INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH. HISTORICAL NOTICE. IN Coleridge's early sonnet "To the Author of the Robbers," his imagination is enchained to the most terrible scene of that play; disregarding, as it were, all the accessories by which its horrors are mitigated and rendered endurable: "Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, It was in a somewhat similar manner that Shakspere's representation of the murder of Duncan affected the imagination of Mrs. Siddons:-" It was my custom to study my characters at night, when all the domestic cares and business of the day were over, On the night preceding that on which I was to appear in this part for the first time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my study of Lady Macbeth. As the character is very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many others do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination. But, to proceed. I went on with tolerable composure, in the silence of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till I came to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the room in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast asleep. I clapped my candlestick down upon the table, without the power of putting it out; and I threw myself on my bed, without daring to stay even to take off my clothes."* If the drama of 'Macbeth were to produce the same effect upon the mind of an imaginative reader as that described by Mrs. Siddons, it would not be the great work of art which it really is. If our poet had resolved, using the words of his own Othello," to 'abandon all remorse, On horror's head horrors accumulate," the midnight terrors, such as Mrs. Siddons has described, would have indeed been a tribute to power, but not to the power which has produced "Macbeth." The paroxysm of fear, the panic-struck fancy, the prostrated senses, so beautifully described by this impassioned actress, were the result of the intensity with which she had fixed her mind upon that part of *Memoranda by Mrs. Siddons, inserted in her "Life" by Mr. Campbell." the play which she was herself to act. In the endeavor to get the words into her head, her own fine genius was naturally kindled to behold a complete vision of the wonderful scene. Again, and again, were the words repeated, on that night which she could never forget,-in the silence of that night, when all about her were sleeping. And then she heard the owl shriek, amidst the hurried steps in the fatal chamber,and she saw the bloody hands of the assassin, -and, personifying the murderess, she rushed to dip her own hands in the gore of Duncan. It is perfectly evident that this intensity of conception has carried the horrors far beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion, and has produced all the terrors of a real murder. No reader of the play, and no spectator, can regard this play as Mrs. Siddons regarded it. On that night she, probably for the first time, had a strong though imperfect vision of the character of Lady Macbeth, such as she afterwards delineated it; and in that case, what to all of us must, under any circumstances, be a work of art, however glorious, was to her almost a reality. It was the isolation of the scene, demanded by her own attempt to conceive the character of Lady Macbeth, which made it so terrible to Mrs. Siddons. The reader has to regard it as a part of a great whole, which combines and harmonizes with all around it; for which he is adequately prepared by what has gone before; and which,-even if we look at it as a picture which represents only that one portion of the action, has still its own repose, its own harmony of coloring, its own chiaroscuro,-is to be seen under a natural light. There was a preternatural light upon it when Mrs. Siddons saw it as she has described. The leading characteristic of this glorious tragedy is, without doubt, that which consti tutes the essential difference between a work of the highest genius and a work of mediocrity. Without power-by which we here especially mean the ability to produce strong excitement by the display of scenes of horror-no poet of the highest order was ever made; but this alone does not make such a poet. If he is called upon to present such scenes, they must, even in their most striking forms, be associated with the beautiful. The pre-eminence of his art in this particular can alone prevent them affecting the imagination beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion. To keep within these limits, and yet to preserve all the energy which results from the power of dealing with the terrible apart from the beautiful, belongs to few that the world has seen to Shakspere it belongs surpassingly. That Shakspere found sufficient materials for this great drama in Holinshed's "History of Scotland" is a fact that renders it quite unnecessary for us to enter into any discussion as to the truth of this portion of the history, or to point out the authorities upon which the narrative of Holinshed was founded. Better authorities than Holinshed had access to have shown that the contest for the crown of Scotland between Duncan and Macbeth was a contest of factions, and that Macbeth was raised to the throne by his Norwegian allies after a battle in which Duncan fell; in the same way, after a long rule, was he vanquished and killed by the son of Duncan, supported by his English allies.* But with the differences between the real and apocryphal history it is manifest that we can here have no concern. There is another story told also in the same narrative, which Shakspere with consummate skill has blended with the story of Mac See Skeene's "Highlanders of Scotland," vol. 11, p. 116. beth. It is that of the murder of King Duff by Donwald and his wife in Donwald's castle of Forres: "The king got him into his privy chamber, only with two of his chamberlains, who, having brought him to bed, came forth again, and then fell to banqueting with Donwald and his wife, who had prepared divers delicate dishes and sundry sorts of drinks for their rear-supper or collation, whereat they sat up so long, till they had charged their stomachs with such full gorges, that their heads were no sooner got to the pillow but asleep they were so fast that a man might have removed the chamber over them sooner than to have awakened them out of their drunken sleep. "Then Donwald, though he abhorred the act greatly in heart, yet through instigation of his wife he called four of his servants unto him (whom he had made privy to his wicked intent before, and framed to his purpose with large gifts), and now declaring unto them after what sort they should work the feat, they gladly obeyed his instructions, and speedily going about the murder, they enter the chamber (in which the king lay) a little before cock's crow, where they secretly cut his throat as he lay sleeping, without any bustling at all; and immediately by a postern gate they carried forth the dead body into the fields... Donwald, about the time that the murder was in doing, got him amongst them that kept the watch, and so continued in company with them all the residue of the night. But in the morning, when the noise was raised in the king's chamber how the king was slain, his body conveyed away, and the bed all beraid with blood, he with the watch ran thither, as though he had known nothing of the matter, and breaking into |