Volume 66 / Part 1 — Dies Boreales.

No. V.

CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS.

Camp at Cladich.

Scene—The Pavilion. Time—After breakfast.

North—Talboys—Seward—Buller.

NORTH.

I begin to be doubtful of this day. On your visits to us, Talboys, you have been most unfortunate in weather. This is more like August than June.

TALBOYS.

The very word, my dear sir. It is indeed most august weather.

NORTH.

Five weeks to-day since we pitched our Camp—and we have had the Beautiful of the Year in all its varieties; but the spiteful Season seems to owe you some old grudge, Talboys—and to make it a point still to assail your arrival with "thunder, lightning, and with rain."

TALBOYS.

"I tax not you, ye Elements! with unkindness." I feel assured they mean nothing personal to me—and though this sort of work may not be very favourable to Angling, 'tis quite a day for tidying our Tackle—and making up our Books. But don't you think, sir, that the Tent would look nothing the worse with some artificial light in this obscuration of the natural?

NORTH.

Put on the gas. Pretty invention, the Gutta Percha tube, isn't it? The Electric Telegraph is nothing to it. Tent illuminated in a moment, at a pig's whisper.

TALBOYS.

Were I to wish, sir, for anything to happen now to the weather at all, it would be just ever so little toning down of that one constituent of the orchestral harmony of the Storm which men call—howling. The Thunder is perfect—but that one Wind Instrument is slightly out of tune—he is most anxious to do his best—his motive is unimpeachable; but he has no idea how much more impressive—how much more popular—would be a somewhat subdued style. There again—that's positive discord—does he mean to disconcert the Concert—or does he forget that he is not a Solo?

BULLER.

That must be a deluge of—hail.

TALBOYS.

So much the better. Hitherto we have had but rain. "Mysterious horrors! Hail!"

NORTH.

Suppose we resume yesterday's conversation?

TALBOYS.

By all manner of means. Let's sit close—and speak loud—else all will be dumb show. The whole world's one waterfall.

NORTH.

Take up Knight on Taste. Look at the dog-ear.

TALBOYS.

"The most perfect instance of this kind is the Tragedy of Macbeth, in which the character of an ungrateful traitor, murderer, usurper, and tyrant, is made in the highest degree interesting by the sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, courage, and tenderness, which continually burst forth in the manly but ineffective struggle of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind, first against the allurements of ambition, and afterwards against the pangs of remorse and horrors of despair. Though his wife has been the cause of all his crimes and sufferings, neither the agony of his distress, nor the fury of his rage, ever draw from him an angry word, or upbraiding expression towards her; but even when, at her instigation, he is about to add the murder of his friend and late colleague to that of his sovereign, kinsman, and benefactor, he is chiefly anxious that she should not share the guilt of his blood:—'Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck! till thou applaud the deed.' How much more real grandeur and exaltation of character is displayed in one such simple expression from the heart, than in all the laboured pomp of rhetorical amplification."

NORTH.

What think you of that, Talboys?

TALBOYS.

Why, like much of the cant of criticism, it sounds at once queer and commonplace. I seem to have heard it before many thousand times, and yet never to have heard it at all till this moment.

NORTH.

Seward?

SEWARD.

Full of audacious assertions, that can be forgiven but in the belief that Payne Knight had never read the tragedy, even with the most ordinary attention.

NORTH.

Buller?

BULLER.

Cursed nonsense. Beg pardon, sir—sink cursed—mere nonsense—out and out nonsense—nonsense by itself nonsense.

NORTH.

How so?

BULLER.

A foolish libel on Shakspeare. Was he the man to make the character of an ungrateful traitor, murderer, usurper, and tyrant, interesting by sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, courage, and tenderness, and—do I repeat the words correctly?—of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind.

NORTH.

Buller—keep up that face—you are positively beautiful—

BULLER.

No quizzing—I am ugly—but I have a good figure—look at that leg, sir!

NORTH.

I prefer the other.

TALBOYS.

There have been Poets among us who fain would—if they could—have so violated nature; but their fabrications have been felt to be falsehoods—and no quackery may resuscitate drowned lies.

NORTH.

Shakspeare nowhere insists on the virtues of Macbeth—he leaves their measure indeterminate. That the villain may have had some good points we are all willing to believe—few people are without them;—nor have I any quarrel with those who believe he had high qualities, and is corrupted by ambition. But what high qualities had he shown before Shakspeare sets him personally before us to judge for ourselves? Valour—courage—intrepidity—call it what you will—Martial Virtue—

The "bleeding Serjeant" pursues his panegyric till he grows faint—and is led off speechless; others take it up—and we are thus—and in other ways—prepared to look on Macbeth as a paragon of bravery, loyalty, and patriotism.

TALBOYS.

So had seemed Cawdor.

NORTH.

Good. Shakspeare sets Macbeth before us under the most imposing circumstances of a warlike age; but of his inner character as yet he has told us nothing—we are to find that out for ourselves during the Drama. If there be sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, and every exalted virtue, we have eyes to see, unless indeed blinded by the lightning—and if the sublime flashes be frequent, and the struggle of every exalted quality that can adorn the human mind, though ineffectual, yet strong—why, then, we must not only pity and forgive, but admire and love the "traitor, murderer, usurper, and tyrant," with all the poetical and philosophical fervour of that amiable enthusiast, Mr Payne Knight.

BULLER.

Somehow or other I cannot help having an affection for Macbeth.

NORTH.

You had better leave the Tent, sir.

BULLER.

No. I won't.

NORTH

Give us then, my dear Buller, your Theory of the Thane's character.

BULLER.

"Theory, God bless you, I have none to give, sir." Warlike valour, as you said, is marked first and last—at the opening, and at the end. Surely a good and great quality, at least for poetical purposes. High general reputation won and held. The opinion of the wounded soldier was that of the whole army; and when he himself says, "I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not thrown aside so soon," I accept that he then truly describes his position in men's minds.

NORTH.

All true. But we soon gain, too, this insight into his constitution, that the pillar upon which he has built up life is Reputation, and not Respect of Law—not Self-Respect; that the point which Shakspeare above all others intends in him, is that his is a spirit not self-stayed—leaning upon outward stays—and therefore—

BULLER.

Liable to all—

NORTH.

Don't take the words out of my mouth, sir; or rather, don't put them into my mouth, sir.

BULLER.

Touchy to-day.

NORTH.

The strongest expression of this character is his throwing himself upon the illicit divinings of futurity, upon counsellors known for infernal; and you see what subjugating sway the Three Spirits take at once over him. On the contrary, the Thaness is self-stayed; and this difference grounds the poetical opposition of the two personages. In Macbeth, I suppose a certain splendour of character—magnificence of action high—a certain impure generosity—mixed up of some kindliness and sympathy, and of the pleasure from self-elation and self-expansion in a victorious career, and of that ambition which feeds on public esteem.

BULLER.

Ay—just so, sir.

NORTH.

Now mark, Buller—this is a character which, if the path of duty and the path of personal ambition were laid out by the Sisters to be one and the same path, might walk through life in sunlight and honour, and invest the tomb with proud and revered trophies. To show such a spirit wrecked and hurled into infamy—the ill-woven sails rent into shreds by the whirlwind—is a lesson worthy the Play and the Poet—and such a lesson as I think Shakspeare likely to have designed—or, without preaching about lessons, such an ethical revelation as I think likely to have caught hold upon Shakspeare's intelligence. It would seem to me a dramatically-poetical subject. The mightiest of temptations occurs to a mind, full of powers, endowed with available moral elements, but without set virtue—without principles—"and down goes all before it." If the essential delineation of Macbeth be this conflict of Moral elements—of good and evil—of light and darkness—I see a very poetical conception; if merely a hardened and bloody hypocrite from the beginning, I see none. But I need not say to you, gentlemen, that all this is as far as may be from the exaggerated panegyric on his character by Payne Knight.

TALBOYS.

Macbeth is a brave man—so is Banquo—so are we Four, brave men—they in their way and day—we in ours—they as Celts and Soldiers—we as Saxons and Civilians—and we had all need to be so—for hark! in the midst of ours, "Thunder and Lightning, and enter Three Witches."

BULLER.

I cannot say that I understand distinctly their first Confabulation.

NORTH.

That's a pity. A sensible man like you should understand everything. But what if Shakspeare himself did not distinctly understand it? There may have been original errata in the report, as extended by himself from notes taken in short-hand on the spot—light bad—noise worse—voices of Weird Sisters worst—matter obscure—manner uncouth—why really, Buller, all things considered, Shakspeare has shown himself a very pretty Penny-a-liner.

BULLER.

I cry you mercy, sir.

SEWARD.

Where are the Witches on their first appearance, at the very opening of the wonderful Tragedy?

NORTH.

An open Place, with thunder and lightning.

SEWARD.

I know that—the words are written down.

NORTH.

Somewhere or other—anywhere—nowhere.

BULLER.

In Fife or Forfar? Or some one or other of your outlandish, or inlandish, Lowland or Highland Counties?

NORTH.

Not knowing, can't say. Probably.

SEWARD

What Hurly Burly? What Battle? That in which Macbeth is then engaged? And which is to be brought to issue ere "set of sun" of the day on which "enter Three Witches?"

NORTH.

Let it be so.

SEWARD.

The Witches, then, are to meet with Macbeth on the heath on the Evening of the Battle?

NORTH.

It would seem so.

SEWARD.

They are "posters over sea and land"—and, like whiffs of lightning, can outsail and outride the sound of thunder. But Macbeth and Banquo must have had on their seven-league boots.

NORTH.

They must.

SEWARD.

Was he with the advanced guard of the Army?

NORTH.

Not unlikely—attended by his Staff. Generals, on such occasions, usually ride—but perhaps Macbeth and Banquo, being in kilts, preferred walking in their seven-league boots. Thomas Campbell has said, "When the drum of the Scottish Army is heard on the wild heath, and when I fancy it advancing with its bowmen in front, and its spears and banners in the distance, I am always disappointed with Macbeth's entrance at the head of a few kilted actors." The army may have been there—but they did not see the Weirds—nor, I believe, did the Weirds see them. With Macbeth and Banquo alone had they to do: we see no Army at that hour—we hear no drums—we are deaf even to the Great Highland Bagpipe, though He, you may be sure, was not dumb—all "plaided and plumed in their tartan array" the Highland Host ceased to be—like vanished shadows—at the first apparition of "those so withered and so wild in their attire"—not of the earth though on it, and alive somewhere till this day—while generations after generations of mere Fighting Men have been disbanded by dusty Death.

SEWARD.

I wish to know where and when had been the Fighting? The Norwegian—one Sweno, had come down very handsomely at Inchcolm with ten thousand dollars—a sum in those days equal to a million of money in Scotland——

NORTH.

Seward, speak on subjects you understand. What do you know, sir, of the value of money in those days in Scotland?

SEWARD.

But where had been all the Fighting? There would seem to have been two hurley-burleys.

NORTH.

I see your drift, Seward. Time and Place, through the First Scene of the First Act, are past finding out. It has been asked—Was Shakspeare ever in Scotland? Never. There is not one word in this Tragedy leading a Scotsman to think so—many showing he never had that happiness. Let him deal with our localities according to his own sovereign will and pleasure, as a prevailing Poet. But let no man point out his dealings with our localities as proofs of his having such knowledge of them as implies personal acquaintance with them gained by a longer or shorter visit in Scotland. The Fights at the beginning seem to be in Fife. The Soldier, there wounded, delivers his relation at the King's Camp before Forres. He has crawled, in half-an-hour, or an hour—or two hours—say seventy, eighty, or a hundred miles, or more—crossing the ridge of the Grampians. Rather smart. I do not know what you think here of Time; but I think that Space is here pretty well done for. The Time of the Action of Shakspeare's Plays has never yet, so far as I know, been, in any one Play, carefully investigated—never investigated at all; and I now announce to you Three—don't mention it—that I have made discoveries here that will astound the whole world, and demand a New Criticism of the entire Shakspearean Drama.

BULLER.

Let us have one now, I beseech you, sir.

NORTH.

Not now.

BULLER.

No sleep in the Tent till we have it, sir. I do dearly love astounding discoveries—and at this time of day, in astounding discovery in Shakspeare! May it not prove a Mare's Nest!

NORTH.

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a prodigious Tragedy, because in it the Chariot of Nemesis visibly rides in the lurid thunder-sky. Because in it the ill motions of a human soul, which Theologians account for by referring them all to suggestions of Beelzebub, are expounded in visible, mysterious, tangible, terrible shape and symbolisation by the Witches. It is great by the character and person, workings and sufferings, of Lady Macbeth—by the immense poetical power in doing the Witches—mingling for once in the world the Homely-Grotesque and the Sublime—extinguishing the Vulgar in the Sublime—by the bond, whatsoever it be, between Macbeth and his wife—by making us tolerate her and him——

BULLER.

Didn't I say that in my own way, sir? And didn't you reprove me for saying it, and order me out of the Tent?

NORTH.

And what of the Witches?

BULLER.

Had you not stopt me. I say now, sir, that nobody understands Shakspeare's Hecate. Who is She? Each of the Three Weirds is = one Witch + one of the Three Fates—therefore the union of two incompatible natures—more than in a Centaur. Oh! Sir! what a hand that was which bound the two into one—inseverably! There they are for ever as the Centaurs are. But the gross Witch prevails; which Shakspeare needed for securing belief, and he has it, full. Hecate, sir, comes in to balance the disproportion—she lifts into Mythology—and strengthens the mythological tincture. So does the "Pit of Acheron." That is classical. To the best of my remembrance, no mention of any such Pit in the Old or New Statistical Account of Scotland.

NORTH.

And, in the Incantation Scene, those Apparitions! Mysterious, ominous, picturesque—and self-willed. They are commanded by the Witches, but under a limitation. Their oracular power is their own. They are of unknown orders—as if for the occasion created in Hell.

North.

Talboys, are you asleep—or are you at Chess with your eyes shut?

TALBOYS.

At Chess with my eyes shut. I shall send off my move to my friend Stirling by first post. But my ears were open—and I ask—when did Macbeth first design the murder of Duncan? Does not everybody think—in the moment after the Witches have first accosted and left him? Does not—it may be asked—the whole moral significancy of the Witches disappear, unless the invasion of hell into Macbeth's bosom is first made by their presence and voices?

NORTH.

No. The whole moral significancy of the Witches only then appears, when we are assured that they address themselves only to those who already have been tampering with their conscience. "Good sir! why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?" That question put to Macbeth by Banquo turns our eyes to his face—and we see Guilt. There was no start at "Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor,"—but at the word "King" well might he start; for —— eh?

TALBOYS.

We must look up the Scene.

NORTH.

No need for that. You have it by heart—recite it.

TALBOYS.

[Witches vanish.

NORTH.

Charles Kemble himself could not have given it more impressively.

BULLER.

You make him blush, sir.

NORTH.

Attend to that "start" of Macbeth, Talboys.

TALBOYS.

He might well start on being told of a sudden, by such seers, that he was hereafter to be King of Scotland.

NORTH.

There was more in the start than that, my lad, else Shakspeare would not have so directed our eyes to it. I say again—it was the start—of a murderer.

TALBOYS.

And what if I say it was not? But I have the candour to confess, that I am not familiar with the starts of murderers—so may possibly be mistaken.

NORTH.

Omit what intervenes—and give us the Soliloquy, Talboys. But before you do so, let me merely remind you that Macbeth's mind, from the little he says in the interim, is manifestly ruminating on something bad, ere he breaks out into Soliloquy.

TALBOYS.

NORTH.

Now, my dear Talboys, you will agree with me in thinking that this first great and pregnant, although brief soliloquy, stands for germ, type, and law of the whole Play, and of its criticism—and for clue to the labyrinth of the Thane's character. "Out of this wood do not desire to go." Out of it I do not expect soon to go. I regard William as a fair Poet and a reasonable Philosopher; but as a supereminent Play-wright. The First Soliloquy must speak the nature of Macbeth, else the Craftsman has no skill in his trade. A Soliloquy reveals. That is its function. Therein is the soul heard and seen discoursing with itself—within itself; and if you carry your eye through—up to the First Appearance of Lady Macbeth—this Soliloquy is distinctly the highest point of the Tragedy—the tragic acme—or dome—or pinnacle—therefore of power indefinite, infinite. On this rock I stand, a Colossus ready to be thrown down by—an Earthquake.

BULLER.

Pushed off by—a shove.

NORTH.

Not by a thousand Buller-power. Can you believe, Buller, that the word of the Third Witch, "that shalt be King Hereafter," sows the murder in Macbeth's heart, and that it springs up, flowers, and fruits with such fearful rapidity.

BULLER.

Why—Yes and No.

NORTH.

Attend, Talboys, to the words "supernatural soliciting." What "supernatural soliciting" to evil is there here? Not a syllable had the Weird Sisters breathed about Murder. But now there is much soliloquising—and Cawdor contemplates himself objectively—seen busy upon an elderly gentleman called Duncan—after a fashion that so frightens him subjectively—that Banquo cannot help whispering to Rosse and Angus—

TALBOYS.

"My thought whose murder's yet fantastical." I agree with you, sir, in suspecting he must have thought of the murder.

NORTH.

It is from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters—whom I never set eyes on but once, and then without interchanging a word, leapt momentarily out of this world into that pitch-pot of a pond in Glenco—it is, I say, from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters that I take this view of Macbeth's character. No "sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, tenderness, and every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind," do I ever suffer to pass by without approbation, when coruscating from the character of any well-disposed man, real or imaginary, however unaccountable at other times his conduct may appear to be; but Shakspeare, who knew Macbeth better than any of us, has here assured us that he was in heart a murderer—for how long he does not specify—before he had ever seen a birse on any of the Weird Sisters' beards. But let's be canny. Talboys—pray, what is the meaning of the word "soliciting," "preternatural soliciting," in this Soliloquy?

TALBOYS.

Soliciting, sir, is, in my interpreting, "an appealing, intimate visitation."

NORTH.

Right. The appeal is general—as that challenge of a trumpet—Fairy Queen, book III., canto xii., stanza 1—

which, all indeterminate, is notwithstanding a challenge—operates, and is felt as such.

TALBOYS.

So a thundering knock at your door—which may be a friend or an enemy. It comes as a summoning. It is more than internal urging and inciting of me by my own thoughts—for mark, sir, the rigour of the word "supernatural," which throws the soliciting off his own soul upon the Weirds. The word is really undetermined to pleasure or pain—the essential thought being that there is a searching or penetrating provocative—a stirring up of that which lay dead and still. Next is the debate whether this intrusive, and pungent, and stimulant assault of a presence and an oracle be good or ill?

NORTH.

Does the hope live in him for a moment that this home-visiting is not ill—that the Spirits are not ill? They have spoken truth so far—ergo, the Third "All hail!" shall be true, too. But more than that—they have spoken truth. Ergo, they are not spirits of Evil. That hope dies in the same instant, submerged in the stormy waves which the blast from hell arouses. The infernal revelation glares clear before him—a Crown held out by the hand of Murder. One or two struggles occur. Then the truth stands before him fixed and immutable—"Evil, be thou my good." He is dedicated: and passive to fate. I cannot comprehend this so feeble debate in the mind of a good man—I cannot comprehend any such debate at all in the mind of a previously settled and determined murderer; but I can comprehend and feel its awful significancy in the mind of a man already in a most perilous moral condition.

SEWARD.

The "start" shows that the spark has caught—it has fallen into a tun of gunpowder.

TALBOYS.

The touch of Ithuriel's spear.

NORTH.

May we not say, then, that perhaps the Witches have shown no more than this—the Fascination of Contact between Passion and Opportunity?

SEWARD.

To Philosophy reading the hieroglyphic; but to the People what? To them they are a reality. They seize the imagination with all power. They come like "blasts from hell"—like spirits of Plague, whose breath—whose very sight kills.

The contagion of their presence, in spite of what we have been saying, almost reconciles my understanding to what it would otherwise revolt from, the suddenness with which the penetration of Macbeth into futurity lays fast hold upon Murder.

BULLER.

Pretty fast—though it gives a twist or two in his handling.

SEWARD.

Lady Macbeth herself corroborates your judgment and Shakspeare's on her husband's character.

TALBOYS.

Does she?

SEWARD.

She does. In that dreadful parley between them on the night of the Murder—she reminds him of a time when

This—mark you, sir—must have been before the Play began!

NORTH.

I have often thought of the words—and Shakspeare himself has so adjusted the action of the Play as that, since the encounter with the Weirds, no opportunity had occurred to Macbeth for the "making of time and place." Therefore it must, as you say, have been before it. Buller, what say you now?

BULLER.

Gagged.

NORTH.

True, she speaks of his being "full of the milk of human kindness." The words have become favourites with us, who are an affectionate and domestic people—and are lovingly applied to the loving; but Lady Macbeth attached no such profound sense to them as we do; and meant merely that she thought her husband would, after all, much prefer greatness unbought by blood; and, at the time she referred to, it is probable he would; but that she meant no more than that, is plain from the continuation of her praise, in which her ideas get not a little confused; and her words, interpret them as you will, leave nothing "milky" in Macbeth at all. Milk of human kindness, indeed!

TALBOYS.

That is her Ladyship's notion of the "milk of human kindness"! "I wish somebody would murder Duncan—as for murdering him myself, I am much too tender-hearted and humane for perpetrating such cruelty with my own hand!"

BULLER.

Won't you believe a Wife to be a good judge of her Husband's disposition?

NORTH.

Not Lady Macbeth. For does not she herself tell us, at the same time, that he had formerly schemed how to commit Murder?

BULLER.

Gagged again.

NORTH.

I see no reason for doubting that she was attached to her husband; and Shakspeare loved to put into the lips of women beautiful expressions of love—but he did not intend that we should be deceived thereby in our moral judgements.

SEWARD.

Did this ever occur to you, sir? Macbeth, when hiring the murderers who are to look after Banquo and Fleance, cites a conversation in which he had demonstrated to them that the oppression under which they had long suffered, and which they had supposed to proceed from Macbeth, proceeded really from Banquo? My firm belief is that it proceeded from Macbeth—that their suspicion was right—that Macbeth is misleading them—and that Shakspeare means you to apprehend this. But why should Macbeth have oppressed his inferiors, unless he had been—long since—of a tyrannical nature? He oppresses his inferiors—they are sickened and angered with the world—by his oppression—he tells them 'twas not he but another who had oppressed them—and that other—at his instigation—they willingly murder. An ugly affair altogether.

NORTH.

Very. But let us keep to the First Act—and see what a hypocrite Macbeth has so very soon become—what a savage assassin! He has just followed up his Soliloquy with these significant lines—

when he recollects that Banquo, Rosse, and Angus are standing near. Richard himself is not more wily—guily—smily—and oily; to the Lords his condescension is already quite kingly—

TALBOYS.

And soon after, to the King how obsequious!

What would Payne Knight have said to all that? This to his King, whom he has resolved, first good opportunity, to murder!

NORTH.

Duncan is now too happy for this wicked world.

Invaders—traitors—now there are none. Peace is restored to the Land—the Throne rock-fast—the line secure—

Now was the time for "the manly but ineffectual struggle of every exalted quality that can dignify and exalt the human mind"—for a few sublime flashes at least of generosity and tenderness, et cetera—now when the Gracious Duncan is loading him with honours, and, better than all honours, lavishing on him the boundless effusions of a grateful and royal heart. The Prince of Cumberland! Ha, ha!

But the remorseless miscreant becomes poetical—

The milk of human kindness has coagulated into the curd of inhuman ferocity—and all this—slanderers say—is the sole work of the Weird Sisters! No. His wicked heart—because it is wicked—believes in their Prophecy—the end is assured to him—and the means are at once suggested to his own slaughterous nature. No supernatural soliciting here, which a better man would not successfully have resisted. I again repudiate—should it be preferred against me—the charge of a tendresse towards the Bearded Beauties of the Blasted Heath; but rather would I marry them all Three—one after the other—nay all three at once, and as many more as there may be in our Celtic Mythology—than see your Sophia, Seward, or, Buller, your—

BULLER.

We have but Marmy.

NORTH.

Wedded to a Macbeth.

SEWARD.

We know your affection, my dear sir, for your goddaughter. She is insured.

NORTH.

Well, this Milk of Human Kindness is off at a hand-gallop to Inverness. The King has announced a Royal Visit to Macbeth's own Castle. But Cawdor had before this despatched a letter to his lady, from which Shakspeare has given us an extract. And then, as I understand it, a special messenger besides, to say "the King comes here to-night." Which of the two is the more impatient to be at work 'tis hard to say; but the idea of the murder originated with the male Prisoner. We have his wife's word for it—she told him so to his face—and he did not deny it. We have his own word for it—he told himself so to his own face—and he never denies it at any time during the play.

TALBOYS.

You said, a little while ago, sir, that you believed Macbeth and his wife were a happy couple.

NORTH.

Not I. I said she was attached to him—and I say now that the wise men are not of the Seven, who point to her reception of her husband, on his arrival at home, as a proof of her want of affection. They seem to think she ought to have rushed into his arms—slobbered upon his shoulder—and so forth. For had he not been at the Wars? Pshaw! The most tender-hearted Thanesses of those days—even those that kept albums—would have been ashamed of weeping on sending their Thanes off to battle—much more on receiving them back in a sound skin—with new honours nodding on their plumes. Lady Macbeth was not one of the turtle-doves—fit mate she for the King of the Vultures. I am too good an ornithologist to call them Eagles. She received her mate fittingly—with murder in her soul; but more cruel—more selfish than he, she could not be—nor, perhaps, was she less; but she was more resolute—and resolution even in evil—in such circumstances as hers—seems to argue a superior nature to his, who, while he keeps vacillating, as if it were between good and evil, betrays all the time the bias that is surely inclining him to evil, into which he makes a sudden and sure wheel at last.

BULLER.

The Weirds—the Weirds!—the Weirds have done it all!

NORTH.

Macbeth—Macbeth!—Macbeth has done it all!

BULLER.

Furies and Fates!

NORTH.

Who make the wicked their victims!

SEWARD.

Is she sublime in her wickedness?

NORTH.

It would, I fear, be wrong to say so. But I was speaking of Macbeth's character—not of hers—and, in comparison with him, she may seem a great creature. They are now utterly alone—and of the two he has been the more familiar with murder. Between them, Duncan already is a dead man. But how pitiful—at such a time and at such a greeting—Macbeth's cautions—

Why, Talboys, does not the poor devil—

TALBOYS.

Poor devil! Macbeth a poor devil?

NORTH.

Why, Buller, does not the poor devil?

BULLER.

Poor devil! Macbeth a poor devil?

NORTH.

Why, Seward, does not the poor devil—

SEWARD.

Speak up—speak out? Is he afraid of the spiders? You know him, sir—you see through him.

NORTH.

Ay, Seward—reserved and close as he is—he wants nerve—pluck—he is close upon the coward—and that would be well, were there the slightest tendency towards change of purpose in the Pale Face; but there is none—he is as cruel as ever—the more close the more cruel—the more irresolute the more murderous—for to murder he is sure to come. Seward, you said well—why does not the poor devil speak up—speak out? Is he afraid of the spiders?

TALBOYS.

Murderous-looking villain—no need of words.

NORTH.

I did not say, sir, there was any need of words. Why, will you always be contradicting one?

TALBOYS.

Me? I? I hope I shall never live to see the day on which I contradict Christopher North in his own Tent. At least—rudely.

NORTH.

Do it rudely—not as you did now—and often do—as if you were agreeing with me—but you are incurable. I say, my dear Talboys, that Macbeth so bold in a "twa-haun'd crack" with himself in a Soliloquy—so figurative—and so fond of swearing by the Stars and old Mother Night, who were not aware of his existence—should not have been thus tongue-tied to his own wife in their own secretest chamber—should have unlocked and flung open the door of his heart to her—like a Man. I blush for him—I do. So did his wife.

BULLER.

I don't find that in the record.

NORTH.

Don't you? "Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters." She sees in his face self-alarm at his own murderous intentions. And so she counsels him about his face—like a self-collected, trustworthy woman. "To beguile the time, look like the time;" with further good stern advice. But—"We shall speak farther," is all she can get from him in answer to conjugal assurances that should have given him a palpitation at the heart, and set his eyes on fire—

There spoke one worthy to be a Queen!

SEWARD.

Worthy!

NORTH.

Ay—in that age—in that country. 'Twas not then the custom "to speak daggers but use none." Did Shakspeare mean to dignify, to magnify Macbeth by such demeanour? No—to degrade and minimise the murderer.

TALBOYS.

My dear sir, I cordially agree with every word you utter. Go on—my dear sir—to instruct—to illumine—

SEWARD.

To bring out "sublime flashes of magnanimity, courage, tenderness," in Macbeth—

BULLER.

"Of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind"—the mind of Macbeth in his struggle with the allurements of ambition!

NORTH.

Observe, how this reticence—on the part of Macbeth—contrasted with his wife's eagerness and exultation, makes her, for the moment, seem the wickeder of the two—the fiercer and the more cruel. For the moment only; for we soon ask ourselves what means this un-husbandly reserve in him who had sent her that letter—and then a messenger to tell her the king was coming—and who had sworn to himself as savagely as she now does, not to let slip this opportunity of cutting his king's throat. He is well-pleased to see that his wife is as bloody-minded as himself—that she will not only give all necessary assistance—as an associate—but concert the when, and the where, and the how—and if need be, with her own hand deal the blow.

SEWARD.

She did not then know that Macbeth had made up his mind to murder Duncan that very night. But we know it. She has instantly made up hers—we know how; but being as yet unassured of her husband, she welcomes him home with a Declaration that must have more than answered his fondest hopes; and, therefore, he is almost mute—the few words he does utter seem to indicate no settled purpose—Duncan may fulfil his intention of going in the morning, or he may not; but we know that the silence of the murderer now is because the murderess is manifestly all he could wish—and that, had she shown any reluctance, he would have resumed his eloquence, and, to convert her to his way of thinking, argued as powerfully as he did when converting himself.

BULLER.

You carry on at such a pace, sir, there's no keeping up with you. Pull up, that I may ask you a very simple question. On his arrival at his castle, Macbeth finds his wife reading a letter from her amiable spouse, about the Weird Sisters. Pray, when was that letter written?

NORTH.

At what hour precisely? That I can't say. It must, however, have been written before Macbeth had been presented to the King—for there is no allusion in it to the King's intention to visit their Castle. I believe it to have been written about an hour or so after the prophecy of the Weirds—either in some place of refreshment by the roadside—or in such a Tent as this—kept ready for the General in the King's Camp at Forres. He despatched it by a Gilly—a fast one like your Cornwall Clipper—and then tumbled in.

BULLER.

When did she receive it?

NORTH.

Early next morning.

BULLER.

How could that be, since she is reading it, as her husband steps in, well on, as I take it, in the afternoon?

NORTH.

Buller, you are a blockhead. There had she, for many hours, been sitting, and walking about with it, now rumpled up in her fist—now crunkled up between her breasts—now locked up in a safe—now spread out like a sampler on that tasty little oak table—and sometimes she might have been heard by the servants—had they had the unusual curiosity to listen at the door—murmuring like a stock-dove—anon hooting like an owl—by-and-by barking like an eagle—then bellowing liker a hart than a hind—almost howling like a wolf—and why not?—now singing a snatch of an old Gaelic air, with a clear, wild, sweet voice, like that of "a human!"

BULLER.

Grand indeed.

NORTH.

It is grand indeed. But, my dear Buller, was that all she had said to herself, think you? No—no—no. But it was all Shakspeare had time for on the Stage. Oh, sirs! The Time of the Stage is but a simulacrum of true Time. That must be done at one stroke, on the Stage, which in a Life takes ten. The Stage persuades that in one conversation, or soliloquy, which Life may do in twenty—you have not leisure or good-will for the ambages and iterations of the Real.

SEWARD.

See an artist with a pen in his hand, challenged; and with a few lines he will exhibit a pathetic story. From how many millions has he given you—One? The units which he abstracts, represent sufficiently and satisfactorily the millions of lines and surfaces which he neglects.

NORTH.

So in Poetry. You take little for much. You need not wonder, then, that on an attendant entering and saying, "The King comes here to-night," she cries, "Thou'rt mad to say it!" Had you happened to tell her so half-an-hour ago, who knows but that she might have received it with a stately smile, that hardly moved a muscle on her high-featured front, and gave a merciful look to her green eyes even when she was communing with Murder!

NORTH.

What hurry and haste had been on all sides to get into the House of Murder!

Ay, where is the Thane of Cawdor? I, for one, not knowing, can't say. The gracious Duncan desires much to see him as well as his gracious Hostess.

Ay—where's the Thane of Cawdor? Why did not Shakspeare show him to us, sitting at supper with the King?

TALBOYS.

Did he sup with the King?

BULLER.

I believe he sat down—but got up again—and left the Chamber.

TALBOYS.

His wife seeks him out. "He has almost supped. Why have you left the Chamber?" "Has he asked for me?" "Know ye not he has?"

NORTH.

On Macbeth's Soliloquy, which his wife's entrance here interrupts, how much inconsiderate comment have not moralists made! Here—they have said—is the struggle of a good man with temptation. Hearken, say they—to the voice of Conscience! What does the good man, in this hour of trial, say to himself? He says to himself—"I have made up my mind to assassinate my benefactor in my own house—the only doubt I have, is about the consequences to myself in the world to come." Well, then—"We'd jump the world to come. But if I murder him—may not others murder me? Retribution even in this world." Call you that the voice of Conscience?

SEWARD.

Hardly.

NORTH.

He then goes on to descant to himself about the relation in which he stands to Duncan, and apparently discovers for the first time, that "he's here in double trust;" and that as his host, his kinsman, and his subject, he should "against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself."

SEWARD.

A man of genius.

NORTH.

Besides, Duncan is not only a King, but a good King—

That is much better morality—keep there, Macbeth—or thereabouts—and Duncan's life is tolerably safe—at least for one night. But Shakspeare knew his man—and what manner of man he is we hear in the unbearable context, that never yet has been quoted by any one who had ears to distinguish between the true and the false.

Cant and fustian. Shakspeare knew that cant and fustian would come at that moment from the mouth of Macbeth. Accordingly, he offers but a poor resistance to the rhetoric that comes rushing from his wife's heart—even that sentiment which is thought so fine—and 'tis well enough in its way—

is set aside at once by—

We hear no more of "Pity like a naked new-born babe"—but at her horrid scheme of the murder—

Shakspeare does not paint here a grand and desperate struggle between good and evil thoughts in Macbeth's mind—but a mock fight; had there been any deep sincerity in the feeling expressed in the bombast—had there been any true feeling at all—it would have revived and deepened—not faded and died almost—at the picture drawn by Lady Macbeth of their victim—

the words that had just left his own lips—

would have re-rung in his ears; and a strange medley—words and music—would they have made—with his wife's

That is my idea of the Soliloquy. Think on it.

TALBOYS.

The best critics tell us that Shakspeare's Lady Macbeth has a commanding Intellect. Certes she has a commanding Will. I do not see what a commanding Intellect has to do in a Tragedy of this kind—or what opportunity she has of showing it. Do you, sir?

NORTH.

I do not.

TALBOYS.

Her Intellect seems pretty much on a par with Macbeth's in the planning of the murder.

NORTH.

I defy any human Intellect to devise well an atrocious Murder. Pray, how would you have murdered Duncan?

TALBOYS.

Ask me rather how I would—this night—murder Christopher North.

NORTH.

No more of that—no dallying in that direction. You make me shudder. Shakspeare knew that a circumspect murder is an impossibility—that a murder of a King in the murderer's own house, with expectation of non-discovery, is the irrationality of infatuation. The poor Idiot chuckles at the poor Fury's device as at once original and plausible—and, next hour, what single soul in the Castle does not know who did the deed?

SEWARD.

High Intellect indeed!

TALBOYS.

The original murder is bad to the uttermost. I mean badly contrived. What colour was there in colouring the two Grooms? No two men kill their master, and then go to bed again in his room with bloody faces and poignards.

BULLER.

If this was really a very bad plot altogether, it is her Ladyship's as much—far more than his Lordship's. Against whom, then, do we conclude? Her? I think not—but the Poet. He is the badly-contriving assassin. He does not intend lowering your esteem for her Ladyship's talents. Am I, sir, to think that William himself, after the same game, would have hunted no better? I believe he would; but he thinks that this will carry the Plot through for the Stage well enough. The House, seeing and hearing, will not stay to criticise. The Horror persuades Belief. He knew the whole mystery of murder.

NORTH.

My dear Buller, wheel nearer me. I would not lose a word you say.

BULLER.

Did Macbeth commit an error in killing the two Grooms? And does his Lady think so?

TALBOYS.

A gross error, and his Lady thinks so.

BULLER.

Why was it a gross error—and why did his lady think so?

TALBOYS.

Because—why—I really can't tell.

BULLER.

Nor I. The question leads to formidable difficulties—either way. But answer me this. Is her swooning at the close of her husband's most graphic picture of the position of the corpses—real or pretended?

SEWARD.

Real.

TALBOYS.

Pretended.

BULLER.

Sir?

NORTH.

I reserve my opinion.

TALBOYS.

Not a faint—but a feint. She cannot undo that which is done; nor hinder that which he will do next. She must mind her own business. Now distinctly her own business is—to faint. A high-bred, sensitive, innocent Lady, startled from her sleep to find her guest and King murdered, and the room full of aghast nobles, cannot possibly do anything else but faint. Lady Macbeth, who "all particulars of duty knows," faints accordingly.

NORTH.

Seward, we are ready to hear you.

SEWARD.

She has been about a business that must have somewhat shook her nerves—granting them to be of iron. She would herself have murdered Duncan had he not resembled her Father as he slept; and on sudden discernment of that dreadful resemblance, her soul must have shuddered, if her body served her to stagger away from parricide. On the deed being done, she is terrified after a different manner from the doer of the deed; but her terror is as great; and though she says—

believe me that her face was like ashes, as she returned to the chamber to gild the faces of the grooms with the dead man's blood. That knocking, too, alarmed the Lady—believe me—as much as her husband; and to keep cool and collected before him, so as to be able to support him at that moment with her advice, must have tried the utmost strength of her nature. Call her Fiend—she was Woman. Down stairs she comes—and stands among them all, at first like one alarmed only—astounded by what she hears—and striving to simulate the ignorance of the innocent—"What, in our house?" "Too cruel anywhere!" What she must have suffered then, Shakspeare lets us conceive for ourselves; and what on her husband's elaborate description of his inconsiderate additional murders. "The whole is too much for her"—she "is perplexed in the extreme"—and the sinner swoons.

NORTH.

Seward suggests a bold, strong, deep, tragical turn of the scene—that she faints actually. Well—so be it. I shall say, first, that I think it a weakness in my favourite; but I will go so far as to add that I can let it pass for a not unpardonable weakness—the occasion given. But I must deal otherwise with her biographer. Him I shall hold to a strict rendering of account. I will know of him what he is about, and what she is about. If she faints really, and against her will, having forcible reasons for holding her will clear, she must be shown fighting to the last effort of will, against the assault of womanly nature, and drop, vanquished, as one dead, without a sound. But the Thaness calls out lustily—she remembers, "as we shall make our griefs and clamours roar upon his death." She makes noise enough—takes good care to attract everybody's attention to her performance—for which I commend her. Calculate as nicely as you will—she distracts or diverts speculation, and makes an interesting and agreeable break in the conversation.—I think that the obvious meaning is the right meaning—and that she faints on purpose.

NORTH.

Decided in favour of Feint.

BULLER.

You might have had the good manners to ask for my opinion.

NORTH.

I beg a thousand pardons, Buller.

BULLER.

A hundred will do, North. In Davies' Anecdotes of the Stage, I remember reading that Garrick would not trust Mrs Pritchard with the Swoon—and that Macklin thought Mrs Porter alone could have been endured by the audience. Therefore, by the Great Manager, Lady Macbeth was not allowed in the Scene to appear at all. His belief was, that with her Ladyship it was a feint—and that the Gods, aware of that, unless restrained by profound respect for the actress, would have laughed—as at something rather comic. If the Gods, in Shakspeare's days, were as the Gods in Garrick's, William, methinks, would not, on any account, have exposed the Lady to derision at such a time. But I suspect the Gods of the Globe would not have laughed, whatever they might have thought of her sincerity, and that she did appear before them in a Scene from which nothing could account for her absence. She was not, I verily believe, given to fainting—perhaps this was the first time she had ever fainted since she was a girl. Now I believe she did. She would have stood by her husband at all hazards, had she been able, both on his account and her own; she would not have so deserted him at such a critical juncture; her character was of boldness rather than duplicity; her business now—her duty—was to brazen it out; but she grew sick—qualms of conscience, however terrible, can be borne by sinners standing upright at the mouth of hell—but the flesh of man is weak, in its utmost strength, when moulded to woman's form—other qualms assail suddenly the earthly tenement—the breath is choked—the "distracted globe" grows dizzy—they that look out of the windows know not what they see—the body reels, lapses, sinks, and at full length smites the floor.

SEWARD.

Well said—Chairman of the Quarter-sessions.

BULLER.

Nor, with all submission, my dear Sir, can I think you treat your favourite murderess, on this trying occasion, with your usual fairness and candour. All she says, is, "Help me hence, ho!" Macduff says, "Look to the Lady"—and Banquo says, "Look to the Lady"—and she is "carried off." Some critic or other—I think Malone—says that Macbeth shows he knows "'tis a feint" by not going to her assistance. Perhaps he was mistaken—know it he could not. And nothing more likely to make a woman faint than that revelling and wallowing of his in that bloody description.

NORTH.

By the Casting Vote of the President—Feint.

TALBOYS.

Let's to Lunch.

NORTH.

Go. You will find me sitting here when you come back.