that Middleton's play was the later production, and that he must therefore be the plagiarist. The Clarendon Press editors take the ground that there are portions of Macbeth which Shakespeare did not write; that these were interpolated after the poet's death, or at least after he had ceased to be connected with the theatre; and that "the interpolator was, not improbably, Thomas Middleton." Mr. F. G. Fleay also, in a paper read before the New Shakspere Society, June 26, 1874, makes this statement: "Macbeth in its present state is an altered copy of the original drama, and the alterations were made by Middleton."*

These views have found little favour with other Shakespearian critics. A more satisfactory explanation of the imperfections of the play ascribes them to the haste with which it was written. White, who refers its composition to "the period between October, 1604, and August, 1605," remarks: “I am the more inclined to this opinion from the indications which the play itself affords that it was produced upon an emergency. It exhibits throughout the hasty execution of a grand and clearly conceived design. But the haste is that

*The Clarendon Press editors and Mr. Fleay agree quite closely in regard to the portions of the play which they assign to Middleton. Their criticisms on most of these passages are mentioned in our notes. We may refer those who are interested in the literature of the subject to the C. P. ed. of Macbeth, p. viii. fol., Furness's "New Variorum" ed. of Macbeth, p. 388 fol., Transactions of New Shakspere Society, 1874, p. 339 fol. and 498 fol., and Fleay's Shakespeare Manual, part ii., chap. x.

† Mr. F. J. Furnivall, in his introduction to Gervinus's Commentaries on Shakespeare, translated by Miss Bunnett (London: 1874), referring to Mr. Fleay's criticisms, says: "Mr. Hales thinks that the change to the trochaic metre✶ in Hecate's speeches, and their inferior quality, point to a different hand, perhaps Middleton's; but that is all of the play that he or I (who still hesitate) can yet surrender. The wonderful pace at which the play was plainly written—a feverish haste drives it on-will account for many weaknesses in detail.”

* This is evidently a slip of the pen. Mr. Furnivall meant to write "to the iambic metre." The witches, as Mr. Hales remarks, always speak in trochaics, and Hecate always in iambics (Trans. of New Shaksp. Soc. 1874, p. 507).

of a master of his art, who, with conscious command of its resources, and in the frenzy of a grand inspiration, works out his composition to its minutest detail of essential form, leaving the work of surface finish for the occupation of cooler leisure. What the Sistine Madonna was to Raphael, it seems that Macbeth was to Shakespeare-a magnificent impromptu ; that kind of impromptu which results from the application of well-disciplined powers and rich stores of thought to a subject suggested by occasion. I am inclined to regard Macbeth as, for the most part, a specimen of Shakespeare's unelaborated, if not unfinished, writing, in the maturity and highest vitality of his genius. It abounds in instances of extremest compression and most daring ellipsis, while it exhibits in every scene a union of supreme dramatic and poetic power, and in almost every line an imperially irresponsible control of language. Hence, I think, its lack of completeness of versification in certain passages, and also some of the imperfection of the text, the thought in which the compositors were not always able to follow and apprehend."

II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLAY.

Shakespeare drew the materials for the plot of Macbeth from Holinshed's "Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Ireland," the first edition of which was published in 1577, and the second (which was doubtless the one the poet used) in 1586-87.* The extracts from Holinshed in our notes will show that the main incidents are taken from his account of

* Rev. C. E. Moberly, in his edition of Macbeth (London: 1872), says that the whole story is told "in Albion's England, published just before Elizabeth's death." The first edition of Albion's England, containing thirteen "books" of the poem, appeared in 1586, but the story of Macbeth is in the “Fifteenth Book,” which forms part of the "Continuance," first published in 1606.

As Shakespeare used the second edition of Holinshed in writing Richard II. (see our edition of that play, p. 14), there can be no doubt that he used it for Macbeth, which was written later.

two separate events-the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, and that of King Duffe, the great-grandfather of Lady Macbeth, by Donwald. It will be seen, too, that Shakespeare has deviated in other respects from the chronicle, especially in the character of Banquo.

Although, as Knight remarks, "the interest of Macbeth is not an historical interest," so that it matters little whether the action is true or has been related as true, we may add, for the benefit of our younger readers, that the story of the drama is almost wholly apocryphal. The more authentic history is thus summarized by Sir Walter Scott:

"Duncan, by his mother Beatrice a grandson of Malcolm II., succeeded to the throne on his grandfather's death, in 1033 he reigned only six years. Macbeth, his near relation, also a grandchild of Malcolm II., though by the mother's side, was stirred up by ambition to contest the throne with the possessor. The Lady of Macbeth also, whose real name was Graoch, had deadly injuries to avenge on the reigning prince. She was the granddaughter of Kenneth IV., killed 1003, fighting against Malcolm II.; and other causes for revenge animated the mind of her who has been since painted as the sternest of women. The old annalists add some instigations of a supernatural kind to the influence of a vindictive woman over an ambitious husband. Three women, of more than human stature and beauty, appeared to Macbeth in a dream or vision, and hailed him successively by the titles of Thane of Cromarty, Thane of Moray, which the king afterwards bestowed on him, and finally by that of King of Scots; this dream, it is said, inspired him with the seductive hopes so well expressed in the drama.

"Macbeth broke no law of hospitality in his attempt on Duncan's life. He attacked and slew the king at a place called Bothgowan, or the Smith's House, near Elgin, in 1039, and not, as has been supposed, in his own castle of Inverness. The act was bloody, as was the complexion of the times;

but, in very truth, the claim of Macbeth to the throne, according to the rule of Scottish succession, was better than that of Duncan. As a king, the tyrant so much exclaimed against was, in reality, a firm, just, and equitable prince.* Apprehensions of danger from a party which Malcolm, the eldest son of the slaughtered Duncan, had set on foot in Northumberland, and still maintained in Scotland, seem, in process of time, to have soured the temper of Macbeth, and rendered him formidable to his nobility. Against Macduff, in particular, the powerful Maormor of Fife, he had uttered some threats which occasioned that chief to fly from the court of Scotland. Urged by this new counsellor, Siward, the Danish Earl of Northumberland, invaded Scotland in the year 1054, displaying his banner in behalf of the banished Malcolm. Macbeth engaged the foe in the neighbourhood of his celebrated castle of Dunsinane. He was defeated, but escaped from the battle, and was slain at Lumphanan in 1056."

Whether Shakespeare was ever in Scotland is a question. that has been much discussed. Knight (Biography, ed. 1865, p. 420 fol.) endeavours to prove that the poet visited that country in 1589, but most of the editors agree that there is no satisfactory evidence of his having ever been there.†

III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY.

[From Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays."‡] Macbeth (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of

* As Rev. Mr. Moberly remarks, this view is confirmed by Mr. E. A. Freeman (Norman Conquest, ii. p. 55): “All genuine Scottish tradition points to the reign of Macbeth as a period of unusual peace and prosperity in that disturbed land."

† For a good summary of the discussion see Furness's Macbeth, p. 407 fol.

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, by William Hazlitt, edited by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, 1869), p. 17.

Shakespeare'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. Shakespeare'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," 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 all, and him, we thirst,” and when his ghost appears, cries out, "Avaunt and quit my sight," and being gone, he is “himself again.” . . . 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;