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Author of the "History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece," &c. &c.

FROM Shakspeare's days to our own, criticism seems to have mistaken the character of Lady Macbeth. She is supposed to be a mere fiend, untameably savage, who plays the part of tempter to her husband; or rather, sways his will like an irresistible fury, to gratify some mysterious passion, too hideous to be confounded with ordinary cruelty. That, with the play before them, persons should be able to arrive at such a conclusion, appears to me not a little strange. Everything in the poet's unparalleled creation makes against it. I admit at once that she is wicked; that in the worst crime of which human nature can be guilty the crime of breaking into the sanctuary of life-she has participated. But a deliberate examination of all her acts and words, motives, sentiments, and feelings, will, I think, compel us to reverse our judgment, and re-admit her into the circle of the human family.

With the progress and action of the great drama in which Lady Macbeth plays her part, everbody is familiar. Almost from the cradle we have conversed and sympathized with Banquo, experienced pity and horror at the fate of Duncan, and hovered over the deep gulfs of remorse and fear which yawned beneath the Thane of Glammis and the partner of his blood-stained throne. Yet, to render our speculations intelligible, we must glance over the principal circumstances which form the ground-work of the tragedy.

Scotland, a prey to foreign invasion and civil broils, presents, when Macbeth first comes befores us, the startling picture of a country overlaid with superstition and barbarism, illuminated dimly in parts by intellectual light; but, upon the whole, gloomy, frowning, and every way calculated to inspire terror. An aged king sits upon the throne, prevented by years from conforming to the practice of the times, by taking the field in

person; and his sons being too youthful and inexperienced to fill his place, he is compelled to intrust the command of his armies to fierce and ambitious kinsmen, as likely to feel contempt for his weakness, as jealousy of each other's reputation and advancement. We behold them, flushed with victory, returning at the head of their clans, over a desolate heath, towards the Court. With what thoughts their minds were pregnant may be conjectured from the effect of their interview with the weird sisters, which suggests at once the easy transition from victory to a throne, and begets, in one at least, supreme indifference respecting the path by which it was to be mounted.

There is, perhaps, in this age too little faith, for it to appreciate fully Shakspeare's supernatural agencies. Nothing limits so much as skepticism the resources of art, or the enjoyment which its creations supply. We must consent, however, to contemplate the witches from Shakspeare's point of view, if we would taste all the pleasure to be derived from this play, and behold in them unearthly intelligences gifted with prophetic powers, but inclined, by the laws of their nature, to incite to the perpetration of evil. Still, it would be unphilosophical to infer that the original idea of his crime came to Macbeth from without. He, doubtless, brought the germ along with him from the field of battle, and the intimation of the weird sisters did no more than impregnate and quicken it. Then, however, it was that he became fully conscious of his own flagitious design, and began to look it steadily in the face. He compared his youth and energy, his prowess in the field, his hardihood on the march, his influence over chiefs and clans, derived not from inert tradition, but from personal qualities, with the helpless decrepitude of the reigning king; and easily persuaded himself that any

course would be defensible, by which he could transfer the sceptre to his own vigorous hands, and thus strike terror into the enemies of Scotland, who now despised the unchivalrous inactivity of Duncan. He suddenly remembered, too, that he had a young wife in the Castle of Inverness, upon whose fair brow the golden round of sovereignty would sit gracefully. As soon, therefore, as he could escape from the bustle of public rejoicings, he disclosed to her adroitly, in a letter, his ambitious hopes and prospects, dwelling more especially on the partial fulfilment of the weird sisters' prophecy, and artfully exciting her thirst of power, that it might react after wards upon his own.

Introduced thus, by report as it were, to this marvellous character, we almost immediately experience the fascination of her genius. Never did poet display greater art than Shakspeare in the delineation of Lady Macbeth and her husband. All her evil qualities blaze forth and burst open at once, after which the baleful fire burns more and more faintly and dimly as it retreats from us, until it is at length extinguished in space: whereas Macbeth's wickedness, weak and vacillating at first, dilates and strengthens as it proceeds, consuming and bearing down everything before it, till the moment of the final catastrophe.

It would be a strange delight that a man should reserve for himself, were he to defer the reading or seeing of "Macbeth" till his mind had acquired its maturity. He would then, perhaps, be qualified to relish the highest pleasure that mere human literature has to bestow; for, assuredly, there is nothing in ancient or in modern times which stands superior, as a work of art, to this. It constitutes the apex of Shakspeare's writings, and is to Christendom what the Olympian Zeus was to the Pagan world-the most glorious embodiment of the principle of art, to enjoy which, for the time at least, is to be happy. But we too often mar the effect which this drama is calculated to produce by premature study, or being too early present at its scenic representation. But our impatience is pardonable. It is natural to thirst for that which is most excellent; and they who have been once made alive to the enchantment of poetry, can scarcely be expected to postpone indefinitely the beholding of its most glorious

visions.

What "Macbeth" is to the rest of Shakspeare's writings, and Shakspeare himself to other dramatic poets, Lady Macbeth is to the play in which she appears; that is, she is the

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crowning beauty and excellence of the finest work of art in the world. Macbeth, we will suppose, has already set out for Inverness Castle, and knowing that the King, with all his principal courtiers, is at his heels, rides as fast as his horse will carry him, not simply to make preparation for a monarch's welcome, but to consult with the fair recluse, his wife, on the "bloody business" which he himself had already planned. While yet some distance from the castle, he finds irresistible weariness overtakes him, and therefore sends forward a messenger, who, being poor, has no right to consult his aching limbs, but must on at the bidding of his superior, whether able to outlive the fatigue or not.

When news of the approaching royal visit is brought by this swift messenger to the castle, Lady Macbeth, who had been brooding over the dream of sovereignty, is so startled at the announcement, that she calls the attendant who informs her of it mad. She is shocked by his abrupt entrance and message, as though the dreadful thoughts which she herself could behold in all their naked deformity, were likewise visible to him. It is only, however, the upper currents of her sympathies, running on a level with the throne, that are chilled and polluted: those lower ones through which the loftiest natures feel their kindred to common clay, were still as warm as ever. Against all pity for the good old Scottish king, who tottered between her husband and the sceptre, her breast was as hard as steel. But she could emerge from her schemes of greatness to think of the humblest of her servants' comfort.

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appears to have pressed on entering the castle, were ere midnight to pronounce his doom. Shakspeare's imagination makes no figure at a feast. He appears to assemble his guests to an entertainment of the Barmecide, where imaginary dishes rest on unreal tables. The mental exigencies of his nature absorb the physical. Vehement passion has little appetite, and when a soul is to be violently unsphered, and sent before its time into the untravelled wastes of eternity, he experiences little inclination to descant on the excellencies of sack or venison pasty. Long before the deed is done, the gloom of murder fills the Castle of Inverness. We smell Duncan's blood through a whole act, and shudder at the dagger which haunts our fancy as palpably as it does that of Macbeth. Fain would we put the confiding old man upon his guard. The noise of the revelry offends If he cannot be saved, the desire still presents itself, that he should be warned for preparation, and not thrust unconsciously out of the world with all his imperfections on his head.

us.

He

In dramatic poetry there is no scene superior in grandeur or depth of interest to the ninth and tenth of the first act of this play. Leaving the King with his wife in the banqueting-room, the Thane of Glammis, disquieted by the consciousness of his own projects, comes forth to think alone in an empty room in the castle. The murder, which is as yet but phantasy, seems to be pressed upon his soul by destiny. He wrestles, as it were, with his own intentions, desires, and fears-is beckoned forward by ambition, and held back by some remnant of moral sense. sophisticates with his own understanding, sees the pathways to heaven and hell distinctly traced out before his mind's eye, the one comparatively obscure, but unsullied by crime, the other strewed with sceptres and diadems, but intermingled with blood. Clouds of perplexity fall upon him. He longs to stop the motion of the heart which he has left securely beating at his hospitable board, but apprehends the rebound of the instrument which he means to wield in the process. While in this state of vacillation, his wife approaches him like one of the Erinnyes, and by a mixture of love, scorn, and invincible mental power, totally eradicates his scruples, strips him of pity and remorse, and soars before his imagination like a fiery Nemesis commissioned to bring fate to mortals. The matchless art of this scene is indescribably absorbing. Throughout every line of Lady Macbeth's speeches, we feel that she is

a woman, that her eloquence lies in her sex, that the influence she exercises is based on innumerable acts of love and tenderness previously performed, by which she has thoroughly fascinated her husband, and made him bend to her, as with the authority of a superior nature. For evil or for good, his soul, we see, is in her hands, and experience the greatest terror at beholding her link herself with the infernal powers to urge him towards his doom and perdition.

"Macbeth.-If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly: If the assassination
With its surcease, success; that but this blow
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
Here only on this bank and shoal of time-
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
To our own lips.
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
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. Besides, this Duncan
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
The deep damnation of his taking off:
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless coursers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
And falls on the other side.
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

Enter LADY MACBETH.
How now, what news?

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Lady M.-He hath almost supp'd: Why have you left the chamber? "Macbeth.-Hath he ask'd for me?

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I dare do all that may become a man:
Who dares do more, is none.

"Lady M.
What beast was't then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?"

Addison prefaces his description of Sir Roger de Coverly with the remark, that as soon as we experience an interest in the fortunes of an individual, we desire to know something about his person, inquire whether he was tall or short, fair or swarthy, young or old, rich or poor. It is the same thing with a remarkable character in a play, when the poet has not been communicative on such matters. They who have seen Lady Macbeth on the stage, imagine, of course, they have seen the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. But have they? Let them look carefully into the tragedy, and they will find that the poet has told them next to nothing on the point in question. It is the imagination of the actress that has interpreted the idea of the poet. Mrs. Siddons, swayed by a popular conception, represented Lady Macbeth as a dark woman, with black hair and eyes, and past, I believe, the flower of her youth. This idea has become traditional on the stage, so that even Miss Vandenhoff, notwithstanding the independent character of her genius, and her careful study of Shakspeare, in acting adopts it.

*

eyes, an extremely lofty forehead, and a profusion of auburn or chesnut hair. Of course, when the poet himself has purposely, as it would seem, left us in doubt, all we can do is to substitute for certainty conjecture. Absorbed by the mental qualities of his own creation, Shakspeare did not in this case, as in most others, dwell rapturously on the bodily presence of his heroine. He treats her as an incarnate intelligence, wearing, indeed, a woman's form, but depending not on female blandishments and beauty for its empire. Invested with the most consummate mental accomplishments with eloquence, with metaphysical subtlety, with impassioned logic, above all things, with an indomitable force of will she comes forward to reign over all around her like a queen.

But are we, nevertheless, to believe that Shakspeare, while bestowing on her all this intellectual beauty, thought she might dispense with the inferior beauties of form and youth? In my opinion, the personal loveliness of Lady Macbeth is felt throughout the play. That she was, at any rate, a young woman, with a child at the breast at the very period of the murder, seems probable from her own language. She says

"Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering min-
isters,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief!"

an idea which could only suggest itself to a woman then giving suck. Again, from a speech of Macbeth, we may infer that she had had few children, but might reasonably expect many, because he tells her—

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Bring forth male children only."

Before we proceed to witness those scenes of the tragedy, the effect of which may be to wrap our heroine in preternatural gloom, and present her like a fury to our imagination, let us look a little into the probabilities of the case. Is there any necessary connection between a dark complexion and crime? Does it appear from the history of our race that moral guilt envelopes itself in physical ugliness? Is it proved by experience that women, in the greatest bloom of their beauty, when surrounded, like a halo, by the purpleBesides, 'tis by the love with which she has inlight of youth; when the heart and the passions have the freshest gloss upon them; spired her husband that she wields his paswhen the feelings of tenderness and voluptu- sions and precipitates him towards his destiny. ousness should predominate over all others- A Syren-like spell breathes through all her does it appear, I say, that under these circum-language. She seems conscious that she has but to be seen to command. People fancy stances, women are too gentle to be criminal? and must we, before we can believe them her a sort of Scandinavian Hera-the comcapable of portentous wickedness, suppose panion, not of Zeus, but of the grim tyrant time to have hardened their hearts while it of Hades, her fitting consort. But nothing of all this. She is a Scottish lady-proud, blasted their loveliness? ambitious, thirsting fiercely for sway—but in the heyday of prolific youth, who covertly makes allusion to the power of her own charms and the supreme value of her preference. Having exhausted all other arguments to urge Macbeth to regicide, she falls back, as her last resource, on this-that if he

I represent Lady Macbeth to myself as a beautiful fair woman, about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, with large dark-blue

* Miss O'Neil may be said to have formed one exception, since she performed Lady Macbeth in her own brown hair.

faltered in his purpose, she would cast him contemptuously from her heart :—

"Lady M.

Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time, Such I account thy love."

In this, moreover, as in most other things, Shakspeare was true to nature; for, from the testimony of history, it appears that nearly all women who have been guilty of great crimes -the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, Beatrice Cenci, Johanna of Naples-have done so in the fieriest noon of youth, of which it is not difficult to discover the cause. Women are then more under the influence of the passions which blind the reason, not yet endued with strength to resist them. They feel much and reflect little; seldom can they persuade themselves to look forward to the end of life. They act as if they were immortal. From the moment they emerge from girlhood up to a certain point of time, which varies, perhaps, in each individual, the passions acquire fresh strength, so as sometimes to predominate completely over the reason. Afterwards, every year gives additional lustre to the intellect, and diminishes the force of their temperament, so that she who was the slave of feeling at a given period, in a short time becomes swayed by thought and obedient to the impulse of enlightened motives. Ambi tion, however, rules longer than any other passion, though it soon throws off from its eyes the scales of youth, and learns how to pursue its course with clear-sightedness; in other words, to avoid the allurements of crime.

It may, perhaps, be out of place to allude here to the ordinary statistics of guilt; but among female offenders, the proportion of those under thirty years of age to those above is as five to one. It happens too, somewhat curiously, that among the women who have infringed most daringly the laws of ethics, the most remarkable have been fair, with auburn hair and bright blue eyes. This was the case with Beatrice Genci, whose golden hair, carefully described by the author of her life, kindled the fancy and deified the art of Guido Reni. The face of this same Beatrice may assist us in our speculations upon Lady Macbeth. It is soft and gentle, slightly languishing, because taken after she had suffered much pain; but the features are all beautifully moulded, and an inexpressible tenderness and harmony breathe over them, capable, as we should conjecture, in life, of in

spiring a serene and almost seraphic love. Yet the scion of the house of Cenci had imbrued her hands in the blood of her father —that is, had been guilty of almost the worst conceivable crime.*

Brinvilliers, again, who consummated her guilt with parricide, and had, besides, perpetrated so many murders that she appeared to have lived only for the destruction of others, looked, after all, so tranquil and fascinating in her loveliness, that even the clearest evidence of her guilt could scarcely suffice to establish belief in it. Her regular features, her fair and soft complexion, her golden tresses, the clear deep blue of her eyes, and the remarkable expression of tranquillity which pervaded the whole, irresistibly suggested the idea of innocence. Compared with her, nevertheless, Lady Macbeth was an angel, for she could not, to gain a kingdom, kill a stranger who looked like her father in his sleep.

That Shakspeare himself entertained generally on this subject the same opinion with me is quite clear, since he observes "there is no art to find the mind's construction in the face;" and, from the whole behavior of Duncan, it is evident that he had been charmed and fascinated by the seemingly open and loving looks of his "fair and noble hostess." Had she appeared the sinister, scowling devil, sometimes presented to us on the stage, he would have shrunk from her as from a serpent. But, on the contrary, she so wins upon his confidence by her cheery and welcome countenance, that he kisses, and afterwards presents her with a diamond, to show his unusual satisfaction.

This power of mastering the internal emotions of the mind may, I grant, create in us a more startling idea of Lady Macbeth's wickedness. But, 'tis her personal beauty I am now endeavoring to prove. Lord Chesterfield, the Lycurgus of compliments, cautions his son against praising an ugly woman for her beauty, for she will know, he says, it is a falsehood, and will almost inevitably interpret it into an insult. Old Duncan would have anticipated Lord Chesterfield on this point, and been careful not to apply the expression of fair and noble hostess to a thin, swarthy, grim fury, calculated to freeze the very heart of him by her aspect. Lady Macbeth herself is careful to let us know that she was mistress of what Tacitus calls the

* I may here remark that Shelly, in the tragedy which he has written on this subject, imitates, I might almost say copies, whole passages from Macbeth.

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