original and bold genius of Shakspeare only. It is an incident so full of tragic horror, so daring, and at the same time so truly characteristic, that it stands out as a prominent feature in the most sublime drama in the world, and fully compensates for any sacrifices the poet might have made in the previous arrangement of his incidents. CUMBERLAND. с C d Shakspeare has not thought it necessary to hint to us the repressed yet agonizing struggles which Lady Macbeth must have endured, ere her mind, originally so daringly masculine and fearless, could have been subdued to these terrors of imagination. But it is evident, and it is a management worthy of Shakspeare, that the repression of her feelings in her waking state served but to render her, when volition was weakened by sleep, more assuredly the victim of horror, even unto death; for, atrocious as her character is, and apparently scarcely, if at all, susceptible of remorse, yet that some portion of humanity lingered in her heart, is placed beyond all doubt from the very striking trait which the poet has thrown in, in order to link her as it were to human nature, that of declining to execute the murder of Duncan herself, when she placed the daggers in his chamber, because he resembled her "father as he slept.' This touch of tenderness is alone sufficient to render probable the almost unparalleled horror of the scene which precedes her dissolution. d. The Observer, No. 57. No. XV. ON THE CHARACTERS OF MACBETH AND RICHARD CONCLUDED. MACBETH now approaches towards his catastrophe. The heir of the crown is in arms, and he must defend valiantly what he has usurped villainously. His natural valour does not suffice for this trial: he resorts to the witches; he conjures them to give answer to what he shall ask, and he again runs into all those pleonasms of speech which I before remarked. The predictions he extorts from the apparitions are so couched as to seem favourable to him; at the same time that they correspond with events which afterwards prove fatal. The management of this incident has so close a resemblance to what the poet ClauIdian has done in the instance of Ruffinus's vision the night before his massacre, that I am tempted to insert the passage : Ecce videt diras alludere protinus umbras, Quas dedit ipse neci; quarum quæ clarior una A ghastly vision in the dead of night Of mangled, murder'd ghosts appal his sight; That ends thy labours, and dispels thy fears: Confiding in his auguries, Macbeth now prepares for battle: by the first of these he is assured -That none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth. By the second prediction he is told— Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam-wood to Dunsinane's high hill These he calls sweet boadments! and concludes To sleep in spite of thunder. This play is so replete with excellences, that it would exceed all bounds if I were to notice every one; I pass over, therefore, that incomparable scene between Macbeth, the physician, and Seyton, in which the agitations of his mind are so wonderfully expressed; and, without pausing for the death of Lady Macbeth, I conduct the reader to that crisis, when the messenger has announced the ominous approach of Birnam-wood.-A burst of fury, an exclamation seconded by a blow, is the first natural explosion of a soul so stung with scorpions as Macbeth's. The sudden gust is no sooner discharged than nature speaks her own language; and the still voice of conscience, like reason in the midst of madness, murmurs forth these mournful words : I pall in resolution, and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, With what an exquisite feeling has this darling son of nature here thrown in this touching, this pathetic sentence, amidst the very whirl and eddy of conflicting passions! Here is a study for dramatic poets; this is a string for an actor's skill to touch; this will discourse sweet music to the human heart, with which it is finely unisoned when struck with the hand of a master. The next step brings us to the last scene of Macbeth's dramatic existence. Flushed with the blood of Siward, he is encountered by Macduff, who crosses him like his evil genius. Macbeth cries out Of all men else I have avoided thee. To the last moment of character the faithful poet supports him. He breaks off from single combat, and in the tremendous pause, so beautifully contrived to hang suspense and terror on the moral scene of his exit, the tyrant driven to bay, and panting with the heat and struggle of the fight, vauntingly exclaims MACB. As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air MACD. With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born. Despair thy charm! And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd, MACB. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so ! part There sinks the spirit of Macbeth -Behold! where stands Th' usurper's cursed head! of man. How completely does this coincide with the passage already quoted! -Occulto fallitur ille Omine, nec CAPITIS FIXI præsagia sentit.e It cannot but be a subject of considerable regret, that the supernatural machinery of this sublime drama is so inadequately represented on the stage. "Much," I have remarked in another work, "of the dread, solemnity, and awe which is experienced in reading this play, from the intervention of the witches, is lost in its representation, owing to the injudicious custom of bringing them too forward on the scene; where, appearing little better than a group of old women, the effect intended by the poet is not only destroyed, but reversed. Their dignity and grandeur must arise, as evil beings gifted with superhuman powers, from the undefined nature both of their agency and of their external forms. Were they indistinctly seen, though audible, at a distance, and, as it were, through a hazy twilight, celebrating their orgies, and with shadowy and gigantic shape flitting between the pale blue |