MACBETH

‘Guiderius.Out of your proof you speak: we poor unfledg’dHave never wing’d from view o’ th’ nest; nor know notWhat air’s from home. Haply this life is best,If quiet life is best; sweeter to youThat have a sharper known; well correspondingWith your stiff age: but unto us it isA cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed,A prison for a debtor, that not daresTo stride a limit.Arviragus.What should we speak ofWhen we are old as you? When we shall hearThe rain and wind beat dark December! How,In this our pinching cave, shall we discourseThe freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat:Our valour is to chase what flies; our cageWe make a quire, as doth the prison’d bird,And sing our bondage freely.’

‘Guiderius.Out of your proof you speak: we poor unfledg’d

Have never wing’d from view o’ th’ nest; nor know not

What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,

If quiet life is best; sweeter to you

That have a sharper known; well corresponding

With your stiff age: but unto us it is

A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed,

A prison for a debtor, that not dares

To stride a limit.

Arviragus.What should we speak ofWhen we are old as you? When we shall hearThe rain and wind beat dark December! How,In this our pinching cave, shall we discourseThe freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat:Our valour is to chase what flies; our cageWe make a quire, as doth the prison’d bird,And sing our bondage freely.’

Arviragus.What should we speak of

When we are old as you? When we shall hear

The rain and wind beat dark December! How,

In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse

The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.

We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,

Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat:

Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage

We make a quire, as doth the prison’d bird,

And sing our bondage freely.’

The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion of the mind for unknown good, but experience.—The forest of Arden inAs You Like Itcan alone compare with the mountain scenes inCymbeline: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakespear not only lets us into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes from the feelings of their supposed inhabitants. He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant sportsmen inCymbelinehave to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer inCymbelineare only regarded as objects of prey, ‘The game’s a-foot,’ etc.—with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralise upon at leisure, ‘under the shade of melancholy boughs.’

We cannot take leave of this play, which is a favourite with us, without noticing some occasional touches of natural piety and morality. We may allude here to the opening of the scene in which Bellarius instructs the young princes to pay their orisons to heaven:

——‘See, boys! this gateInstructs you how t’ adore the Heav’ns; and bows youTo morning’s holy office.Guiderius.Hail, Heav’n!Arviragus.Hail, Heav’n!Bellarius.Now for our mountain-sport, up to yon hill.’

——‘See, boys! this gateInstructs you how t’ adore the Heav’ns; and bows youTo morning’s holy office.

——‘See, boys! this gate

Instructs you how t’ adore the Heav’ns; and bows you

To morning’s holy office.

Guiderius.Hail, Heav’n!

Arviragus.Hail, Heav’n!

Bellarius.Now for our mountain-sport, up to yon hill.’

What a grace and unaffected spirit of piety breathes in this passage! In like manner, one of the brothers says to the other, when about to perform the funeral rites to Fidele,

‘Nay, Cadwall, we must lay his head to the east;My Father hath a reason for ‘t’—

‘Nay, Cadwall, we must lay his head to the east;

My Father hath a reason for ‘t’—

—as if some allusion to the doctrines of the Christian faith had been casually dropped in conversation by the old man, and had been no farther inquired into.

Shakespear’s morality is introduced in the same simple, unobtrusive manner. Imogen will not let her companions stay away from the chase to attend her when sick, and gives her reason for it—

‘Stick to your journal course;the breach of customIs breach of all!’

‘Stick to your journal course;the breach of custom

Is breach of all!’

When the Queen attempts to disguise her motives for procuring the poison from Cornelius, by saying she means to try its effects on ‘creatures not worth the hanging,’ his answer conveys at once a tacit reproof of her hypocrisy, and a useful lesson of humanity—

——‘Your HighnessShall from this practice but make hard your heart.’

——‘Your Highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart.’

‘The poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rollingDoth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shape, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.’

‘The poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.’

MacbethandLear,OthelloandHamlet, are usually reckoned Shakespear’s four principal tragedies.Learstands first for the profound intensity of the passion;Macbethfor the wildness of the imagination and the rapidity of the action;Othellofor the progressive interest and powerful alternations of feeling;Hamletfor the refined developement of thought and sentiment. If the force of genius shewn in each of these works is astonishing, their variety is not less so. They are like different creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. This distinctness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence of truth and nature. Shakespear’s genius alone appeared to possess the resources of nature. He is ‘your onlytragedy-maker.’ His plays have the force of things upon the mind. What he represents is brought home to the bosom as a part of our experience, implanted in the memory as if we had known the places, persons, and things of which he treats.Macbethis like a record of a preternatural and tragical event. It has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all that the imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The castle of Macbeth, round which ‘the air smells wooingly,’ and where ‘the temple-hauntingmartlet builds,’ has a real subsistence in the mind; the Weïrd Sisters meet us in person on ‘the blasted heath’; the ‘air-drawn dagger’ moves slowly before our eyes; the ‘gracious Duncan,’ the ‘blood-boultered Banquo’ stand before us; all that passed through the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a tittle, through ours. All that could actually take place, and all that is only possible to be conceived, what was said and what was done, the workings of passion, the spells of magic, are brought before us with the same absolute truth and vividness—Shakespear excelled in the openings of his plays: that ofMacbethis the most striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting of the situations and characters, the bustle, the expectations excited, are equally extraordinary. From the first entrance of the Witches and the description of them when they meet Macbeth,

——‘What are theseSo wither’d and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants of th’ earthAnd yet are on’t?’

——‘What are these

So wither’d and so wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants of th’ earth

And yet are on’t?’

the mind is prepared for all that follows.

This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination it displays, and for the tumultuous vehemence of the action; and the one is made the moving principle of the other. The overwhelming pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force. Macbeth himself appears driven along by the violence of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm: he reels to and fro like a drunken man; he staggers under the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of others; he stands at bay with his situation; and from the superstitious awe and breathless suspense into which the communications of the Weïrd Sisters throw him, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify their predictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil which hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not equal to the struggle with fate and conscience. He now ‘bends up each corporal instrument to the terrible feat’; at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and abashed by his success. ‘The deed, no less than the attempt, confounds him.’ His mind is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of ‘preternatural solicitings.’ His speeches and soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths. In thought he is absent and perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his own resolution. His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or hisrecoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his feelings.—This part of his character is admirably set off by being brought in connection with that of Lady Macbeth, whose obdurate strength of will and masculine firmness give her the ascendancy over her husband’s faltering virtue. She at once seizes on the opportunity that offers for the accomplishment of all their wished-for greatness, and never flinches from her object till all is over. The magnitude of her resolution almost covers the magnitude of her guilt. She is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate. She does not excite our loathing and abhorrence like Regan and Gonerill. She is only wicked to gain a great end; and is perhaps more distinguished by her commanding presence of mind and inexorable self-will, which do not suffer her to be diverted from a bad purpose, when once formed, by weak and womanly regrets, than by the hardness of her heart or want of natural affections. The impression which her lofty determination of character makes on the mind of Macbeth is well described where he exclaims,

——‘Bring forth men children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males!’

——‘Bring forth men children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males!’

Nor do the pains she is at to ‘screw his courage to the sticking-place,’ the reproach to him, not to be ‘lost so poorly in himself,’ the assurance that ‘a little water clears them of this deed,’ show anything but her greater consistency in depravity. Her strong-nerved ambition furnishes ribs of steel to ‘the sides of his intent’; and she is herself wound up to the execution of her baneful project with the same unshrinking fortitude in crime, that in other circumstances she would probably have shown patience in suffering. The deliberate sacrifice of all other considerations to the gaining ‘for their future days and nights sole sovereign sway and masterdom,’ by the murder of Duncan, is gorgeously expressed in her invocation on hearing of ‘his fatal entrance under her battlements’:—

——‘Come all you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here:And fill me, from the crown to th’ toe, top-fullOf direst cruelty; make thick my blood,Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night!And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,Nor heav’n peep through the blanket of the dark,To cry, hold, hold!’——

——‘Come all you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here:

And fill me, from the crown to th’ toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night!

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heav’n peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry, hold, hold!’——

When she first hears that ‘Duncan comes there to sleep’ she is so overcome by the news, which is beyond her utmost expectations, that she answers the messenger, ‘Thou’rt mad to say it’: and on receiving her husband’s account of the predictions of the Witches, conscious of his instability of purpose, and that her presence is necessary to goad him on to the consummation of his promised greatness, she exclaims—

——‘Hie thee hither,That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,And chastise with the valour of my tongueAll that impedes thee from the golden round,Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seemTo have thee crowned withal.’

——‘Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crowned withal.’

This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumph, this uncontroulable eagerness of anticipation, which seems to dilate her form and take possession of all her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh and blood display of passion, exhibit a striking contrast to the cold, abstracted, gratuitous, servile malignity of the Witches, who are equally instrumental in urging Macbeth to his fate for the mere love of mischief, and from a disinterested delight in deformity and cruelty. They are hags of mischief, obscene panders to iniquity, malicious from their impotence of enjoyment, enamoured of destruction, because they are themselves unreal, abortive, half-existences—who become sublime from their exemption from all human sympathies and contempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbeth does by the force of passion! Her fault seems to have been an excess of that strong principle of self-interest and family aggrandisement, not amenable to the common feelings of compassion and justice, which is so marked a feature in barbarous nations and times. A passing reflection of this kind, on the resemblance of the sleeping king to her father, alone prevents her from slaying Duncan with her own hand.

In speaking of the character of Lady Macbeth, we ought not to pass over Mrs. Siddons’s manner of acting that part. We can conceive of nothing grander. It was something above nature. It seemed almost as if a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine; she was tragedy personified. In coming on in the sleeping-scene,her eyes were open, but their sense was shut. She was like a person bewildered and unconscious of what she did. Her lips moved involuntarily—all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. She glided on and off the stage like an apparition. To have seen her in that character was an event in every one’s life, not to be forgotten.

The dramatic beauty of the character of Duncan, which excites the respect and pity even of his murderers, has been often pointed out. It forms a picture of itself. An instance of the author’s power of giving a striking effect to a common reflection, by the manner of introducing it, occurs in a speech of Duncan, complaining of his having been deceived in his opinion of the Thane of Cawdor, at the very moment that he is expressing the most unbounded confidence in the loyalty and services of Macbeth.

‘There is no artTo find the mind’s construction in the face:He was a gentleman, on whom I builtAn absolute trust.O worthiest cousin, (addressing himself to Macbeth.)The sin of my ingratitude e’en nowWas great upon me,’ etc.

‘There is no art

To find the mind’s construction in the face:

He was a gentleman, on whom I built

An absolute trust.

O worthiest cousin, (addressing himself to Macbeth.)

The sin of my ingratitude e’en now

Was great upon me,’ etc.

Another passage to show that Shakespear lost sight of nothing that could in any way give relief or heightening to his subject, is the conversation which takes place between Banquo and Fleance immediately before the murder-scene of Duncan.

‘Banquo.How goes the night, boy?Fleance.The moon is down: I have not heard the clock.Banquo.And she goes down at twelve.Fleance.I take’t, ’tis later, Sir.Banquo.Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heav’n,Their candles are all out.—A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that natureGives way to in repose.’

‘Banquo.How goes the night, boy?

Fleance.The moon is down: I have not heard the clock.

Banquo.And she goes down at twelve.

Fleance.I take’t, ’tis later, Sir.

Banquo.Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heav’n,Their candles are all out.—A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that natureGives way to in repose.’

Banquo.Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heav’n,

Their candles are all out.—

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature

Gives way to in repose.’

In like manner, a fine idea is given of the gloomy coming on of evening, just as Banquo is going to be assassinated.

‘Light thickens and the crowMakes wing to the rooky wood.’. . . . .‘Now spurs the lated traveller apaceTo gain the timely inn.’

‘Light thickens and the crowMakes wing to the rooky wood.’

‘Light thickens and the crow

Makes wing to the rooky wood.’

. . . . .

‘Now spurs the lated traveller apaceTo gain the timely inn.’

‘Now spurs the lated traveller apace

To gain the timely inn.’

Macbeth(generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespear’s plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear’s genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance will account for the abruptness and violent antitheses of the style, the throes and labour which run through the expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties. ‘So fair and foul a day I have not seen,’ etc. ‘Such welcome and unwelcome news together.’ ‘Men’s lives are like the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken.’ ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.’ The scene before the castle-gate follows the appearance of the Witches on the heath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut off betimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped untimely from his mother’s womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, after the death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant terms, ‘To him and all we thirst,’ and when his ghost appears, cries out, ‘Avaunt and quit my sight,’ and being gone, he is ‘himself again.’ Macbeth resolves to get rid of Macduff, that ‘he may sleep in spite of thunder’; and cheers his wife on the doubtful intelligence of Banquo’s taking-off with the encouragement—‘Then be thou jocund: ere the bat has flown his cloistered flight; ere to black Hecate’s summons the shard-born beetle has rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done—a deed of dreadful note.’ In Lady Macbeth’s speech ‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t,’ there is murder and filial piety together; and in urging him to fulfil his vengeance against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the blood neither of infants nor old age. The description of the Witches is full of the same contradictory principle; they ‘rejoice when good kings bleed,’ they are neither of the earth nor the air, but both; ‘they should be women, but their beards forbid it’; they take all the pains possible to lead Macbeth on to the height of his ambition, only to betray him ‘in deeper consequence,’ and after showing him all the pomp of theirart, discover their malignant delight in his disappointed hopes, by that bitter taunt, ‘Why stands Macbeth thus amazedly?’ We might multiply such instances every where.

The leading features in the character of Macbeth are striking enough, and they form what may be thought at first only a bold, rude, Gothic outline. By comparing it with other characters of the same author we shall perceive the absolute truth and identity which is observed in the midst of the giddy whirl and rapid career of events. Macbeth in Shakespear no more loses his identity of character in the fluctuations of fortune or the storm of passion, than Macbeth in himself would have lost the identity of his person. Thus he is as distinct a being from RichardIII.as it is possible to imagine, though these two characters in common hands, and indeed in the hands of any other poet, would have been a repetition of the same general idea, more or less exaggerated. For both are tyrants, usurpers, murderers, both aspiring and ambitious, both courageous, cruel, treacherous. But Richard is cruel from nature and constitution. Macbeth becomes so from accidental circumstances. Richard is from his birth deformed in body and mind, and naturally incapable of good. Macbeth is full of ‘the milk of human kindness,’ is frank, sociable, generous. He is tempted to the commission of guilt by golden opportunities, by the instigations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. Fate and metaphysical aid conspire against his virtue and his loyalty. Richard on the contrary needs no prompter, but wades through a series of crimes to the height of his ambition from the ungovernable violence of his temper and a reckless love of mischief. He is never gay but in the prospect or in the success of his villainies: Macbeth is full of horror at the thoughts of the murder of Duncan, which he is with difficulty prevailed on to commit, and of remorse after its perpetration. Richard has no mixture of common humanity in his composition, no regard to kindred or posterity, he owns no fellowship with others, he is ‘himself alone.’ Macbeth is not destitute of feelings of sympathy, is accessible to pity, is even made in some measure the dupe of his uxoriousness, ranks the loss of friends, of the cordial love of his followers, and of his good name, among the causes which have made him weary of life, and regrets that he has ever seized the crown by unjust means, since he cannot transmit it to his posterity—

‘For Banquo’s issue have I fil’d my mind—For them the gracious Duncan have I murther’d,To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings.’

‘For Banquo’s issue have I fil’d my mind—

For them the gracious Duncan have I murther’d,

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings.’

In the agitation of his mind, he envies those whom he has sent topeace. ‘Duncan is in his grave; after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.’—It is true, he becomes more callous as he plunges deeper in guilt, ‘direness is thus rendered familiar to his slaughterous thoughts,’ and he in the end anticipates his wife in the boldness and bloodiness of his enterprises, while she for want of the same stimulus of action, ‘is troubled with thick-coming fancies that rob her of her rest,’ goes mad and dies. Macbeth endeavours to escape from reflection on his crimes by repelling their consequences, and banishes remorse for the past by the meditation of future mischief. This is not the principle of Richard’s cruelty, which displays the wanton malice of a fiend as much as the frailty of human passion. Macbeth is goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation by necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime.—There are other decisive differences inherent in the two characters. Richard may be regarded as a man of the world, a plotting, hardened knave, wholly regardless of every thing but his own ends, and the means to secure them.—Not so Macbeth. The superstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the local scenery and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur to his character. From the strangeness of the events that surround him, he is full of amazement and fear; and stands in doubt between the world of reality and the world of fancy. He sees sights not shown to mortal eye, and hears unearthly music. All is tumult and disorder within and without his mind; his purposes recoil upon himself, are broken and disjointed; he is the double thrall of his passions and his evil destiny. Richard is not a character either of imagination or pathos, but of pure self-will. There is no conflict of opposite feelings in his breast. The apparitions which he sees only haunt him in his sleep; nor does he live like Macbeth in a waking dream. Macbeth has considerable energy and manliness of character; but then he is ‘subject to all the skyey influences.’ He is sure of nothing but the present moment. Richard in the busy turbulence of his projects never loses his self-possession, and makes use of every circumstance that happens as an instrument of his long-reaching designs. In his last extremity we can only regard him as a wild beast taken in the toils: while we never entirely lose our concern for Macbeth; and he calls back all our sympathy by that fine close of thoughtful melancholy—

‘My way of life is fallen into the sear,The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age,As honour, troops of friends, I must not look to have;But in their stead, curses not loud but deep,Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heartWould fain deny, and dare not.’

‘My way of life is fallen into the sear,

The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age,

As honour, troops of friends, I must not look to have;

But in their stead, curses not loud but deep,

Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart

Would fain deny, and dare not.’

We can conceive a common actor to play Richard tolerably well; we can conceive no one to play Macbeth properly, or to look like a man that had encountered the Weïrd Sisters. All the actors that we have ever seen, appear as if they had encountered them on the boards of Covent-garden or Drury-lane, but not on the heath at Fores, and as if they did not believe what they had seen. The Witches ofMacbethindeed are ridiculous on the modern stage, and we doubt if the Furies of Æschylus would be more respected. The progress of manners and knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in time perhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch’s picking pockets in theBeggar’s Operais not so good a jest as it used to be: by the force of the police and of philosophy, Lillo’s murders and the ghosts in Shakespear will become obsolete. At last, there will be nothing left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in real life.—A question has been started with respect to the originality of Shakespear’s Witches, which has been well answered by Mr. Lamb in his notes to the ‘Specimens of Early Dramatic Poetry.’

‘Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms inMacbeth, and the incantations in this play (the Witch of Middleton), which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakespear. His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth’s, he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination. These Witches can hurt the body; those have power over the soul.—Hecate in Middleton has a son, a low buffoon: the hags of Shakespear have neither child of their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music. This is all we know of them.—Except Hecate, they have no names, which heightens their mysteriousness. The names, and some of the properties which Middleton has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weïrd Sisters are serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the Witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their power too is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies, strifes,like a thick scurf o’er life.’

JULIUS CÆSAR

Julius Cæsarwas one of three principal plays by different authors, pitched upon by the celebrated Earl of Hallifax to be brought out in a splendid manner by subscription, in the year 1707. The other two were theKing and No Kingof Fletcher, and Dryden’sMaiden Queen. There perhaps might be political reasons for this selection, as far as regards our author. Otherwise, Shakespear’sJulius Cæsaris not equal as a whole, to either of his other plays taken from the Roman history. It is inferior in interest toCoriolanus, and both in interest and power toAntony and Cleopatra. It however abounds in admirable and affecting passages, and is remarkable for the profound knowledge of character, in which Shakespear could scarcely fail. If there is any exception to this remark, it is in the hero of the piece himself. We do not much admire the representation here given of Julius Cæsar, nor do we think it answers to the portrait given of him in his Commentaries. He makes several vapouring and rather pedantic speeches, and does nothing. Indeed, he has nothing to do. So far, the fault of the character is the fault of the plot.

The spirit with which the poet has entered at once into the manners of the common people, and the jealousies and heart-burnings of the different factions, is shown in the first scene, where Flavius and Marullus, tribunes of the people, and some citizens of Rome, appear upon the stage.

‘Flavius.Thou art a cobler, art thou?

Cobler.Truly, Sir,allthat I live by, is theawl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor woman’s matters, butwith-al, I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them.

Flavius.But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

Flavius.But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

Cobler.Truly, Sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But indeed, Sir, we make holiday to see Cæsar, and rejoice in his triumph.’

To this specimen of quaint low humour immediately follows that unexpected and animated burst of indignant eloquence, put into the mouth of one of the angry tribunes.

‘Marullus.Wherefore rejoice!—What conquest brings he home?What tributaries follow him to Rome,To grace in captive-bonds his chariot-wheels?Oh you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome!Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oftHave you climb’d up to walls and battlements,To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,Your infants in your arms, and there have satThe live-long day with patient expectation,To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:And when you saw his chariot but appear,Have you not made an universal shout,That Tyber trembled underneath his banksTo hear the replication of your sounds,Made in his concave shores?And do you now put on your best attire?And do you now cull out an holiday?And do you now strew flowers in his wayThat comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?Begone——Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague,That needs must light on this ingratitude.’

‘Marullus.Wherefore rejoice!—What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive-bonds his chariot-wheels?

Oh you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome!

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The live-long day with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tyber trembled underneath his banks

To hear the replication of your sounds,

Made in his concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out an holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?

Begone——

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague,

That needs must light on this ingratitude.’

The well-known dialogue between Brutus and Cassius, in which the latter breaks the design of the conspiracy to the former, and partly gains him over to it, is a noble piece of high-minded declamation. Cassius’s insisting on the pretended effeminacy of Cæsar’s character, and his description of their swimming across the Tiber together, ‘once upon a raw and gusty day,’ are among the finest strokes in it. But perhaps the whole is not equal to the short scene which follows, when Cæsar enters with his train:—

‘Brutus.The games are done, and Cæsar is returning.Cassius.As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,And he will, after his sour fashion, tell youWhat has proceeded worthy note to day.Brutus.I will do so; but look you, Cassius—The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar’s brow,And all the rest look like a chidden train.Calphurnia’s cheek is pale; and CiceroLooks with such ferret and such fiery eyes,As we have seen him in the Capitol,Being crost in conference by some senators.Cassius.Casca will tell us what the matter is.Cæsar.Antonius——Antony.Cæsar?Cæsar.Let me have men about me that are fat,Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.Antony.Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous:He is a noble Roman, and well given.Cæsar.Would he were fatter; but I fear him not:Yet if my name were liable to fear,I do not know the man I should avoidSo soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;He is a great observer; and he looksQuite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit,That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;And therefore are they very dangerous.I rather tell thee what is to be fear’dThan what I fear; for always I am Cæsar.Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.’

‘Brutus.The games are done, and Cæsar is returning.

Cassius.As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,And he will, after his sour fashion, tell youWhat has proceeded worthy note to day.

Cassius.As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,

And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you

What has proceeded worthy note to day.

Brutus.I will do so; but look you, Cassius—The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar’s brow,And all the rest look like a chidden train.Calphurnia’s cheek is pale; and CiceroLooks with such ferret and such fiery eyes,As we have seen him in the Capitol,Being crost in conference by some senators.

Brutus.I will do so; but look you, Cassius—

The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar’s brow,

And all the rest look like a chidden train.

Calphurnia’s cheek is pale; and Cicero

Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes,

As we have seen him in the Capitol,

Being crost in conference by some senators.

Cassius.Casca will tell us what the matter is.

Cæsar.Antonius——

Antony.Cæsar?

Cæsar.Let me have men about me that are fat,Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Cæsar.Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look,

He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Antony.Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous:He is a noble Roman, and well given.

Antony.Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous:

He is a noble Roman, and well given.

Cæsar.Would he were fatter; but I fear him not:Yet if my name were liable to fear,I do not know the man I should avoidSo soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;He is a great observer; and he looksQuite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit,That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;And therefore are they very dangerous.I rather tell thee what is to be fear’dThan what I fear; for always I am Cæsar.Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.’

Cæsar.Would he were fatter; but I fear him not:

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;

He is a great observer; and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,

As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit,

That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,

Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;

And therefore are they very dangerous.

I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d

Than what I fear; for always I am Cæsar.

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,

And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.’

We know hardly any passage more expressive of the genius of Shakespear than this. It is as if he had been actually present, had known the different characters and what they thought of one another, and had taken down what he heard and saw, their looks, words, and gestures, just as they happened.

The character of Mark Antony is farther speculated upon where the conspirators deliberate whether he shall fall with Cæsar. Brutus is against it—

‘And for Mark Antony, think not of him:For he can do no more than Cæsar’s arm,When Cæsar’s head is off.Cassius.Yet I do fear him:For in th’ ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar——Brutus.Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:If he love Cæsar, all that he can doIs to himself, take thought, and die for Cæsar:And that were much, he should; for he is giv’nTo sports, to wildness, and much company.Trebonius.There is no fear in him; let him not die:For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.’

‘And for Mark Antony, think not of him:For he can do no more than Cæsar’s arm,When Cæsar’s head is off.

‘And for Mark Antony, think not of him:

For he can do no more than Cæsar’s arm,

When Cæsar’s head is off.

Cassius.Yet I do fear him:For in th’ ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar——

Cassius.Yet I do fear him:

For in th’ ingrafted love he bears to Cæsar——

Brutus.Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:If he love Cæsar, all that he can doIs to himself, take thought, and die for Cæsar:And that were much, he should; for he is giv’nTo sports, to wildness, and much company.

Brutus.Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:

If he love Cæsar, all that he can do

Is to himself, take thought, and die for Cæsar:

And that were much, he should; for he is giv’n

To sports, to wildness, and much company.

Trebonius.There is no fear in him; let him not die:For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.’

Trebonius.There is no fear in him; let him not die:

For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.’

They were in the wrong; and Cassius was right.

The honest manliness of Brutus is however sufficient to find out the unfitness of Cicero to be included in their enterprise, from his affected egotism and literary vanity.

‘O, name him not: let us not break with him;For he will never follow anything,That other men begin.’

‘O, name him not: let us not break with him;

For he will never follow anything,

That other men begin.’

His scepticism as to prodigies and his moralising on the weather—‘This disturbed sky is not to walk in’—are in the same spirit of refined imbecility.

Shakespear has in this play and elsewhere shown the same penetration into political character and the springs of public events as into those of every-day life. For instance, the whole design of the conspirators to liberate their country fails from the generous temper and overweening confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. Thus it has always been. Those who mean well themselves think well of others, and fall a prey to their security. That humanity and honesty which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others, because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to reconcile the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to any thing but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. His heart prompted his head. His watchful jealousy made him fear the worst that might happen, and his irritability of temper added to his inveteracy of purpose, and sharpened his patriotism. The mixed nature of his motives made him fitter to contend with bad men. The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another. Tyranny and servility are to be dealt with after their own fashion: otherwise, they will triumph over those who spare them, and finally pronounce their funeral panegyric, as Antony did that of Brutus.

‘All the conspirators, save only he,Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar:He only in a general honest thoughtAnd common good to all, made one of them.’

‘All the conspirators, save only he,

Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar:

He only in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.’

The quarrel between Brutus and Cassius is managed in a masterly way. The dramatic fluctuation of passion, the calmness of Brutus, the heat of Cassius, are admirably described; and the exclamation of Cassius on hearing of the death of Portia, which he does not learn till after their reconciliation, ‘How ‘scaped I killing when I crost you so?’ gives double force to all that has gone before. The scene between Brutus and Portia, where she endeavours to extort the secret of the conspiracy from him, is conceived in the most heroical spirit, and the burst of tenderness in Brutus—

‘You are my true and honourable wife;As dear to me as are the ruddy dropsThat visit my sad heart’—

‘You are my true and honourable wife;

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart’—

is justified by her whole behaviour. Portia’s breathless impatience to learn the event of the conspiracy, in the dialogue with Lucius, is full of passion. The interest which Portia takes in Brutus and that which Calphurnia takes in the fate of Cæsar are discriminated with the nicest precision. Mark Antony’s speech over the dead body of Cæsar has been justly admired for the mixture of pathos and artifice in it: that of Brutus certainly is not so good.

The entrance of the conspirators to the house of Brutus at midnight is rendered very impressive. In the midst of this scene, we meet with one of those careless and natural digressions which occur so frequently and beautifully in Shakespear. After Cassius has introduced his friends one by one, Brutus says—

‘They are all welcome.What watchful cares do interpose themselvesBetwixt your eyes and night?Cassius.Shall I entreat a word? (They whisper.)Decius.Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?Casca.No.Cinna.O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey lines,That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.Casca.You shall confess, that you are both deceiv’d:Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,Which is a great way growing on the south,Weighing the youthful season of the year.Some two months hence, up higher toward the northHe first presents his fire, and the high eastStands as the Capitol, directly here.’

‘They are all welcome.What watchful cares do interpose themselvesBetwixt your eyes and night?

‘They are all welcome.

What watchful cares do interpose themselves

Betwixt your eyes and night?

Cassius.Shall I entreat a word? (They whisper.)

Decius.Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

Casca.No.

Cinna.O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey lines,That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

Cinna.O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey lines,

That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

Casca.You shall confess, that you are both deceiv’d:Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,Which is a great way growing on the south,Weighing the youthful season of the year.Some two months hence, up higher toward the northHe first presents his fire, and the high eastStands as the Capitol, directly here.’

Casca.You shall confess, that you are both deceiv’d:

Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,

Which is a great way growing on the south,

Weighing the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence, up higher toward the north

He first presents his fire, and the high east

Stands as the Capitol, directly here.’

We cannot help thinking this graceful familiarity better than all the fustian in the world.—The truth of history inJulius Cæsaris very ably worked up with dramatic effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles, are represented to the life. The death of Brutus is worthy of him—it has the dignity of the Roman senator with the firmness of the Stoic philosopher. But what is perhaps better than either, is the little incident of his boy, Lucius, falling asleep over his instrument, as he is playing to his master in his tent, the night before the battle. Nature had played him the same forgetful trick once before on the night of the conspiracy. The humanity of Brutus is the same on both occasions.

——‘It is no matter:Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,Which busy care draws in the brains of men.Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.’

——‘It is no matter:

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,

Which busy care draws in the brains of men.

Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.’

OTHELLO

It has been said that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. That is, it substitutes imaginary sympathy for mere selfishness. It gives us a high and permanent interest, beyond ourselves, in humanity as such. It raises the great, the remote, and the possible to an equality with the real, the little and the near. It makes man a partaker with his kind. It subdues and softens the stubbornness of his will. It teaches him that there are and have been others like himself, by showing him as in a glass what they have felt, thought, and done. It opens the chambers of the human heart. It leaves nothing indifferent to us that can affect our common nature. It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passions wound up to the utmost pitch by the power of imagination or the temptation of circumstances; and corrects their fatal excesses in ourselves by pointing to the greater extent of sufferings and of crimes to which they have led others. Tragedy creates a balance of the affections. It makes us thoughtful spectators in the lists of life. It is the refiner of the species; a discipline of humanity. The habitual study of poetry and works of imagination is one chief part of a well-grounded education. A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman. Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.—Othellofurnishes an illustration of these remarks. It excites our sympathy in an extraordinary degree. The moral it conveys has a closer application to the concerns of human life than that of almost any other of Shakespear’s plays. ‘It comes directly home to the bosoms and business of men.’ The pathos inLearis indeed more dreadful and overpowering: but it is less natural, and less of every day’s occurrence. We have not the same degree of sympathy with the passions described inMacbeth. The interest inHamletis more remote and reflex. That ofOthellois at once equally profound and affecting.

The picturesque contrasts of character in this play are almost as remarkable as the depth of the passion. The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona, the villain Iago, the good-natured Cassio, the fool Roderigo, present a range and variety of character as striking and palpable as that produced by the opposition of costume in a picture. Their distinguishing qualities stand out to the mind’s eye, so that even when we are not thinking of their actions or sentiments, the idea of their persons is still as present to us as ever. These characters andthe images they stamp upon the mind are the farthest asunder possible, the distance between them is immense: yet the compass of knowledge and invention which the poet has shown in embodying these extreme creations of his genius is only greater than the truth and felicity with which he has identified each character with itself, or blended their different qualities together in the same story. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to that of Iago! At the same time, the force of conception with which these two figures are opposed to each other is rendered still more intense by the complete consistency with which the traits of each character are brought out in a state of the highest finishing. The making one black and the other white, the one unprincipled, the other unfortunate in the extreme, would have answered the common purposes of effect, and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter of character. Shakespear has laboured the finer shades of difference in both with as much care and skill as if he had had to depend on the execution alone for the success of his design. On the other hand, Desdemona and Æmilia are not meant to be opposed with anything like strong contrast to each other. Both are, to outward appearance, characters of common life, not more distinguished than women usually are, by difference of rank and situation. The difference of their thoughts and sentiments is however laid open, their minds are separated from each other by signs as plain and as little to be mistaken as the complexions of their husbands.

The movement of the passion in Othello is exceedingly different from that of Macbeth. In Macbeth there is a violent struggle between opposite feelings, between ambition and the stings of conscience, almost from first to last: in Othello, the doubtful conflict between contrary passions, though dreadful, continues only for a short time, and the chief interest is excited by the alternate ascendancy of different passions, by the entire and unforeseen change from the fondest love and most unbounded confidence to the tortures of jealousy and the madness of hatred. The revenge of Othello, after it has once taken thorough possession of his mind, never quits it, but grows stronger and stronger at every moment of its delay. The nature of the Moor is noble, confiding, tender, and generous; but his blood is of the most inflammable kind; and being once roused by a sense of his wrongs, he is stopped by no considerations of remorse or pity till he has given a loose to all the dictates of his rage and his despair. It is in working his noble nature up to this extremity through rapid but gradual transitions, in raising passion to its height from the smallest beginnings and in spite of all obstacles, in painting the expiring conflict between love and hatred, tenderness and resentment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding the strength and the weakness of our nature,in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motion the various impulses that agitate this our mortal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestic, that ‘flows on to the Propontic, and knows no ebb,’ that Shakespear has shown the mastery of his genius and of his power over the human heart. The third act ofOthellois his finest display, not of knowledge or passion separately, but of the two combined, of the knowledge of character with the expression of passion, of consummate art in the keeping up of appearances with the profound workings of nature, and the convulsive movements of uncontroulable agony, of the power of inflicting torture and of suffering it. Not only is the tumult of passion in Othello’s mind heaved up from the very bottom of the soul, but every the slightest undulation of feeling is seen on the surface, as it arises from the impulses of imagination or the malicious suggestions of Iago. The progressive preparation for the catastrophe is wonderfully managed from the Moor’s first gallant recital of the story of his love, of ‘the spells and witchcraft he had used,’ from his unlooked-for and romantic success, the fond satisfaction with which he dotes on his own happiness, the unreserved tenderness of Desdemona and her innocent importunities in favour of Cassio, irritating the suspicions instilled into her husband’s mind by the perfidy of Iago, and rankling there to poison, till he loses all command of himself, and his rage can only be appeased by blood. She is introduced, just before Iago begins to put his scheme in practice, pleading for Cassio with all the thoughtless gaiety of friendship and winning confidence in the love of Othello.

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