b. DOUBLE-TIME-ANALYSIS OF MACBETH

AND OTHELLO.

BY PROFESSOR JOHN WILSON.

IN FOUR SCENES.

Interlocutors:-CHRISTOPHER NORTH, TALBOYS, SEWARD, AND BULLER. Scene I.

N. In Macbeth, Time and Place, through the First Scene of the First Act, are past finding out. It has been asked-Was Shakspere 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 Shakspere'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 Shaksperian Drama. *

B. Now for some of your astounding Discoveries.

N. If you gather the Movement, scene by scene, of the Action of this Drama, you see a few weeks, or it may be months. There must be time to hear that Malcolm and his brother have reached England

and Ireland-time for the King of England to interest himself in behalf of Malcolm, and muster his array. More than this seems unrequired. But the zenith of tyranny to which Macbeth has arrived, and particularly the manner of describing the desolation of Scotland by the speakers in England, conveys to you the notion of a long, long dismal reign. Of old it always used to do so with me ; so that when I came to visit the question of the Time, I felt myself as if baffled and puzzled, not finding the time I had looked for, demonstrable. Samuel Johnson has had the same impression, but has not scrutinised the data. He goes probably by the old Chronicler for the actual time, and this, one would think, must have floated before Shakspere's own mind.

T. Nobody can read the Scenes in England without seeing longprotracted time.

"Malcolm. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Macduff.

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men,

Bestride our down-fallen birthdom: Each new morn,
New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour."

And in the same dialogue Malcolm says—

"I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds."

And hear Rosse, on his joining Malcolm and Macduff in this scene, the latest arrival from Scotland :

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'Macduff. Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse.

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems

A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken."

N. Now, my dear Talboys, let us here endeavour to ascertain Shakspere's Time. Here we have long time with a vengeance-and here we have short time; FOR THIS IS THE PICTURE OF THE STATE OF POOR SCOTLAND BEFORE THE MURDER OF MACDUFF'S WIFE AND CHILDREN. Macduff, moved by Rosse's words, asks him, "how does my wife?" And then ensues the affecting account of her murder, which you need not recite. Now, I ask, when was the murder of Lady Macduff perpetrated? Two days-certainly not more-after the murder of Banquo. Macbeth, incensed by the flight of Fleance, goes, the morning after the murder of Banquo, to the Weirds, to know by "the worst means, the worst." You know what they showed him—and that, as they vanished, he exclaimed

"Where are they? Gone?-Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar!-

Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride;

And damn'd all those that trust them!--I did hear

The galloping of horse: Who was't came by?

Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,
MACDUFF IS FLED TO ENGLAND.

Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it: from this moment,

The very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand. And even now

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise;

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace his line. No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool."

And his purpose does not cool-for the whole Family are murdered.

When, then, took place the murder of Banquo? Why, a week or two after the murder of Duncan. A very short time indeed, then, intervened between the first and the last of these murders. And

yet from those pictures of Scotland, painted in England for our information and horror, we have before us a long, long time, all filled up with butchery over all the land! But I say there had been no such butchery-or anything resembling it. There was, as yet, little amiss with Scotland. Look at the linking of Acts II. and III. End of Act II., Macbeth is gone to Scone-to be invested. Beginning of Act III., Banquo says, in soliloquy, in Palace of Forres, "Thou hast it now." I ask, when is this Now? Assuredly just after the Coronation. The Court was moved from Scone to Forres, which, we may gather from finding Duncan there formerly, to be the usual Royal Residence. "Enter Macbeth as King." "Our great Feast"—our "solemn Supper "_"this day's Council"-all have the aspect of new taking on the style of Royalty. "Thou hast it Now," is formal -weighed and in a position that gives it authority-at the very beginning of an Act-therefore intended to mark time-a very pointing of the finger on the dial.

Banquo fears "Thou play'dst most foully for it;" he goes no farther not a word of any tyranny done. All the style of an incipient, dangerous Rule-clouds, but no red rain yet. And I need not point out to you, Talboys, that Macbeth's behaviour at the Banquet, on seeing Banquo nodding at him from his own stool, proves him to have been then young in blood.

"My strange and self-abuse

Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
We are yet but young in deed."

He had a week or two before committed a first-rate murder, Duncan's-that night he had, by hired hands, got a second-rate job done, Banquo's-and the day following he gave orders for a bloody business on a more extended scale, the Macduffs. But nothing here the least like Rosse's, or Macduff's, or Malcolm's Picture of Scotland -during those few weeks. For Shakspere forgot what the true time was his own time-the short time; and introduced long time at the same time-why, he himself no doubt knew.

Macduff speaks as if he

I call that an ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY. knew that Scotland had been for ever so long desolated by the Tyrant and yet till Rosse told him, never had he heard of the Murder of his own Wife! Here Shakspere either forgot himself wholly, and the short time he had himself assigned-or, with his eyes open, forced in the long time upon the short-in wilful violation of possibility! All silent?

T. After supper-you shall be answered.

N. Not by any man now sitting here-or elsewhere.1

Pray, Talboys, explain to me this. The Banquet scene breaks up in most admired disorder-"stand not upon the order of your going-but go at once,"-quoth the Queen. The King, in a state of great excitement, says to her

"I will to-morrow,

(Betimes I will,) unto the weird sisters:

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst: for mine own good,
All causes shall give way; I am in blood

Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

One might have thought not quite so tedious; as yet he had mur-
dered only Duncan and his grooms, and to-night Banquo. Well, he
does (6
go to-morrow and by times" to the Cave.

"Witch.-By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:

Open, locks, whoever knocks.

Macbeth.-How now, you secret, Black, and midnight Hags?" It is a "dark Cave"-dark at all times-and now "by times" of the morning! Now-observe-Lenox goes along with Macbeth— on such occasions 'tis natural to wish " one of ourselves" to be at hand. And Lenox had been at the Banquet. Had he gone to bed after that strange Supper? No doubt, for an hour or two-like the rest of "the Family." But whether he went to bed or not, then and there he and another Lord had a confidential and miraculous conversation. Lenox says to the other Lord

"Or elsewhere." Yet in Dublin, at the moment of writing this, Mr Halpin had discovered the solution of this problem, and had applied it to Twelfth Night, and the Merchant of Venice.-ED.