A FEW WORDS ON THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH. MANY regard Shakespeare with blind enthusiasm rather than with rational devotion; and of his innumerable annotators, few there are who have ventured beyond the pale of verbal criticism into the more dignified path of calm animadversion; although the works of this writer-whose beauties and defects are all in the extreme-afford the fairest subject for instructive observation.

If we examine one of his chief productions, the tragedy of Macbeth, it will be found that in two of the objects of consideration in the tragic drama, as in the epic poem-fable and character-it stands unrivalled.

For the foundation of the fable we have authentic history; and the introduction of supernatural agents is authorized by ancient records and popular belief. In the time of Shakespeare, the wizard, or infernal mythology, was inculcated by the pen of royalty itself; and the solemn legislative enactments of that period pronounced witchcraft a felony, punishable with death. This foundation of the fable in truth, or what is received as truth, aids the illusion of the drama; for we enter the more feelingly into the representation of sorrows and distresses which we imagine have been actually experienced. To heighten this effect, the scene is laid in a period neither so remote as to be wholly involved in the darkness of antiquity, by which our interest in the spectacle would be enfeebled ; nor yet so near our own times, as to render the names and manners of the persons familiar to us, and thus deprive the drama of much of its dignity.

The favourite emotions of tragedy are terror and pity. To produce terror, violent passions must be brought into play; the change of fortune from good to bad should be signal, great, and sudden, and when the sufferer is wholly unprepared for the sad reverse. To excite pity, the fable should represent persons possessed of every amiable quality sinking under the weight of inevitable misfortune, or unexpected calamity.

Let us look at the drama before us in these two points of view. On the one hand we have beings of superior power, but of malignant disposition, perpetually employed in perverting innocence, persecuting virtue, and crowding the annals of mankind with tales of ruin and of woe. These "murd'ring ministers" employ their knowledge of futurity, and other supernatural powers which they possess, in urging a man endowed with great and noble qualities, but marked at the same time with great infirmities, to crimes the most atrocious; to a violation of the rights of hospitality, and the ties of honor, gratitude, and allegiance, and the murder of his sovereign, who loved, trusted, and promoted him. Macbeth, having thus acquired a crown by treason, is led on by his infernal advisers

to secure the possession of royalty by the commission of further crimes. He is filled with doubts and fears obscurely hinted, and dark expedients imperfectly suggested. Thus tortured, his mind is set upon the rack, and he is driven to plunge his native country in war and devastation, and to atone by a violent death, a death hastened by the false security into which the weird sisters lull him-and suffered, under the full force of retributive justice, for the very crimes to which, by their wicked machinations, he had been impelled.

On the other hand, we see a prince merciful and liberal, just and beneficent, treacherously murdered, while confident of his security, and in the midst of social enjoyment, by those to the shelter of whose roof he had entrusted himself. And the person who stands the highest in the confidence and good opinion of his sovereign, and had been loaded with wealth and honours by him, conspires to rob him of his kingdom with his life, and executes his diabolical purpose in the dead of night.*

The prediction is admirably contrived to complicate the guilt of Macbeth, and to consummate the mischief by the succession of various crimes"; for while the usurper is tempted to conspire against his sovereign, by the promise of a throne to him personally, he is stimulated to the commission of the subsequent murders by the limitation of the crown to the issue of Banquo.

The murder of the wife and children of Macduff, and his sorrow for their loss, and the madness and miserable death of Lady Macbeth, although they may be considered as episodes, greatly heighten the feelings of terror, while they contribute to carry on the main action. The resentment of Macduff hastens the return of the exiles, and the invasion of Scotland, with the consequent death of the tyrant. The madness of Lady Macbeth discloses the guilt of the usurper; and her death, at a critical juncture of his fate, is a warning blow which for a moment chills his spirit, and then drives him rashly to expose himself in the fight.

With consummate skill, the catastrophe is not produced by a set of arbitrary and unconnected incidents predetermined by the poet, which might subsist equally well with any other set of characters, but is necessarily prepared and introduced by the ruling passions of the several actors in the drama.

As regards the moral, perhaps if the fable has a general tendency to shew the fatal effects of an unbridled indulgence of the passions, it is enough. But the tragedy inculcates several particular and important lessons. We are here shewn the danger of yielding to the suggestions of ambition, when the commission of crime is the price of the wished for attainment. We are taught how one degree of guilt paves the way for another more atrocious, until step by step a climax of wickedness is reached, the bare contemplation of which should cause a shudder at the outset ; and we may see the stern necessity of combating at the very threshold the solicitation and the impulse to do ill.

In the delineation of the characters, Shakespeare has, we submit, been full as successful as in the fable, although, in offering this opinion, we have in some measure to contend with high authority; for Dr. Johnson asserts that this play has no nice discrimination of character, that the events are too grand to admit the influence of particular dispositions, and

* Shakespeare, with the admirable tact he displays throughout this wonderful drama, describes the night of the murder as being rough and tempestuous.

that the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents. Here the critic seems to impute to the tragic writer as a fault, the want of nice discrimination of character. In our humble judgment this is not strictly fair, for although tragedy requires in some degree a display of character, inasmuch as it represents human actions, still, to mark its nicer discriminations, is the province, not of tragedy, but of comedy. As far as the former requires, or admits the representation of character, Shakespeare has, in the drama before us, attended particularly to their minute delineation, and his principal personages are as admirably contrasted, and as ably designed as those of any other dramatic piece in the language.

Macbeth is a murderer, a usurper, and a tyrant; but he is not a common murderer, a common usurper, nor a common tyrant. He has a mixture of virtuous feelings and noble sentiments, and a variety of great, nay, amiable qualities; and Shakespeare shews us he had sufficient art at his command to render an assemblage of seemingly discordant elements highly natural, and still greater art to render an assemblage of estimable qualities highly detestable. The progressive depravation of character is painted with the hand of a master; the usurper, goaded by the consciousness of guilt within, by the public execration, by factions, and by cabals without, assumes a misanthropic turn, a savage ferocity, to which, originally, he was a stranger. Macbeth and his wife are both guilty of a horrible crime, but her guilt is the guilt of a woman, rash, precipitate, and regardless of consequences; his guilt is that of a man, reluctant, fearful of the event, and slow in resolution, but in the end, steadfast and persevering. They both feel remorse; she, like a true woman, first commits the crime, and then feels the stings of conscience so acutely that her reason fails; the remorse of her husband is more calm and deep, and closely follows each step of his criminal career.

As to the other part of the criticism of Dr. Johnson-that the conduct of the agents is determined by the course of the action-we advance, with all due respect to the great commentator, the converse of the proposition, and affirm that the course of the action is determined by the conduct of the agents; or in other words, that characters, such as Shakespeare has introduced, and placed in situations such as he has supposed, could hardly think, speak, or act otherwise than they do in the drama_under consideration. By what is the course of the action determined? By the malign disposition of the witches; the credulity, ambition, and jealousy of the usurper and his wife; the princely virtues of Malcolm; and the generous loyalty, and domestic piety of Macduff. Thus, the events of the drama, instead of excluding particular dispositions, are produced by them; they constitute the course of action, and effect the catastrophe.

The character of Macbeth is such as tragedy delights to exhibit; a compound of great and malignant qualities, of good feelings and enormous guilt. He is not "monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum," but a mere man, betrayed to the commission of extraordinary crimes by the concurrence of circumstances as extraordinary; by the instigations of supernatural agents, and by the arts and persuasions of a wife whom he holds in the fondest affection. Macbeth is brave, and naturally disposed to virtue. The witches place before his eyes the dazzling form of royalty to pervert his mind; and Lady Macbeth, who possesses great power over him, argues and laughs him out of his honest scruples. Partly by upbraiding, partly by blandishments, she confirms the wavering propensity to guilt, and at

last assists him in the perpetration of his first dreadful crime. Having thus"in blood stept in so far," one murder is engrafted on another; he perceives too late the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth, and perishes, sword in hand, with a bravery and a resolution worthy of a better cause.

Lady Macbeth is a woman of violent passions, but possessing elegance of manners and admirable address. This makes her influence over a man of abilities, like Macbeth, appear the more probable; and such an influence is necessary to produce the catastrophe in a manner at once natural and affecting. She is possessed of a masculine commanding eloquence, and of an intimate acquaintance with the workings of the human heart, and knows the precise moment for employing these resources with ready and certain effect. Her behaviour, both as a subject and as a queen, is marked with graceful ease, and distinguished by a strain of noble courtesy and dignified condescension. Her address and powers of conversation are finely marked in the two scenes where she does the honours of her house; first, at the reception of the king, and afterwards, at the feast for the nobles, when the ghost of Banquo appears. Her studied attention and exaggerated expressions of duty and gratitude to the king, at the very time when she was meditating his destruction, are highly natural. The anxiety she seems to suffer in her efforts to conceal Macbeth's disorder at the appearance of the ghost; her ready dexterity in obviating the suspicions of the guests, and attributing the emotions of her husband to a constitutional malady; and her earnestness to dismiss the company when she perceives his utter prostration, and the impossibility of further escaping detection, are all powerful proofs of the mighty genius and of the dramatic skill of Shakespeare.

VOL. VI. NO. XXX.

L

Θητα

THE MATRON AND HER FLOWER-GARDEN.

BY T. D. JONES, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF MONODY ON THE DEATH OF L. E. L.

'Twas evening's calm and tranquil hour, the smile of parting day
With golden light illumed each scene ere yet it stole away ;
The blithesome carol of the birds that sported on the trees,
Like angel whispers, soft and sweet, came floating on the breeze.
Within a beauteous garden strayed as fair and sweet a child
As ever breathed to Heaven a prayer, or exquisitely smiled;
She culled the rarest flowers that blossomed in luxuriance there,
And twined them into wreaths to deck the tresses of her hair.

She roamed along in innocence, and even that moment seemed
As gay as hope could render her, or poet ever dreamed:
She rushed to seize each butterfly that flew before her eyes,
And panted when she failed to catch the fluttering little prize.

Years glided o'er—again she sauntered there a gentle bride,
The idol of her first affection walking by her side.

The star of pure marital faith diffused its sacred ray,
And gave a charm to every hour that fondly stole away.

She lingered in that garden then, where every shrub and flower
That taste could wish for shed its sweets to bless the genial hour;
She felt that care had flung no cloud to chill enjoyment's glow,
Or cast one saddening tinge of grief to shade her placid brow.

She gazed in fondness all around, and felt each scene impart
A glow of satisfaction to her young and guileless heart;
She knew she planted every flower that bloomed before her there,
And nursed them on from day to day with kind and anxious care.

"Welcome, fair scene!" she then exclaimed. "Oh, would it were my lot,

To pass through life in quietness in this sequestered spot:

Removed from all the empty pomp, the splendour, and the state,
That wait in all the foolish pride of grandeur on the great;

"Here to enjoy those rural scenes of innocence and ease,

Where every rose expands to charm-where every shrub can please—
Where silent contemplation loves to lead the mental eye
Through Nature's smiling book aloft, and fix my thoughts on high;

"Resigning all the glory and magnificence that shower
Their foolish fascinations on the heartless sons of power.'
How gladly would I bargain in this calm retreat to dwell,
And bid this trifling world and all its vanities farewell.”