jussus vultus, or disciplined countenance, | which assumes whatever meaning its owner pleases; for she bids her husband to seem the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it; and, if she had not exhibited a perfect mastery of the art she recommended, he was just in the humor to retort upon her, and bid her practise the precept she inculcated. But amidst the most mysterious and agitating scenes, when supernatural agencies were at work around her, when murder seemed to stand sentinel at every door in the palace; when fear, remorse, terror, and all other hellish passions agitated her husband's frame like an earthquake, communicating a ghastly pallor to his visage, almost shaking reason from his seat, she never for one moment suffered the anguish within to blanch the ruby on her cheek, but preserved through all changes and chances that fatal beauty which enabled her to exercise a sort of supernatural fascination on Macbeth, and on all others, apparently, whom she desired to bend to her purposes. By attributing to her this uncommon degree of self-command, Shakspeare would create in us the idea that she was born to command others; for the empire of the will is first exercised over the faculties most under its own control, and then, by an easy transition, extends its sway to the faculties of others next in order encircling it. Nothing moves the imagination like power and fame. In its eyes all happiness centres in them. To correct this cardinal error is one of Shakspeare's chief aims in this tragedy, which would teach no worthy lesson, did it not trace, step by step, the process by which great and noble natures are gradually corrupted by the passion for supreme authority. No thought occurs more frequently in his works than this. Cardinal Wolsey, on his death-bed, compresses the whole doctrine into a few words:: "Cromwell, I charge thee, throw away ambition; By this sin fell the angels; how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?" To exhibit individuals originally evil and perverse, plunging into wickedness, is only to show that all creatures act according to their instincts. But this was not, and could not be, Shakspeare's design in Macbeth. What he aims at proving is this, that minds naturally full of excellent inclinations, and calculated, under ordinary circumstances, to pass with respect and honor through life, may be so tainted with the poison of ill-regulated ambition as to degenerate and fall away into the last degree of depravity. The first speech which Lady Macbeth addresses to her husband on his return to the castle, shows her to be under the powerful influence of a feeling not uncommon in women; I mean, a passionate admiration of fame and greatness. As an obscure individual, she might have liked Macbeth well enough, but as the Thane of Glammis and Cawdor, and still more as the future King of Scotland, she idolizes him. Many women merge all ideas of the man in his celebrity. What they love is not the character but the glory, and they will indulge their passion, though, like Sewell, they should be consumed by it; and indeed, that legendary person was only a type of this class of her sex, the earnest and devout worshippers of renown, who, to live in the minds and memories of men when they have become mere names, will brave every amount of suffering, and sorrow, and obloquy, and guilt. The bare idea of being overshadowed by the golden round of sovereignty transports Lady Macbeth beyond herself. All the dear relations of life dissolve in this fiery menstruum. Her imagination connects indissolubly with supreme power the idea of supreme happiness. The crown, she thinks, will bring to all her future days and nights inexpressible felicity and contentment. This notion alone would transform a young and delicate mother into a female demon, incapable, during the access of her ambition, of sympathy or pity. Like the ancient tyrant of Pheræ, she might with truth have said, that she was drunk with the desire of greatness. Nor is this so uncommon a state of mind as we might at first suppose. There is something Circean in the bare conception of power, which its worshippers suppose to contain everything within itself, not merely the force necessary to sway the minds and feelings of others, but to mould the will and conscience of its possessor, to close up the sources of remorse, to arrest the stream of pity, and to send its fortunate minion blindfold, unconscious and unscared, through the dark portals of eternity. But for some such theory as this, there would be no comprehending the history of imperial guilt. Still less should we be able to enter into the idiosyncrasy of a woman like Lady Macbeth, who loved nothing but celebrity; not that which springs from good deeds, but which is conferred by the exercise of authority, by standing on the necks of millions, and crushing them into a recognition of superiority. This theory unlocks to us the secret of the fair mistress of Inver Many persons, in contrasting the husband and wife, attribute to Macbeth superior humanity, while they heap upon the lady all kinds of hard epithets; but does Shakspeare's picture justify this? To my mind he seems to have distinctly intended that we should arrive at a different conclusion. In his scheme of things both are equally wicked, but Macbeth, through some inherent weakness of temper, is haunted by casual accesses of remorse, while his wife, steady and consistent, keeps her mind's eye fixed upon the mark at which they both aimed without the slightest faltering. The mental idiosyncrasies of the sexes seem to have been exchanged. She has a man's intellect, he a woman's. He resolves and relents, wishes the act over, is eager to reap the fruit of it, but shrinks instinctively from its performShe, having once determined, is deaf to all after considerations, and looks the crime steadily in the face, though her physical organization is scarcely equal to its achievement. ness Castle, who clings round the Thane of | physiognomy, however, enables her to detect Cawdor on his return from the wars, and by many tokens of irresolution, but, obviously, the exercise of her mischievous eloquence, at the same time, a fierceness, which she urges him to persevere in his resolution to seeks to curb-I mean in the expression, not attain regal splendor, at the expense of all the feeling. The aspect of villainy was other things here and hereafter. Macbeth coming over him, and she fears that the seems to have understood his wife, and to hand-writing of hell would be too visible. have known in what light she would receive For this reason it is that she advises the the prediction of the weird sisters, as we putting on of a mask, and bids him smooth conjecture from his letter, which is address- his features into welcome and hospitality. ed to her ruling passion, and artfully con- She could detect the murderous frown lurktrived to scorch into ripeness all the seeds of ing upon his brow, and fearing that others evil in her character. might be equally quick-sighted, bids him put on the innocent smile of the flower, and to conceal the venomous serpent that lurks under it. I have heard it objected to this character that it is unnatural, because Lady Macbeth had not mixed much with the world, whereas her husband had lived habitually amid the throng and press of men. But solitude is seldom the nurse of humanity. Stranger means enemy in more dialects than that of Rome. The secluded individual who converses with shadows, and feeds upon the banquet of thought, who views the world at too great a distance to be able to catch the features of individuals, seldom loves those who live beyond the pale of his knowledge. In his inmost theory they are scarcely realities. If mixing with mankind hardens the bad, it softens the good; while solitude almost always supplies a deleterious aliment to the mind, which cankers, corrodes, and vitiates it brings out its fierceness like chaining up a dog, and renders it apt to fly at mankind on the first opportunity. Lady Macbeth, retired in her castle, has been dreaming of sovereignty, until she has learned to look on all individuals external to her family as mere logical entities, with which it would be lawful to deal summarily. The life which mingled not with her own life appeared to her matter of indifference. Traces of similar notions are often discernible in very harmless persons in society. Unconscious of what seeds are in them, they fearlessly lift the veil from their minds, and discover to the practised eye abysses of guilt, into which one cannot look without shuddering. Lady Macbeth was possibly a dreamer, till she received her husband's letter, which kindled her woman's blood into a fiery fluid, that scorched and withered all her better feelings in a moment. It would be wrong to regard her as an habitual fiend. In ordinary circumstances she might have been a gentle neighbor, a faithful friend, impassioned and earnest, but quite harmless, withal. the thought of masterdom that set all her ance. But how came she, with her piercing, intellectual vision, to read her husband wrong, and thus to lead astray the critics by her authority? When those we love are absent, our theory of their character is often too much idealized; our desire for their presence quells and throws into the shade all doubts of their virtue and greatness. What we love is the idol of our own minds, which we clothe with all the attributes most pleasing to our imagination. Thus Lady Macbeth, who, though when a particular occasion required it, wished her husband possessed of a remorseless cruelty, upon the whole, must have preferred in him gentleness and love-fancied, while he was still away from her, that he was too full of the milk of human kindness, and free from the wickedness that should attend ambition. But when he stands bodily before her in the Castle of Inverness, she begins to read his countenance more truly, and finds it full of a strange significance. Her skill in It was pernicious qualities in a blaze. Macbeth is a | more ordinary villain. She is ready to share the guilt of a single great crime, in order to acquire supremacy over the whole Scottish nation; but having achieved that great object, she does not desire to persist in evil. Macbeth, under the impulse of the vulgar, dynastic feeling, is troubled by the ominous promise to Banquo's issue. Lady Macbeth consents to drain the poisoned chalice of power with him, but is less haunted with posthumous considerations. Her strong mind could invest with glory that brief space which is rounded with a sleep, people it with exciting dreams, and derive happiness from the actuality. Macbeth required, to fill up the measure of his satisfaction, some fantastical linking of his line with futurity, and is made wretched by anxiety about the fate of unbegotten kings. His lady is infinitely the nobler spirit. With the insight we have thus obtained into Lady Macbeth's character and personal appearance, we return to the progress of that part of the tragedy in which she chiefly figures. It is a not uncommon belief, that violent disturbance in the moral world is naturally accompanied by a trouble of the elements. In the mythes of Hellas, the god of day refuses to look upon the horrid banquet of Thiestes; or, in other words, when that act of cannibalism was committed, nature canopied the world in clouds, that physical gloom might accompany the perpetration of so dire and dark a deed. Conformably with this notion, Shakspeare, on the night of the regal murder, envelopes Macbeth's castle with darkness and tempest. The imprisoned winds howl and rave among the guilty turrets. The owl hoots, and the cricket cries in the chimney. Everything sympathizes, with an imperfect consciousness, in the unearthly tragedy then going on. Hell opens upon the scene, and sheds a sulphureous vapor through the air, which, irresistibly, oppresses and agitates the mind. Following a phantom dagger, the hesitating and uncertain Thane has glided tremulously on his errand of death into the king's chamber, and his lady remains alone, with a countless multitude of contending hopes and fears preying upon her heart. Properly estimated, the longest life of prosperity would not make up for the concentrated bitterness of those few moments. The agony of a single night has been known to do the work of years, to blanch the locks and convert youth into age. But Shakspeare, to mitigate the effects of emotions so violent, affords to Lady Macbeth VOL XVI. NO. IL 14 the aid of artificial excitement. She bewilders her brain with the fumes of wine, and would-with deference to the delicacy of our age be it spoken-have been more than halfdrunk, but for the poignant nature of the feelings, which drinking could not altogether subdue. This may be inconsistent with the prevailing theory of poetical heroism, but it is exceedingly natural. Most perpetrators of great crimes still their nerves before the action with some kind of opiate, that produces a temporary paralysis of the conscience, during which the offender is ready to brave the thunders of heaven. Lady Macbeth tells us herself she has had recourse to this vulgar expedient : This soliloquy seems to be misunderstood by the commentators, for want of attending to the economy of it. She obviously represents herself as having been engaged in drinking with the grooms of the bedchamber; because she says, "that which hath made them drunk hath made me bold." She was, in fact, so far excited, that the excitement would have been intoxication under any other circumstances. In this part of the speech she makes no allusion to the posset, which people then took on going to bed, because she had drugged that of the chamberlains, and, of course, not her own; and, therefore, could by no means say that the very thing which had made them drunk had made her bold. Nor can she be suspected of paltering with the sense of her words, because we are supposed to be overhearing her thoughts, in which there was no concealment, and could be none. We are to imagine the gentlemen to have drunk hard, and to have finished off with a rich posset, which their kind hostess took care to drug. Her drinking in this way shows that she felt the need of artificial excitement to cheer up her spirits, which does not appear to have been the case with Macbeth. He went soberly to work, and was, therefore, more sensible to the stings of conscience after he had committed the murder. While Lady Macbeth soliloquizes, the murder is going on. We seem to be standing with her in one of the old tapestried apartments in Inverness Castle, while her husband in a chamber hard by is cutting the throat of their royal guest. Our fancy, divided in its attention, acquires something like the power of ubiquity, or at least seems to be in two places at the same time. While listening to the words of the lady, it has followed the sanguinary Thane of Glammis stealing on tiptoe into the king's room, ghastly and trembling, as he takes the daggers from the gentlemen's pillows, in order to use them on their master. We feel that the act is going on, while Lady Macbeth, excited and agitated, listens in breathless suspense, lest the mere attempt should bring upon them by its failure the worst consequences of the accomplished crime. The owl hooting above. in the turret impresses on her mind a sense of darkness, though she takes no notice of the wild wind that went howling around the castle, and as we afterwards learn committed sundry ravages. To prove her thorough approbation of the deed her husband was then engaged in doing, she discloses her determination to have done it herself, not putting much faith in his firm resolution, had not the old man resembled her father in his sleep, which suggests the idea of her being a young woman, and of her having a father living. It may seem strange that she should notice the cricket and the owl at such a moment, but it has always been observed that the inarticulate sounds which form, as it were, the voice of the night, carry a deep meaning to the minds of those who are engaged in evil. Nature seems to emerge from her universality, and to clothe herself in individual acts, to arrest the hand of the malefactor. But nothing arrests Macbeth. The murder he undertakes he accomplishes. His guest, his kinsman, his king, he has slaughtered, and we behold him, the bloody witness on his hands, stagger into the room where his wife awaits him. It must not, in reading the following dialogue, be forgotten that Lady Macbeth is under the stupefying influence of wine, which supports her courage above its natural pitch : Glammis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore Candor Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more! Lady M.--Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, "Macbeth You do unbend your noble strength, to think 66 ful imagination, to place ourselves in the situation of Lady Macbeth after the murder. She had for the occasion screwed up her courage to the sticking-place; but then came the reaction, the relaxing of the fibres, quiv ering with the consciousness of guilt-the reluctance to emerge out of congenial darkness into the chill dull light of day, the apprehension of discovery, the dread necessity of regarding all around her henceforward as enemies. Crime is a sort of terminal figure with two faces, of which the one turned to wards you in the approach is full of meretricious smiles and fascination, but when you have taken the fatal step which carries you within view of the other face, you behold its every muscle distorted by misery and despair, and encircled by the writhing and hissing snakes of hell. It was with this hideous aspect that their deed now glared upon Macbeth and his wife, and they felt within their inmost soul that "Nor poppy, nor mandragora, any particular attention to the affair, that in the eyes of those around him he may appear to be so completely smitten with the king's tragical death, as to be altogether incapable of thought or reflection. After this, Lady Macbeth gradually recedes from the eyes of the spectator, and the play, as every one must feel, descends to a lower level. She is, in fact, the informing soul of the tragedy, and where her presence is neither seen nor felt, the poetry loses much of its grandeur and vitality. The scenes at Macduff's castle, with Malcolm in England, and even with the Witches, may be regarded as proof of this. Why Shakspeare, in the latter parts of the tragedy, should not have made more use of Lady Macbeth, is not perhaps susceptible of explanation; but that the character was not worn out, that it might have continued much longer to blaze in lurid brightness beside that of the tyrant, no one, 1 think, can doubt. However, the moral of the tragedy is complete as it is, though as a help to our imagination we might have wished to be admitted more freely into the unhappy queen's confidence. All we are permitted to know is, that she underwent at intervals, if not perpetually, the lash of the furies, that she shunned society, more especially that of her own sex, though, as would from many circumstances appear, she is not repaid for these sacrifices by the entire confidence of her husband. This we gather from what takes place in reference to the murder of Banquo, her connection with which is exceedingly peculiar. She does not know the whole scope of her husband's intention, but she evidently suspects his crime, and seems not to be unwilling he should hit the mark. Shakspeare probably experienced some difficulty in co But there is an elasticity in human nature, and a power of endurance, which enable it, up to a certain point, to face the exigencies of its situation, whatever those may be. The fear of overwhelming evil impending, gave Lady Macbeth the power to play through her fearful part the morning after the murder. It would be expected that on hearing of the bloody business which had been that night transacted in her castle, she should display a woman's weakness, and therefore on its being told her, her nervous sensibility appears to receive a grievous blow, and she skilfully shams fainting. Shakspeare says she faints, but that it is only in ap-ordinating those two evil characters, and pearance, and agreeably to a plan formed between her and her husband, seems clear from the circumstances. Had her fainting been real, Macbeth for many reasons would have been the first to attend to her, because in the confusion of sense attendant on her return to consciousness she might have uttered words calculated to betray their guilt, as she does afterwards while walking in her sleep before the doctor and her lady in waiting. Again, as after his peculiar fashion, if he really loved her, mere animal instinct would have impelled him to her side, to say nothing of the natural feeling of sympathy. But he knows she is acting, and therefore suffers her to be carried out by others, without paying seems occasionally to have been at a loss to which of them he should attribute the greater wickedness. Both are perpetually meditating on crime, musing back in their memories to its commission, or anticipating it in fancy. Macbeth is the incarnate principle of selfishness, though affection for his wife appears sometimes to play over his rugged countenance, like lightning over a dark rock, rendering it bright, but at the same time revealing its native deformity. Egotism never before clothed itself in so fearful a form. To enable him to perform in peace the humblest functions of life, his passions would dissolve the whole fabric of nature, and introduce irremediable confusion into time and eternity. |