To embody intention, that ambition may be a Spur to prick its fides, leans towards the burlesque ; and then turning the spur into another body, that it may vault over, instead of gaining the faddle of intent, corroborates this idea; indeed this speech should always end at L The deep damnation of his taking off. For pity-heaven's cherubim and ambition, all upon the full gallop, are strained figures at least; not at all adapted to a man deliberating upon one of the fouleft, most important murthers he could commit. Lady Macbeth comes to speak in rather plainer terms; yet, unless we allow great latitude of expreffion, what follows evidently admits of objection. Was the hope drunk Wherein you drest yourself? Hath it flept since, And wakes it now to look so pale and fickly. Suppose we pass over the literal acceptation of bope being drunk, furely we must blame a lady of high rank for defcending to fuch a vulgar and naufeous allufion as the paleness and fickness of an inebriated state; nor is her comparison of the cat in the adage much more the effect of good breeding. Macbeth's reply to the very gross rebuff he has just received is as concise, significant and noble a one as ever was uttered; but his bloody-minded virago's next speech, towards the conclufion, wounds humanity with such a fentiment as no woman should utter, nor any rational being hear; yet yet that strange, horrid picture of dashing a smiling infant's brains out, and laying a plan for complicated destruction, occafions Macbeth to say Bring forth men children only, For thy undaunted metal should compose Should he not rather have said, Bring forth fierce tygers only, For thy relentless nature should compose If it should be urged, that such characters have been, 1 and may be; I still contend, that they are among the frightful deformities and essential concealments of nature, which should be excluded from the stage. The midnight interview of Macbeth and Banquo at the beginning of the second act, very properly ushers in the dreadful business then in agitation; that prophetic heaviness of heart mentioned by the former, his presenting a fresh mark of favour from the king to lady Macbeth, his speaking of the • three weird sisters, and Macbeth's affecting to flight the remembrance of them, tho' not very obvious, are yet confiderable beauties : I could heartily wish this paffage did not occur There's husbandry in heaven, Their candles are all out What a poverty of idea and expreffion! yet we * find the stars called candles by our author, in his Romeo and Juliet also-how much more worthy of himfelf and of his subject, is what Lorenzo calls them in the Merchant of Venice, pattens of bright gold ? 3 In In Macbeth's foliloquy, where a visionary dagger strikes his mind's eye, the abrupt introduction of that alarming object is very judicious and beautiful; nor can any thing be more natural than the effect it has on Macbeth, which is most admirably described, and strongly impressed by a nervous fucceffion of breaks, which, for a dozen or fourteen lines, rise into a powerful climax of confufion -the momentary pause of unclouded reason which relieves imagination from her painful load, and the quick return of coward confcience diversify the sentiment and action in a most interesting manner; the picture of midnight, as favouring witchcraft, rapes and murther, concludes this inimitable foliloquy with a due folemnity of terror; a foliloquy of fuch unspeakable merit, that, like charity, it may apologize for a multitude of faults. Lady Macbeth, at her entrance, gives us a piece of information not very defensible, unless it is meant as fome palliation of her character-the false fire of liquor, for which she seems to have very little occafion, must be, in her situation, rather a dangerous resource: the remainder of her speech is happily disjointed by earnest expectation and jealous apprehenfion. The remark, that a likeness of her father in Duncan's sleeping appearance, prevented her from doing the business herself, lets in a gleam of humanity upon this female fiend. The entrance of Macbeth, his high-wrought confufion, and every syllable of the ensuing scene, exhibit an unparallelled combination of judgment and genius, calculated to awake the drowsiest feelVOL. I. ings N : 1 ings, and to alarm the most resolute heart-the 66 " other," with the inimitable description of sleep, and the idea of nature's general friend being murthered in that fleep, are astonishing efforts of mental ability, and, for fo much, certainly place Shakespeare beyond any degree of comparative merit. The refusal of Macbeth to go again into the fcene of blood, is an apt stroke of well-timed remorse; indeed his bringing the daggers from the 'place they should have been left in, is an extreme well-judged mark of confufion; however, I would rather have forfeited that instance of judgment, than have heaped such savage inhumanity upon the female; her boast of having hands crimfoned like those of her husband, carries the offensive colouring still higher : what succeeds, on the interruption of knocking, is expressed very characteriftically. To what end Shakespeare could introduce so in congruous a character as the porter, who is commendably omitted in representation, I believe no mortal can tell; at fuch an interesting period, to turn the most serious feelings into laughter, or rather into distaste, by a string of strained quibbles is an insult upon judgment, and must fill the imagination with a chaos of idea-Some more suitable pause might have been made to give Macbeth time for compofing his ruffled figure; the short scene between him, Macduff and Lenox, is well calculated : lated; Lenox's remarks upon the night are very consistent with those surperstitious principles, on which this play is chiefly founded; and Macduff's exclamatory entrance discovers Duncan's murther properly. The fucceffive entrances and exits of various characters, the real grief of some, and the feigned forrow of others, Macbeth's apology for his political stroke of killing the grooms, by an affecting picture of Duncan's situation, and the rapid refolution of enquiring judicially into so unaccountable an event, are all well arranged and happily expressed; but the amazing precipitate flight of Malcolm and Donalbain, without any apology, except the paltry one of instantaneous fear, places these sprigs of royalty in a contemptible light, and its effect on the stage proves the justice of this remark; for when one fays, "I'll to England," and the other comically replies, "To Ireland I," nine times out of ten, the audience are thrown into a horfe-laugh. I could with this circumstance was altered, as it easily might be, by giving a few speeches of spirit and dutiful affection to one or both the princes, expressive of their particular determination to discover, and revenge their father's death; which might be over-ruled by Macduff's representation of the danger they stand exposed to, and that for their greater security it would be better to retire, till the unavoidable convulfions of state were subsided, or till proper measures could be taken to establish the legal fucceffion; this, I apprehend, would have carried them off with fome grace, N2 |