can be founded no common rule. If any man shall ask, how then came it to pass that the English won so many great battles, having no advantage to help him? I may, with best commendation of modesty, refer him to the French historian, who, relating the victory of our men at Crevant, where they passed a bridge in face of the enemy, useth these words: The English comes with a conquering bravery, as he that was accustomed to gain everywhere without any stay: he forceth our guard placed upon the bridge to keep the passage,' (Jean de Serres.) Ŏr may I cite another place of the same author, where he tells how the Bretons being in vaded by Charles VIII., King of France, thought it good policy to apparel 1,500 of their own men in English cassocks, hoping that the very sight of the English red-cross would be enough to terrify the French. "But I will not stoop to borrow of French historians, (all of which, excepting de Serres and Paulus Æmilius, report wonders of our nation,) the proposition which I first undertook to maintain, that the military virtue of the English, prevailing against all manner of difficulties, ought to be preferred before that of the Romans, which was assisted with all advantages that could be desired. If it be demanded, why then did not our kings finish the conquest as Cæsar had done? My answer may be (I 1.ope without offence) that our kings were like to the race of the acidæ, of whom the old poet Ennius gave this note, Bellipotentes sunt magè quam sapientipotentes,' they were more warlike than politic. Whoso notes their proceedings may find that none of them went to work like a conqueror, save only King Henry V., the course of whose victories it pleased God to interrupt by his death." Sir Walter is unquestionably in the right; to excel in the use of arms is a legitimate and highly commendable portion of the art of war, and, of itself, a species of triumph. But to maintain a permanent superiority we must look to national characters, the "mettle of the pasture," to that indomitable persistive hardihood which will continue the birthright of the British, as long as they maintain their freedom. The mere mechanical advantages of weapons, of which any prudent people will instinctively avail themselves, is not to be put in competition with the "golden metal" of the soldier's heart; different nations have different good as well as bad qualities; the French soldier may yield to none in the activity and fury of his attack; but his British adversary surpasses him in enduring perseverance. M. Louandre, in enumerating the causes which contributed to the victory at Cressy, but directing his eye, perhaps, to events of later occurrence, mentions as one, "la belle position militaire qu'ils avoient choisie et dans laquelle ils attendoient qu'on vint les attaquer, selon leur habitude dans tous les tems, sans en excepter le notre." This practice was not invariable, because at Agincourt the English were the assailants; it is indeed true that Henry had awaited an attack from the enemy, until his patience was exhausted, and as a general rule the assertion is probably well founded. At any rate, to take up a good military position is the first step to success, and a proof of good generalship to begin with; but if it has been the usual practice of the English, it has been so, because they have usually been the weaker party in point of numbers, and consequently prudence prescribed the adoption of such a measure. Take an early instance,-that of Harold at Hastings, although eager to engage, yet finding himself in presence of an enemy of three times his force, he immediately assumed the defensive; and with such tenacity did the English Saxons maintain their position, with such effect were wielded those "sævissimæ secures," the seaxes, or battle-axes, said to have been the origin of their name, that the fortune of the day appeared all but pronounced against the Norman invader. The loss of their brave leader, and the absence of any other iron-nerved chief, gifted with the patient and steady judgment that will coolly await the decisive moment, the eagle glance to espy it, and the firm resolve to give the magic word "up," were fatal. Harold's Saxons were tempted prematurely to change the defensive into the pursuit; they quitted their position and perished accordingly. But, What though the field be lost, All is not lost! the unconquerable willAnd courage never to submit or yield. Saxon perseverance has in the end achieved a moral victory; the institutions, the language, the spirit, and the name, have triumphed, and are carrying irresistibly the effects of their victory into the remotest corners of the globe. Contrast with this, the national character of their neighbors, the Gauls. How quietly did they acquiesce in the domination of their Frankish, or Norman masters, and hug the chains of the feudal system,— with what satisfaction did they assume and glory in the name of Francs, although in truth it was but the badge of their subjection? not less willingly and tamely had they previously sunk into Roman subjects, "post decennalis belli mutuas clades subjegit Cæsar, societatique nostra fœderibus junxit æternis." Those ten years of desperate struggle preparatory to their fall, were indeed like their furious onset at a single battle, which, if unsuccessful, rapidly changes into disorder and despair. Such onsets have ever been terrible, and no proofs of bravery have been given by any nation surpassing those recorded of the Gauls. Cæsar himself has told us what passed under his own eyes, while he stood in admiration of the daring deeds displayed at the siege of Bourges: "Inspectantibus ipsis dignum memoriâ visum prætermittendum non existimavimus." Yet for want of the quality of patient determination, this brilliant gallantry has repeatedly been thrown away. Such is the secret of Saxon superiority, if indeed it can be called a secret which is known and acknowledged, and fears no concealment, like some patent monopoly, for it is incapable of being counterfeited-it is the genuine, inherent, inimitable characteristic of the race. Nor are these distinguishing qualities confined to particular times, or peculiar places on the globe-look when and where you will, and the same traits are discernible-the Gallic character is nowhere better described than in the oration of Manlius to his army, when, nearly two centuries before our era, he was preparing to attack the Gauls of Asia. He allowed the enemy all his martial virtues, somewhat deteriorated, perhaps, by contact or fusion with imbecile Asiatic tribes:"ferox natio, pervagata bello prope orbem terrarum ;" as the description proceeds, we have the exact picture of the Gaul, when his ardor has evaporated, and he begins to yield to despair;-" jam usu hoc cognitum est. Si primum impetum quem fervido ingenio et cæcâ irâ effundunt, sustinueris-labant arma -molles, ubi ira consedit, animi," &c. The Saxon, in similarly remote times and places, has given instances of his own peculiar temperament and qualifications; and once more to recall our good old Marathonian reminiscences, whom do we find on that plain by the side of the veterans of the great Cyrus, while the rest of the enormous army of Persia was overthrown right and left of them, whom do we find alone, making a successful resistance to the Greeks, but a body of the Asiatic Saca-the distant, but by all accounts, the indisputable forefathers of the Saxon race ? TRAJAN'S FORUM.-UNHAPPY MISTAKE. ONE of the few visitors we have just now, in Rome was nearly undergoing, on the 6th October, the punishment so familiar in the Christian martyrology, where it records of a saint that he was "damnatus ad bestias." There exists round Trajan's Pillar a deep excavation, the walls of which are perpendicular, but adorned with various fragments of antiquity; and many granite columns upheave their broken shafts through the soil, marking the site of the forum or marketplace of that Emperor. For years past the people of the adjacent streets have been in the habit of getting rid of their superfluous cats and kittens by the simple process of throwing them down into the Forum Trajani,-a plan which saved the trouble of a walk to the Tiber, or the cruelty of killing. But they overlooked the far more cruel result of their lingering starvation, or the internecine atrocity of their devouring each other. The foreign connoisseur, unconscious of a practice which all residents were aware of, contrived to let himself down into the area of Trajan's Market Place, and was forthwith beleaguered by several dozen wild, starved, and rabid cats, who tore at him in the most desperate way. His shrieks from below drew notice, and happily a ladder was found which he had scarce strength left to crawl up. The Pallade of the following morning regrets to add that he turns out not to be a German." From Tait's Magazine. CHARACTER OF LADY MACBETH. BY JAMES AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN, Author of the "History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece,” &c. &c. FROM Shakspeare's days to our own, criti- | 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. 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 Scotland, a prey to foreign invasion and more than impregnate and quicken it. Then, civil broils, presents, when Macbeth first however, it was that he became fully conscious comes befores us, the startling picture of a of his own flagitious design, and began to look country overlaid with superstition and bar- it steadily in the face. He compared his barism, illuminated dimly in parts by intel-youth and energy, his prowess in the field, lectual 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 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 afterwards 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 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. 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 Enter LADY MACBETH. "Lady M.-He hath almost supp'd: Why have you left the chamber? "Macbeth.-Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. Know you not, he has ? "Macbeth.-We will proceed no farther in this business: |