Enter an Officer. Off. Edmund is dead, my lord. That 's but a trifle here.- To him our absolute power :-You, to your rights; Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd!" No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And my poor fool is hang'd. We cannot avoid thinking that Shakspere, in this place, meant to express a peculiar tenderness, derived from Lear's confused recollection of his regard for his poor follower, the Fool, whom we have lost after the third act. 11⁄2 the depth of his distress, during the storm, Lear Bays" Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart that's And now, when the last and deepest calaBorry yet for thee." mity has fallen upon him, his expressions shape themselves out of the indistinctness with which he views the present and the poor fool." past, and Cordelia is his " And thou no breath at all? Thou It come no more. Pray you undo this button: Thank Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,- [He dies. you, sir. Edg. He faints! My lord, my lord,— Kent. Break, heart; I prithee, break! Look up, my lord. Edg. him That would upon the rack of this tough world Edg. Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business [Exeunt with a dead march. This is the original stage direction. 'THE Tragedie of Macbeth' was first published in the folio collection of 1623. Its place in that edition is between Julius Cæsar' and Hamlet.' And yet, in the modern reprints of the text of Shakspere, Macbeth' is placed the first amongst the Histories. This is to convey a wrong notion of the character of this great drama. Shakspere's Chronicle-histories are essentially conducted upon a different principle. The interest of 'Macbeth' is not an historical interest. It matters not whether the action is true, or has been related as true: it belongs to the realms of poetry altogether. We might as well call Lear' or 'Hamlet' historical plays, because the outlines of the story of each are to be found in old records of the past. Our text is, with very few exceptions, a restoration of the text of the original folio. In Coleridge's early sonnet to the Author of the Robbers, his imagination is enchained to the most terrible scene of that play; disregarding, as it were, all the accessaries by which its horrors are mitigated and rendered endurable :— "Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, If through the shuddering midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cryLest in some after-mcment aught more mean Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene!" It was in a somewhat similar manner that Shakspere's representation of the murder of Duncan affected the imagination of Mrs. Siddons:-"It was my custom to study my characters at night, when all the domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night preceding that on which I was to appear in this part for the first time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my study of Lady Macbeth. As the character is very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many others do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination. But, to proceed. I went on with tolerable composure, in the silence of the night (a night I can never forget), till I came to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the room in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast asleep. I clapped my candlestick down upon the table, without the power of putting it out; and I threw myself on my bed, without daring to stay even to take off my clothes."* If the drama of Macbeth' were to produce the same effect upon the mind of an imaginative reader as that described by Mrs. Siddons, it would not be the great work • Memoranda by Mrs. Siddons, inserted in her 'Life' by Mr. Campbell. of art which it really is. If our poet had resolved, using the words of his own Othello,' to "abandon all remorse, On horror's head horrors accumulate," the midnight terrors, such as Mrs. Siddons bas described, would have indeed been a tribute to power,—but not to the power which has produced 'Macbeth.' The paroxysm of fear, the panic-struck fancy, the prostrated senses, so beautifully described by this impassioned actress, were the result of the intensity with which she had fixed her mind upon that part of the play which she was herself to act. In the endeavour to get the words into her head her own fine genius was naturally kindled to behold a complete vision of the wonderful scene. Again, and again, were the words repeated, on that night which she could never forget,-in the silence of that night when all about her were sleeping. And then she heard the owl shriek, amidst the hurried steps in the fatal chamber,—and she saw the bloody hands of the assassin,—and, personifying the murderess, she rushed to dip her own hands in the gore of Duncan. It is perfectly evident that this intensity of conception has carried the horrors far beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion, and has produced all the terrors of a real murder. No reader of the play, and no spectator, cau regard this play as Mrs. Siddons regarded it. On that night she, probably for the first time, had a strong though imperfect vision of the character of Lady Macbeth, such as she afterwards delineated it; and, in that case, what to all of us must, under any circumstances, be a work of art, however glorious, was to her almost a reality. It was the isolation of the scene, demanded by her own attempt to conceive the character of Lady Macbeth, which made it so terrible to Mrs. Siddons. The reader has to regard it as a part of a great whole, which combines and harmonises with all around it; for which he is adequately prepared by what has gone before; and which,-even if we look at it as a picture which represents only that one portion of the action, has still its own repose, its own harmony of colouring, its own chiaroscuro,—is to be seen under a natural light. There was a preternatural light upon it when Mrs. Siddons saw it as she has described. of The leading characteristic of this glorious tragedy is, without doubt, that which constitutes the essential difference between a work of the highest genius and a work of mediocrity. Without power-by which we here especially mean the ability to produce strong excitement by the display of scenes of horror-no poet the highest order was ever made; but this alone does not make such a poet. If he is called upon to present such scenes, they must, even in their most striking forms, be associated with the beautiful. The pre-eminence of his art in this particular can alone prevent them affecting the imagination beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion. To keep within these limits, and yet to preserve all the energy which results from the power of dealing with the terrible apart from the beautiful, belongs to few that the world has seen to Shakspere it belongs surpassingly. МАСВЕТ Н. PERSONS REPRESENTED. DUNCAN, King of Scotland. Appears Act 1. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act II. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 4; sc. 6; sc. 7. DONALBAIN, Son to Duncan. Appears, Act 1. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act II. sc. 3. A pears, Act 1. sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5; sc. 7. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 5; sc. 7. sc. 3. sc 3; BANQUO, general of the King's army. MACDUFF, a nobleman of Scotland. Appears, Act I. sc. 6. Act II. sc. 3; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 4; sc. 6; sc. 7. LENOX, a nobleman of Scotland. Appears, Act 1. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 7. ROSSE, a nobleman of Scotland. Appears, Act 1. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act II. sc. 4. Act III. Appears, Act I. sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 2; sc 4 sc. 7. CATHNESS, a nobleman of Scotland. Appears, Act V. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 7. FLEANCE, Son to Banquo. Appeurs, Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 3. SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces. Appears, Act V. sc. 1; sc. 6; sc. 7. Young SIWARD, son to the Earl of NorthumberlanL SEYTON, an officer attending on Macbeth. Son to Macduff. An English Doctor. A Scotch Doctor. A Porter. Appears, Act II. sc. 3. An old Man. Appears, Act II. sc. 4. LADY MACВЕТН. Appears, Act I. sc. 5; sc. 6; sc. 7. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. LADY MACDuff. Appears, Act IV. sc. 2. Gentlewoman, attending on Lady Macbeth. Appears, Act V. se 1 НЕСАТЕ. Appears, Act III. sc. 5. Three Witches. Appear, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 5. Act IV. sc. 1 Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, At tendants, and Messengers. The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions. SCENE, IN THE END OF ACT IV. IN ENGLAND; THROUGH THE REST OF THE PLAY IN SCOTLAND. ACT I. SCENE I.-An open Place. Thunder and Lightning. | As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt 3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. 1 Witch. I come, Graymalkin! b All. Paddock calls:-Anon.— Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. [Witches vanish. Hurlyburly. In Peacham's Garden of Eloquence,' 1577, s word is given as an example of that ornament of language which consists in" a name intimating the sound of that it signifieth, as hurlyburly, for an uproar and tumultuous stir." Graymalkin is a cat; Paddock, a tond. The newest state. Mal. Sold. a Of is here used in the sense of with. b Quarry.-So the original. The common reading, on the emendation of Johnson, is quarrel. We conceive that the original word is that used by Shakspere, the "damned quarry" being the doomed army of kernes and gallowglasses, who, although fortune deceitfully smiled on them, fled before the sword of Macbeth, and became his quarry-his prey. |