not him ; though it is perfectly consistent with 
 the temperament of a low fellow, who, participating in 
 the general festivity in honour of the royal visit, has been 
 carousing till the second cock, and is summoned from his 
 bed half rested and recruited. The gate is opened, and 
 Macduff and Lenox enter. 
 
 " Goes the King hence to-day ? " 
 
 -The actor who betrays to the audience in any portion of 
 this scene the slightest evidence of desperation or forget- 
 fulness on the part of Macbeth, errs most egregiously 
 from true judgment. The audience require no hint as 
 to what is passing in Macbeth's bosom, nor is there a 
 moment's opportunity for by-play, as it is caUed, to ren- 
 der the thing feasible. He is kept in close conversation 
 from first to last. If he is on his guard with respect 
 
56 MACBETH. 
 
 to one of the visitors, be sure he is equally so with 
 respect to both. How absurd is it, then, for an actor to 
 require that this question shall be repeated, as if, ab- 
 sorbed in his expectation of what is coming, Macbeth did 
 not hear it in the first instance. Macbeth's mind being 
 once aroused to the necessity of playing his part, the 
 imminency of his danger keeps it broad awake. He 
 would as soon betray himself to Lenox by standing 
 gasping after Macduff, as he would betray himself to 
 Macduff by being abstracted when the Thane inquires 
 if the King is stirring yet? When the discovery of the 
 murder came, would not Lenox recollect the statue he 
 had spoken to, and guess the cause which had turned 
 Macbeth for the time into a stone? The frame of mind 
 in which we now find Macbeth would rather induce him 
 to overdo than to fall short. Here is again the mischief 
 of studying partial effects. Howsoever calm Macbeth 
 may appear without, the storm shall not only be kept up 
 within, but with aggravated strife. Here again is situa- 
 tion, and powerful situation too. Macbeth obliged to 
 listen, while Lenox recounts the horrors of the night; he 
 himself all the while expecting every moment to hear the 
 voice and footsteps of Macduff, as the Thane rushes, 
 which he is sure to do, in amazement and trepidation and 
 horror, fi-om the chamber of blood. He comes. 
 
 " Macd. O, horror ! horror ! horror ! Tongue, nor heart. 
 Cannot conceive, nor name thee ! 
 
MACBETH. 57 
 
 Mack. 
 
 r [ What's the matter? 
 
 Len. 
 
 } . 
 
 Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece ! 
 Most saorilegious murder hath broke ope 
 The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence 
 The life o' the building. 
 
 Macb. What is't you say ? the life ? 
 
 Len. Mean you his majesty ? 
 
 Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight 
 With a new Gorgon : — Do not bid me speak ; 
 See, and then speak yourselves. [Exeunt Macbeth and Lenox. 
 
 Awake ! awake ! 
 Ring the alarum bell : — Murder ! and treason ! 
 Banquo, and Donalbain ! Malcolm ! awake ! 
 Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit ; 
 And look on death itself! up, up and see 
 The great doom's image ! — Malcolm ! Banquo ! 
 As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights, 
 To countenance this horror ! [Bell rings. 
 
 And now let us inquire how tlie presence of Lady Mac- 
 beth, can be dispensed with at this juncture. Would she 
 take a share in every other scene of the tragic enterprise, 
 and absent herself from this last and most critical one? 
 She who in a former scene, when Macbeth asks her — 
 
 " WiU it not be received. 
 When we have marked with blood those sleepy two 
 Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers. 
 That they have done 't ? " 
 
 She who when thus interrogated rephes — 
 
 " Who dares receive it other. 
 As we shall make our grief and clamour roar 
 Upon his death ? " 
 
 I 
 
58 MACBETH. 
 
 would she not put into practice what she herself had pre- 
 concerted? Is the scene complete without her? Is it fit 
 that the master spirit should be away when its agency is 
 most needed? Is Lady Macbeth aware of the unstable 
 nature of her husband ? Has she proved and combated it 
 in every deal of the game, and now that the final, deciding 
 hand is to be played, and the game lost or won, wiU she 
 not be by with the stimulus and support of her presence 
 to keep his constancy at the sticking-place to which she 
 has again screwed it; when well she knows, from repeated 
 experience, that her presence will supply the place of 
 manhood in him, should he falter, or waver, or harbour a 
 thought of quailing? Will she absent herself when she is 
 most wanted? When the result of her absence may be 
 utter, irretrievable, disgraceful, and damning ruin? Does 
 she recollect the state in which she has just dragged 
 Macbeth from the hall, from the imminent danger of de- 
 tection, into the privity, secrecy, and security of his 
 chamber; and does she desert him there? As the mistress 
 of the castle, why should she keep her room when the 
 alarm bell is tempestuously swinging, while her stairs and 
 corridors are thronged with the rush of feet in amazeful 
 haste, and reverberate with the outcry of wailing and 
 consternation? Would it not be suspicious that, while 
 the whole castle is afoot, the mistress of it should remain 
 sitting? There is every reason for Lady Macbeth's co- 
 operation in this scene, and not one for her absence, 
 
MA CBETH. 59 
 
 except the reason of the actress who personates Lady 
 Macbeth, that it is not worth while to come on for three 
 or four times for the mere sake of probabihty and pro- 
 priety; or the reason of an actor or stage-manager who 
 thinks that it is best "to come to Hecuba," though he 
 should overturn common-sense and nature in his speed. 
 Our stage has been injured, and the taste of our audiences 
 vitiated by the studying of mere effect. Shakespeare 
 perfectly well knew where Lady Macbeth or any other 
 woman would be found at such a juncture. Not in her 
 bed-chamber, or in her dressing-chamber, or in her sitting- 
 chamber, but in her hall, in the very midst of the hurly- 
 burly. And there he has placed her, to suffer the rebuke 
 of the actor, to be told most ignorantly that she has no 
 business there, and to be sent to her chamber again, where 
 if even on account of her mere anxiety as to the issue, 
 she could not have remained ; though the door had been 
 locked upon her, she would have broken it open, and 
 rushed forth and played her part in the universal din. 
 
 " Enter Lady Macbeth. 
 
 What's the business, 
 That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 
 The sleepers of the house ! speak, speak. — 
 
 Macd. O, gentle lady, 
 
 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak : 
 The repetition, in a woman's ear 
 Would murder as it fell. 
 
 Enter Banquo. 
 
 O Banquo, Bauquo, 
 
60 MACBETH. 
 
 Our royal master's murdered ! 
 
 Lady Mad. Woe, alas ! 
 
 What, in our house ? 
 
 Ban. Too cruel, anywhere — 
 
 Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself. 
 And say, it is not so. 
 
 Be-enter Macbeth and Lenox. 
 
 Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance 
 I had lived a blessed time ; for, from this instant. 
 There's nothing serious in mortality : 
 All is but toys : renown, and grace, is dead ; 
 The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 
 Is left this vault to brag of. 
 
 Enter Malcolm and Donalbain. 
 
 Don. What is amiss ? 
 
 Macb. You are, and do not know it : 
 
 The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood 
 Is stopped : the very source of it is stopped. 
 
 Macd. Your royal father's murdered. 
 
 Mai. O, by whom ? 
 
 Len. Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done 't. 
 Their hands and faces were all badged with blood, 
 So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found 
 Upon their pillows : 
 
 They stared, and were distracted : no man's life 
 Was to be trusted with them. 
 
 Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury. 
 That I did kill them. 
 
 Macd. Wherefore did you so ? " 
 
 Here is the danger. Here is the point of salvation or 
 ruin. Here is the chance — the scaffold or the throne! 
 Here occurs the strongest reason for the presence of 
 Lady Macbeth. Macduff makes no attempt to conceal 
 that he attaches suspicion to the fact of Macbeth's having 
 
MACBETH. 61 
 
 slain the grooms. Macbeth must extricate himself here 
 thoroughly and at once by vindicating what appears ques- 
 tionable. It is brink-work here for both the husband and 
 the wife. Take the latter away, the situation is deprived 
 of half its impressiveness. And who doubts that he is 
 not only heartened, but inspired by her presence? He 
 gasps while he repHes : — 
 
 " Who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and furious, 
 Xioyal, and neutral, in a moment ? No man : 
 The expedition of my violent love 
 Outran the pauser, reason. — Here lay Duncan, 
 His silver skin laced with his golden blood ; 
 And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature, 
 For ruin's wasteful entrance : there, the murderers, 
 Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
 Unmannerly breeched with gore : who could refrain 
 That had a heart to love, and in that heart 
 Courage, to make his love known ? " 
 
 The danger is warded off for the time. By this last 
 act of boldness and self-collectedness, he atones for all 
 past remissness and weakness and vacillation. Her spirit 
 is reassured. Her presence is now no longer necessary. 
 She affects natural exhaustion, in which she is in no small 
 degree aided by that sudden revulsion of the spirits which 
 attends the transition from the extreme of danger to escape 
 and comparative security, and she cries to be assisted out. 
 After another short scene descriptive of the effect of 
 Duncan's murder on the visitors at Macbeth's castle, the 
 act terminates. 
 
62 MACBETH. 
 
 And now that we have gone over this act, and dealt 
 and expatiated upon every important portion of it, allow 
 me to ask if there is instruction in it or not, if it is a 
 lesson or idleness, if the effect is serviceable or in- 
 jurious? In one word, does it denounce or recommend 
 the perpetration of crime ? I shall not wrong your judg- 
 ment by supposing that there can be any other answer 
 but this one : it is a luminous exposition of the revolting, 
 hideous nature of guilt, and of the agony and degradation 
 which it entails. Contemplate Macbeth in this act, and 
 recall the image of the man who in the third scene of the 
 first act presented himself to you, flushed with the honest 
 pride of victory achieved in a virtuous cause. What is 
 he now? A livid, nerveless, quaking coward, whose eyes 
 are plucked out, as it were, by the sight of that with 
 which the havoc of a hundred fields has made them 
 familiar and perfectly at home. Or contemplate Lady 
 Macbeth, playing the hypocrite, palming off the after lie, 
 in her simulated ignorance of the cause of the universal, 
 hideous uproar; her well-acted horror at the announce- 
 ment of that cause, and the assumed exhaustion which 
 bears her triumphant from the scene, the moment she has 
 played her part ; and contrast with her here, the woman 
 whose towering spirit, though displaying itself in a repre- 
 hensible cause, shortly before excited your astonishment 
 — almost your admiration. 
 
PART THE THIRD. 
 
 '0 man, except a scholar well versed in tlie 
 drama, should ever be allowed to assume 
 the acting management of a theatre. The 
 individual who undertakes such a charge 
 should be especially a man of mind. How powerfully 
 was this exemplified in the instance of the late John 
 Philip Kemble. What a reformation did he effect in the 
 stage. Before his time, the scenic picture was composed 
 of parts incongruous. Tailors and mantua-makers seem 
 to have been regarded as a race unknown to antiquity. 
 Rome in the days of Caesar, as represented on the stage, 
 stared upon the costume of London, perambulating her 
 classic streets, in all the cumbersome, ungainly formahty 
 of attire which prevailed in the reign of the first Georges. 
 The disappearance of this barbarous anomaly was the 
 result of entrusting the acting management to the hands 
 of Mr, Kemble. This recalls to me a conversation which 
 
64 MACBETH. 
 
 I once had with Mr. Macreaxiy, in the course of which 
 we discussed the manner of representing the witches 
 in the play of "Macbeth." I was particularly struck 
 with an alteration which he suggested, with reference 
 to the business of the incantation scene, and which I 
 thought reflected the highest credit upon his taste and 
 acuteness as a critic, an alteration which he has now 
 effected, and in proposing which he was perfectly borne 
 out by the action and the text. 
 
 The effect of any momentous occurrence depends on 
 many things besides its own intrinsic importance. The 
 preparation for any spectacle, whether the triumphant 
 entry of a conqueror or the ignominious exit of a crimi- 
 nal, tells upon our interest almost as powerfully as the 
 spectacle itself. In the ordinary way of managing the 
 opening of this scene, the idea that the witches expect He- 
 cate, that they wait her approach with the feverish rest- 
 lessness of mahgn spirits, keen in the prosecution of their 
 forbidden work, is never conveyed to the audience. Upon 
 the rising of the curtain the witches are discovered, 
 standing round the cauldron, and the dialogue begins 
 without any preparatory business, which, by making the 
 reference of the introductory lines clear and striking, 
 would communicate to them all the effect which they are 
 capable of receiving. Imagine the dark and dreary 
 cavern; the work, to the consummating of which it is 
 appropriated; the unearthly and accursed beings who 
 
MACBETH. 65 
 
 superintend that work. What a picture should it suggest ! 
 Let the witches be placed in diflferent parts of the cavern. 
 Suppose one at the mouth, intently on the watch; another 
 near the cauldron, cowering over the Hvid flame, — which 
 by the way should be placed under the charmed pot and 
 not in it; the third witch on the side opposite the en- 
 trance, seated perhaps upon a fragment of stone, her arms 
 folded, and rocking to and fro, upon the rack as it were 
 of impatience. Let not a word be spoken, till the audience 
 have had time to study the picture. 'Tis to the point, 
 and they are sure to feel it, if you will allow them. The 
 brinded cat, the hedge- pig, and Harper, are of course the 
 familiars of the witches, and are supposed to be stationed 
 without the cavern to give notice of the approach of He- 
 cate. The first witch hears her familiar : — 
 
 " Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed." 
 
 The eyes of the other witches are instantly turned towards 
 her : a pause ensues during which they all remain motion- 
 less. The witch near the cauldron hears her famiUar; 
 she starts from her cowering attitude : — 
 
 " Thrice ; and once the hedge-pig whined." 
 
 Another pause here. Now at length the third witch 
 springs upon her feet :-^" Harper cries;" and then ad- 
 dressing her sisters, and not putting words into Harper's 
 
 K 
 
66 MA CBETH. 
 
 mouth, which Shakespeare never intended for him: — 
 " 'Tis time, 'tis time." 
 
 Since I have directed your attention to this scene, I 
 shall venture, if you will allow me, to present you with a 
 reading of it by Edmund Kean, whose views as to the 
 personation of the mtches exactly correspond with those 
 of Macready. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene I. — A cavei-n. In the middle a boiling catddron. 
 Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 
 
 " 1st Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed. 
 
 2nd Witch. Thrice ; and once the hedge-pig whined. 
 
 3rd Witch. Harper cries. 'Tis time, 'tis time. 
 
 1st Witch. Round about the cauldron go ; 
 In the poisoned entrails throw. — 
 Toad, that under coldest stone 
 Days and nights hath thirty-one 
 Sweltered venom, sleeping got, 
 Boil thou first in the charmed pot ! 
 
 All. Double, double toil and trouble ; 
 Fire, burn ; and, cauldron, bubble. 
 
 2nd Witch, Fillet of a fenny snake. 
 In the cauldron boil and bake ; 
 Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
 Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 
 Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 
 Lizard's leg and owlet's wing. 
 For a charm of powerful trouble, 
 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
 
 All. Double, double toil and trouble ; 
 Fire, burn ; and, cauldron, bubble. 
 
 3rd Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf. 
 Witch's mummy ; maw and gulf 
 
MACBETH. 67 
 
 Of the raviiied salt-sea sliark ; 
 Eoot of hemlock, digged i' the dark ; 
 Liver of blaspheming Jew ; 
 Gall of goat ; and slips of yew, 
 Slivered in the moon's eclipse ; 
 Nose of Tm-k, and Tartar's lips ; 
 Finger of birth-strangled babe. 
 Ditch-delivered by a drab ; 
 Make the gruel thick and slab : 
 Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, 
 For th'e ingredients of our cauldron. 
 
 All. Double, double toU and trouble ; 
 Fire, burn ; and, cauldron, bubble. 
 
 2nd Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood ; 
 Then the charm is firm and good. 
 
 Enter Hecate and the other three Witcries. 
 
 Hec. O, well done ! I commend your pains ; 
 And every one shall share i' the gains : 
 And now about the cauldron sing. 
 Like elves and fairies in a ring. 
 Enchanting all that you put in. 
 
 [Music and a song, " Blacic Spirits," £(c. Hecate retires. 
 
 2nd Witch. By the pricking of my thumbs. 
 Something wicked this way comes. — • 
 Open, locks, 
 "Whoever knocks ! 
 
 Enter Macbeth. 
 
 Macb. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags ! 
 What is't you do ? 
 
 All. A deed without a name. 
 
 Mach. I conjure you, by that which you profess, 
 Howe'er you come to know it, answer me : 
 Though you untie the vrinds and let them fight 
 Against the churches ; though the yesty waves 
 Confound and swallow navigation up ; 
 Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down ; 
 
68 MACBETH. 
 
 Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 
 
 Though palaces and pyramids do slope 
 
 Their heads to their foundations ; though the treasure 
 
 Of nature's germins tumble all together. 
 
 Even till destruction sicken; answer me 
 
 To what I ask you. 
 
 1st Witch. Speak. 
 
 2nd Witch. Demand. 
 
 3rcZ Witch. We'll answer. 
 
 \st Witch. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths, 
 Or from our masters' ? 
 
 Mach. Call 'em ; let me see 'em. 
 
 \st Witch. Pour in sow's hlood, that hath eaten 
 Her nine farrow ; grease that's sweaten 
 From the murderer's gibbet, throw 
 Into the flame. 
 
 All. Come, high, or low ; 
 
 Thyself and office deftly show ! 
 
 Thunder First Apparition : an armed Head arises. 
 
 Mach. Tell me, thou unknown power, — 
 
 1st Witch. He knows thy thought : 
 
 Hear his speech, but say thou nought. 
 
 1st App. Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Beware Macduff ! 
 Beware the thane of Fife. — Dismiss me. — Enough. [^Descends. 
 
 Mach. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks. 
 Thou hast harped my fear aright ; but one word more : — 
 
 1st Witch. He will not be commanded : here's another, 
 More potent than the first. 
 
 Thunder. Second Apparition : a hloody Child. 
 
 2nd App. Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! 
 
 Maei. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee. 
 
 2nd App. Be bloody, bold, and resolute ; laugh to scorn 
 The power of man ; for none of woman born 
 Shall harm Macbeth. [Descends. 
 
 Mach. Then live Macduff: what need I fear of thee ? 
 But yet I'll make assurance doubly sure. 
 
MA CBETH. 69 
 
 And take a bond of fate : thou shalt not live : 
 That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, 
 And sleep in spite of thunder. 
 
 Thunder. Third Apparition : a Child crowned, with a tree in his liand. 
 
 What is this 
 That rises like the issue of a king, 
 And wears upon his bahj brow the round 
 And top of sovereignty ? 
 
 All. Listen, but speak not to 't. 
 
 Qrd App. Be lion-mettled, proud ; and take no care 
 "Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are ; 
 Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until 
 Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 
 Shall come against him. [Descends. 
 
 Maeb. That will never be : 
 
 Who can impress the forest, bid the tree 
 Unfix his earth-bound root ? Sweet bodements, good ! 
 Eebellious head, rise never, till the wood 
 Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth 
 Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath 
 To time and mortal custom. — Yet my heart 
 Throbs to know one thing : tell me, if your art 
 Can teU so much, shall Banquo's issue ever 
 Reign in this kingdom ? 
 
 All. Seek to know no more. 
 
 Mach. I will be satisfied : deny me this 
 And an eternal curse fall on you ! Let me know : — 
 Why sinks that cauldron ? and what noise is this ? [Hautboys. 
 
 1st Witch. Show! 
 
 2nd Witch. Show ! 
 
 3rd Witch. Show! 
 
 All. Show his eyes, and gi-ieve his heart ; 
 Come like shadows, so depart ! 
 
 [A show of eight Icings, the last with a glass in his hand ; 
 Banquo's ghost following. 
 
 Mach. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo : down ! 
 Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls. And thy hair, 
 
70 MA CBETH. 
 
 Thou other gold-hound brow, is like the first : — 
 
 A third is like the former. — Filthy hags ! 
 
 Why do you show me this ? — A fourth ? start, eyes ! 
 
 What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ? 
 
 Another yet ? — a seventh ! I'll see no more : — 
 
 And yet the eighth appears, who hears a glass. 
 
 Which shows me many more ; and some I see, 
 
 That two-fold halls and treble sceptres carry. 
 
 Horrible sight ! — Now, I see, 'tis true ; 
 
 For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me, 
 
 And points at them for his. — [Apparitioiis vanish. 
 
 What, is this so ? 
 
 1st Witch. Ay, sir, all this is so : — but why 
 Stands Macbeth thus amazedly ? 
 Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprights, 
 And show the best of our delights : 
 I'll charm the air to give a sound, 
 Wliile you perform your antique round ; 
 That this great king may kindly say, 
 Our duties did his welcome pay. 
 
 \Music. The Witches dance, and then vanish with Hecate. 
 
 Macb. Where are they ? Gone ? — Let this pernicious hour 
 Stand aye accursed in the calendar. — 
 Come in, without there ! 
 
 Enter Lenox. 
 
 Len. What's your grace's will ? 
 
 Ma<A, Saw you the weird sisters ? 
 
 Len. No, my lord. 
 
 Mach. Came they not by you? 
 
 Len. No indeed, my lord. 
 
 Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride ; 
 And damned all those that trust them ! I did hear 
 The galloping of horse : who was't came by ? 
 
 Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word 
 Macduff is fled to England. 
 
 Mach. Fled to England ! 
 
 Len. Ay, my good lord. 
 
MACBETH. 7L 
 
 Mach. Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits : 
 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook 
 Unless the deed go with it ; from this moment, 
 The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
 The firstlings of my hand. And even now 
 To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done : 
 The castle of Macduff I will surprise ; 
 Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword 
 His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls 
 That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool, 
 This deed I'll do before this purpose cool. 
 
PART THE FOURTH. 
 
 'OW consummate is the skill whicli Shake- 
 ^pjl^ y/> speare displays in keeping up the interest of 
 ^^ K\W/J ^ " Macbeth," from the banquet scene to the 
 catastrophe. Duncan is despatched. Ban- 
 quo is despatched. The sons of the King and. Macduff 
 are fled, to England. No one is left that we care much 
 about who may become the victim to another deed of 
 blood, and whose jeopardy preserves the tension of that 
 horror which has been hitherto kept upon the strain. 
 The manner in which the usurper is to end his career, is 
 the only incident about which we are now solicitous ; yet 
 two whole acts remain to be gone through. Upon that 
 incident alone did Shakespeare construct the last two acts 
 of his tragedy. He proposes it in the very first scene of 
 the fourth act, and keeps it constantly in view till the 
 termination of the last scene of the fifth, without ever 
 
MACBETH. 73 
 
 wearying the patience of the audience in allowing theii- 
 expectation to flag. He involves it in constant doubt and 
 perplexity. Macbeth is threatened with his doom — he is 
 assured against it. It approaches him — he defies it. One 
 ground of confidence having vanished, he clings to the 
 other; that also fails him. He has nothing but his 
 despair to confide in ; he trusts in it and falls ! 
 
 At the close of the third act, he avows his determina- 
 tion to consult the weird sisters as to his destiny: — 
 
 " I will to-morrow, 
 
 (Betimes I will), to the weird sisters: 
 
 More shall they speak ; for now I am bent to know. 
 
 By the worst means, the worst." 
 
 In prosecution of this intention, he presents himself in the 
 
 Pit of Acheron. One apparition darkly announces his 
 
 fate : — 
 
 " Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! 
 Beware Macduff ! 
 Beware the Thane of Fife." 
 
 Another partly dispels the fear which this warning had 
 confirmed : — 
 
 " Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! 
 Be bloody, bold, and resolute ! Laugh to scorn 
 The power of man, for none of woman born 
 Shall harm Macbeth." 
 
 The third puts the seal as it were to the assurance : — 
 
74 MA CBETH. 
 
 " Be lion-mettled, proud ; and take no care 
 Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are : 
 Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until 
 Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 
 Shall come against him." 
 
 The first of these announcements has its effect in de- 
 noting the cause of the action. It prompts Macbeth to an 
 act which whets, as it were, the weapon by which he is 
 destined to fall. He resolves on the death of Macduff, 
 finds that he has fled to England, and in the fury of dis- 
 appointment puts his whole famUy to the sword. It also 
 enhances, in the peculiar argument for revenge with which 
 it supplies Macduff, the fury of the storm which is about 
 to burst upon the Usurper's head and blast him. His 
 Thanes desert him. He is regardless of it : — 
 
 " Bring me no more reports ; let them flj all ; 
 
 Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, 
 
 I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm ? 
 
 Was he not bom of woman ? The spirits that know 
 
 All mortal consequence, have pronounced me thus : 
 
 ' Fear not, Macbeth ; no man, that's born of woman, 
 
 Shall e'er have power on thee ! ' Then fly, false thanes. 
 
 And mingle with the English epicures : 
 
 The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear. 
 
 Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear." 
 
 He hears of the approach of the English. It never appals 
 
 him: — 
 
 " I'll fight till from my bones the flesh be hack'd." 
 
 And again : — 
 
MACBETH. 75 
 
 " I will not be afraid of death and bane, 
 Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane !" 
 
 At length, his confidence receives a check. The wood 
 is reported to be coming. All the foundation of his hopes 
 has given way. He apprehends the demoHtion of the 
 whole fabi'ic, but still it stands — 
 
 " For none of woman born shall hai'm Macbeth." 
 
 He sallies from his castle to meet the assailants in the 
 field. Armed with this prediction, he fearlessly commits 
 himself to the surge of battle ; till, encountering Macduff, 
 he is, for a moment, appalled by the recollection of the 
 warning which counselled him to avoid his adversary, and 
 by the sense of guilt which renders intolerable the sight 
 of the man whom he has so grievously wronged. They 
 fight. Macduff makes no impression upon the tyrant. 
 Macbeth, forgetting everything in his exultation at the 
 belief that he is invulnerable, cannot refrain from vaunting 
 the charmed life with which he is endowed, 
 
 " Thou losest labour : 
 As easy niayst thou the intrenchant air 
 With thy keen sword impress, as make uje bleed : 
 Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests ; 
 I wear a charmed life, which must not yield 
 To one of woman bom ! " 
 
 How powerfully this situation must have told upon the 
 
76 MACBETH. 
 
 audience before Avhom " Macbeth " was first represented : 
 how every heart must have throbbed ; — since with us, who 
 almost have the play by heart, it never fails to produce an 
 effect perfectly absorbing. Is there an individual who 
 does not hold his breath while he witnesses it ? Who does 
 not sit like a statue? Who is not all ears and eyes, 
 watching the regicide, as he towers like a pinnacle round 
 which a tempest plays, and which you expect every mo- 
 ment to be struck from its base by a thunderbolt ? His 
 fate is at hand, it is suspended only by the breath of 
 Macduff. It leaps upon him with the suddenness and 
 force of a flash of hghtning, and blasts him where he 
 stands : — 
 
 " Despair tliy charm ; 
 And let the angel, whom thou still hast served, 
 Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womh 
 Untimely ripped ! " 
 
 Here was the dramatist. Here was perception of the use 
 of situation and incident. And here let me recommend 
 the modern hypercritic to apply for such a lesson of ingen- 
 uousness, discretion, and justice as wUl prevent him from 
 denouncing the modem dramatist for avaiUng himself of 
 the instruments which Shakespeare deemed it no disgrace 
 to use, — nay, from which there was never yet a popular 
 play that did not derive a considerable portion of its 
 effect. The whole play of " Macbeth " is a chain of 
 
MACBETH. 77 
 
 incidents and situations; nor is this the least part of 
 its merit. Why should it be? What are incident and 
 situation? Are they not the great springs of human in- 
 terest? Do they not supply us "with the poetry of human 
 life? Are they not the things that make the canvas of the 
 artist breathe and glow, that warm and soften the marble 
 of the sculptor into flesh? What burst of poetry in 
 " Paradise Lost " can surpass the incident which, at the 
 close of Satan's narration of his triumph over the inno- 
 cence of man, at the moment that he listens for the 
 applauding peal of millions of Cherubim and Seraphim, 
 assails his ear with one universal hiss, and casts him from 
 his throne, a reptile crawUng upon the floor of Pandemo- 
 nium? Incident and situation ! They cause the stir of 
 life, upon the mimic or the real stage of Avhich they rouse 
 us, set our feelings and imaginations to work, play with 
 our pulses, drive the blood from our cheeks or bring it 
 into them, distend our breasts with sighs, set the fountains 
 of our 'tears a-flowing, do with us what they hst. They 
 are a power, and convict of the grossest obtuseness of 
 intellect and the most egregious swerving from ingenuous- 
 ness, the man who sets them down for imbecihty. They 
 are the sinews not only of the dramatic but also of the 
 epic poet. The fine arts had never hved and stood with- 
 out them. The genuineness of their dignity is attested 
 by the sign manual of Homer and Shakespeare and 
 Raphael; and let him be excommunicated from the 
 
78 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 republic of letters, who condemns himself by despising 
 them. One word and no more. " Macbeth " is the most 
 melodramatic tragedy in the Avhole range of the drama, 
 and it is to the credit of Shakespeare that it is so. 
 
PART THE FIFTH. 
 
 '^OT only is the observance of unities not 
 essential, but absolutely hostile to the ex- 
 cellence of the drama. Had it been re- 
 spected, where would have been the broad 
 and bold delineation, the light and shade, the modulation, 
 as it were, of character, as exemplified in the dramas of 
 Shakespeare ? What scope would there have been for the 
 play of the pencil, that has so vividly, so convincingly, 
 portrayed the birth and growth and perfection of the most 
 powerful passions of our species ? Where would have 
 been the story of Macbeth? How magnificent and in- 
 structive a portrait should we have lost of guilty ambition 
 in all its fearful stages — its portentous infancy, its appalling 
 maturity, the gradual hardening of the usurper's heart 
 from flesh to steel ! The man — who at first recoils at the 
 
80 MA CBETH. 
 
 idea of shedding the blood of the king that stood in his 
 way ; — that feat achieved, gratuitously imbrues his hands 
 in the blood of his friend and companion-in-arms, and after 
 the consummation of that deed revels, as it were, in the 
 promiscuous slaughter of a whole family and race. Then, 
 the heart-freezing spectacle of isolated guilt, with every 
 source of earthly aggrandisement at its command, cut off 
 on every side from sympathy, attachment, and alliance. 
 
 " This supernatural soliciting 
 Cannot be ill ; cannot be good. If ill, 
 Why hath it given me earnest of success, 
 Commencing in a truth ? — I am thane of Cawdor ! 
 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair. 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs. 
 Against the use of nature ? " 
 
 " Our fears in Banquo 
 Stick deep ; and in his royalty of nature 
 Reigns that which would be feared ; 'tis much he dares. 
 And, to that dauntless temper of his mind. 
 He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour 
 To act in safety. There is none but he 
 Whose being I do fear : and under him 
 My genius is rebuked, as it is said 
 Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters 
 When first they put the name of king upon me, 
 And bade them speak to him : then prophet-like 
 They hailed him father to a line of kings ; 
 Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown. 
 And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, 
 Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand, 
 No son of mine succeeding. If 't be so, 
 
MACBETH. 81 
 
 For Eanquo's issue have I 'filed mj mind ; 
 
 For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered ; 
 
 Put rancours in the vessel of my peace 
 
 Only for them ; and mine eternal jewel 
 
 Given to the common enemy of man, 
 
 To make them kings, — the seed of Banquo kings ! 
 
 Eathcr than so, come, fate, into the list 
 
 And champion me to the utterance ! " 
 
 " Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits : 
 
 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook. 
 
 Unless the deed go with it : from this moment, 
 
 The very firstlings of mj' heart shall he 
 
 The firstlings of my hand. And even now 
 
 To crown my thoughts with acts, he it thought and done : 
 
 The castle of Macduff I will surprise ; 
 
 Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword 
 
 His wife, his habes, and all unfortunate souls 
 
 That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool ; 
 
 This deed I'll do before this purpose cool ! " 
 
 " I have lived long enough ; my way of life 
 
 Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf ; 
 
 And that which should accompany old age, 
 
 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
 
 I must not look to have ; but in their stead 
 
 Curses not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath 
 
 Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dares not." 
 
 The story of Macbeth, as related by Shakespeare, em- 
 braces I believe a lapse of twenty years. In the first act 
 he is introduced to us in lusty, early manhood, fit in hmb 
 as well as heart to breast the toil of war, and in the fifth 
 act we find him " faU'n into the sear, the yellow leaf." 
 
 M 
 
82 MACBETH. 
 
 A life — a long life we might say — enacted in the space of 
 some three hours. But who takes note of this? Where 
 does the interest flag on this account? Is the horror of 
 each succeeding deed of blood the less because minutes 
 stand for the months or years that separated it from its 
 precursor? When Macbeth tells us that he " has in blood 
 stepp'd in so far that should he wade no more, returning 
 were as tedious as go o'er" — do we breathe the less thick, 
 because it was only a quarter of an hour ago that we saw 
 him. begin to wade ? If not, then what avails the unity of 
 time or the unity of place ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
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