LADY MACBETH.

Shakspeare should be read at least once a year. This is to the mind what an excursion in the country is to the body—a strengthening, health-producing process. Each perusal will not be a repetition of the preceding. On the contrary, no two perusals will ever be alike. Read him as a boy, you will be dazzled and delighted: read him year by year after, and you will, with each year, behold beauties, sealed to you before, from your own comparative narrowness of mind and want of experience. Each event of your life will render you fitter to study him. Each new acquaintance you form—each history you read—each science you study—each country you travel into—each step you advance in life—each friend you lose by treachery or death, will prepare you still further. Could you go on adding to your experience much more than has ever (except in Shakspeare’s own case) been added to that of mortal man, each new progress would still enlarge your capacity for appreciating him. All men comprehend him differently. The king reads him as he would listen to the princely counsels of a royal father. The beggar may find in him something applicable to himself, and something likely to make him happier and wiser, which he himself had before never thought of—or of which he had only formed a vague idea. The statesman—the general—the prince royal—the husband—the father—the wife—the lover—the unfortunate—the happy—may all come here, and carry away, from the boundless reservoir, something apparently intended for themselves. He seems to have described or alluded to every thing. He seems to have taken in the whole range of human nature.

Poor old general Montholon, who was with Napoleon at St. Helena—one of the most faithful of the friends who have adhered to the fallen family—is the companion of the Prince Louis Napoleon, in his late invasion of France. Nearly all were very young men. This white-headed old soldier appeared among them strangely. Had they succeeded, it was doubtless their hope to give respectability to their cause by his presence.

The same thing is proposed in Julius Cæsar, by the conspirators, respecting Cicero.

“Cassius. But what of Cicero? shall we send him?

I think he will stand very strong with us.

Casca. Let us not have him out.

Cinna. No, by no means.

Metellus. O, let us have him; for his silver hairs

Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds:

It shall be said his judgment ruled our hands;

Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,

But all be buried in his gravity.”

I am not going to reprint the beauties of Shakspeare. Instances like the above—a case—an event—a feature of human nature—are so common that they need not be pointed out. Thousands of years hence, as the numberless crowd of unexpected events come on, it will be found that this poet has already described them.

These thoughts occurred to me the other evening after taking up casually a volume of Macbeth—perhaps one of the most tremendous portraitures of human nature that ever came from the pen of man. The play opened by chance to the scene where the remorse-haunted queen walks in her sleep. Surely no human writer ever set down, in the same number of words, a more terrific picture. It has upon me almost the effect ascribed to Medusa’s head. It nearly turns me to stone. We know that but few of the great Greek tragedies have descended to the modern reader, but neither in them, nor in any of the ancient or modern writers, is there a scene more highly conceived, more perfectly executed, or acting with more power upon the heart and the imagination. I have not read any comments or commentators, German or English, respecting it, and therefore very probably may omit some of its peculiarities. I think it the scene of Macbeth, the climax and moral of the tragedy, and perhaps the finest and most extraordinary piece of writing in the whole of the author’s works. No where in the range of literature is there to be seen such a frightful fragment of human nature. I can never read it without feeling the blood grow cold in my veins, and receiving a most painful heart-sick impression of the evils which hang over the mortal state, when not protected by moral and religious principle; and I can perfectly understand an anecdote related of Mrs. Siddons, who, on attempting to study the part alone in her room at night, became so frightened that she called her maid as a companion. Perhaps the Shaksperian theorist, who has discovered that the purpose of our poet’s works was to make an illustration of the truth of Christianity, by putting within every man’s, every boy’s reach the whole compass of experience to be derived from a hundred eventful lives, had an eye upon this scene among others. It certainly has to me a profound metaphysical and religious meaning, and is best explained by supposing it, like Othello, a gigantic enigma, of which Christianity is the solution. To represent human nature thus, without offering any remedial or softening consideration, was not characteristic of the sweet, gentle and sunshiny imagination of the poet. His whole works, taken together, do not leave any such shadow on the imagination. He is no misanthrope—no infidel. He points with his wand to human nature as she is, unguided, unsustained, unprotected by the Supreme Power. He draws the blood-stained yet heart-crushed queen, not to appal us with a danger to which we are subject, but to point out one which we can avoid.

The scene is very short, and I will give it, that the reader may the more readily understand me.

Act V. Scene I.

Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a Waiting Gentlewoman.

Doct. I have two nights watch’d with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk’d?

Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her.

Doct. You may, to me; and ’tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady Macbeth, with a Taper.

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her; she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gent. It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady. Yet here’s a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady. Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One; two; why, then ’tis time to do ’t; Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afraid? what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady. The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean?—No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke, what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.

Lady. Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doct. What a sight is there? The heart is sorely charg’d!

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct. Well, well, well,—

Gent. Pray God, it be, sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale.—I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

Doct. Even so?

Lady. To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate.—Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s done cannot be undone: To bed, to bed, to bed. (Exit Lady.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

More needs she the divine, than the physician.—

God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;

Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

And still keep eyes upon her:—So, good-night:

My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight:

I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good-night, good doctor. (Exeunt.

There is not a single word of this scene which can be spared—not one which is not impregnated with blood and horror. You feel the very silence of the sick, midnight apartment. Ye see the pale ashy countenance of the terror-stricken gentlewoman, and sympathize with her in having her lot cast in such an abode of guilt and danger. You see that she has called up all her energy and presence of mind, as in a great crisis, to enable her to conduct herself wisely, and to escape with safety from this den of royal murderers. You can see her cautious step—as if she started even at the creaking of her own shoe—the rustling of her own robe, or the sighing of the wind around the distant turrets of the castle. You have here a most admirable character, and, except that she is but so short a time on the stage, almost as worthy the genius of Mrs. Siddons as that of Lady Macbeth herself. Were I a young actress, desirous of making my appearance before the public, I should choose to study thoroughly and represent well this character first,—a very great effect might be given to it.

The doctor is also done to the life. He is, in all respects, not only the medical man, but the medical man of coolness and experience. The few words he utters are full of curiosity, but not of the unbridled horror of his companion. He has doubtless, before, witnessed scenes enough of pain and anguish, and he is at first disposed to consider the gentlewoman as an exaggerator of the mysteries she professes to have beheld, and to treat the whole thing physically as a disease, till the truth becomes too apparent, and even his cool mind is convinced.

Lady Macbeth herself is the very ne plus ultra of the tragic. She has more terror in her step and eye, than a mere mortal ever had before. Waking remorse would not have been, by any means, so appalling. The fact of her being asleep is a great accessory. That pale face—those fixed, staring, dead eyes—the countenance emaciated by disease, and the long consuming fire of conscience—the step, solemn, slow, measured and unearthly—and the dark, dim and shifting imagery of the past, which floats to and fro through her imagination, form altogether a spectacle shocking and almost insupportable.

Let us take this extraordinary scene to pieces, and examine a little into its mechanism. One of the wonders of it is that there is no resort to style—no description—no bursts of eloquence—no lava-like eruption of passions. There are indeed but very few words said at all. The sick lady has, at first, no terrors for the doctor, and the gentlewoman has often beheld the same thing before. There is no stage effect—no management—no melo-dramatic cunning. The doctor even shows his coolness and incredulity, and makes a careless general remark. The transcendant genius of the poet felt, intuitively, that the situation of his characters here was so complete as to absorb the reader, and render unnecessary any but the simplest language. The whole scene is quiet, hushed and professional. Even the blank verse of the rest of the tragedy is laid aside, and the characters speak in common-place perfectly natural prose. Let us see what this almost supernatural terror consists in.

The doctor first says, we may suppose with a certain half unintentional degree of disappointment, that he has been already watching two nights to see something which the waiting-woman has reported to him respecting the queen, and yet he has seen nothing.

“I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report.”

A little impatient, a little incredulous, perhaps, he adds:

“When was it she last walked?”

This is a stroke of nature and probability at the very outset. It takes from the scene the air of a fiction. It sends the mind of the spectator back to the two past long nights, when the doctor, tolerably tired out, has been watching in vain. This is just as things happen in life. We have to watch and watch for every thing—even for the most true—before it appears. We feel also, even with the first apparently unimportant word spoken, a certain tremor at the intimation given of the domestic gloom which must reign in the royal household—an attack immediately expected from a powerful and inexorable foe—the queen sick—mysterious things, we know not what, hinted with pale face and trembling lips—and the guilty being, who had sold her eternal soul for her present position,—we see her in that position, all the promised triumphs and pleasures neutralized by disease and remorse, and she herself watched by her servants, night after night, when she little dreams herself the subject of such a combined inquisition.

The gentlewoman relates more particularly what she has seen, though with a guarded care, which not every gentlewoman in real life, under such exciting circumstances, would have the prudence to observe; but Shakspeare’s people are not only living but very sensible persons. To the question:

“When was it she last walked?”

she replies:

“Since his majesty went into the field.”

Here at once is another stroke. It tells the occupation of the king; called to a fearful contest and absorbed in it, the deadly secret is transpiring unopposed, undreamed of by him, behind his back, in the centre of his household, and from the lips of the very being who has so often taunted his weakness, and urged him with haughty scorn onward in his guilty and blood-tracked career. So little power has man over destiny! Thus is guilt beset. These are the nameless, unimaginable dangers it runs, when, bold and self-confident, it thinks itself equal to a contest with the Deity, who, seated in the clouds, strikes it with its own arm, and baffles its plans with the toils it has woven for others.

“Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.”

There is nothing more appalling to me than a person walking in his sleep. It is such an image of death aroused from the grave—such a type of the spiritual world—such a contrast to the same being when awake, that I could never look upon my most intimate friend in such a state without a thrill of fear, as if I were gazing upon his spectre—without perfectly comprehending Hamlet’s account of his own feelings in looking upon a ghost.

——“and we fools of nature

So horribly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.”

This statement of the waiting-woman, so simple, natural and true, is enough to arouse in a moment the curiosity of the most indifferent stranger, and to inspire him with an inexpressible anxiety to know what it means, and to what it will lead.

The doctor, however, is a man of the world, and is not so easily worked on. He replies with a mere generality:

“A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say?”

Here there is a peeping out of curiosity on the part of the honest physician, who is eager to learn all that may be acquired of what has the appearance of an interesting secret. But his companion does not mean to go further than prudence and self-security require. She replies at once in a way which, while it balks curiosity, sharpens its appetite.

“That, sir, which I will not report after her.”

What would any doctor say in such a case?

“You may to me; and ’tis most meet you should.”

He is aroused. He wishes—he is determined to know this mystery, and therefore pleads the privilege and necessity, as well as the prudence of his profession. “You may tell any thing to me. Of course I shall never reveal. I am the depositary of a thousand family secrets. Besides, if I am to treat the patient, I must know what is the matter with her.”

But the waiting-woman is not going to be driven from her determination. She has obviously received a deep-seated fright. Her whole self-possession is called up for her defence and guidance. She is a single woman, in a lonely castle, and in a really awful position, accidentally the holder of a secret involving the reputation, if not the life and death of those in power, and the fate perhaps of nations. Were she to hint her suspicion that her royal mistress was a murderess—that the fierce king, now desperate with the danger impending over his kingdom, had gained the throne by a foul assassination—how can she be sure that the doctor will not go to the king and betray her, to ingratiate himself into the favor of his royal master? Courts are not the places for too light confidences—particularly of such secrets. In such case the truth or falsehood of the statement would be little inquired into, and she would be probably hurled from the battlements or immured to starve in some dark dungeon. She is—you feel she is, quite in earnest, and quite right to reply:

“Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.”