the history, or to point out the authorities | king's chamber how the king was slain, his 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 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 the chamber, and finding cakes of blood in the bed and on the floor chamberlains as guilty of that heinous murder.¦ that Macbeth was raised to the throne by about the sides of it, he forthwith slew the 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 Macbeth. 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 awaked 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 * See Skene's 'Highlanders of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 116. For the space of six months together, after this heinous murder thus committed, there appeared no sun by day, nor moon by night, in any part of the realm, but still was the sky covered with continual clouds, and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with lightnings and tempests, that the people were in great fear of present destruction." It was originally the opinion of Steevens and Malone that a play by Thomas Middleton, entitled 'The Witch,' had preceded 'Macbeth,' and that Shakspere was consequently indebted to Middleton for the general idea of the witch incantations. Malone subsequently changed his opinion; for in a posthumous edition of his 'Essay on the Chronological Order,' he has maintained that The Witch' was a later production than 'Macbeth.' 6 There is an interesting point connected with the origin of Macbeth,' namely, whether an actual visit to Scotland suggested some of the descriptions, and probably the very story of this tragedy. The question Did Shakspere visit Scotland?" was first raised, in 1767, by William Guthrie, in his 'General History of Scotland: "A.D. 1599. The King, to prove how thoroughly he was now emancipated from the tutelage of his clergy, desired Elizabeth to send him this year a company of English comedians. She complied, and James gave them a licence to act in his capital and in his court. I have great reason to think that the immortal Shakspere was of the number." Guthrie, a very loose and inaccurate compiler, gives no authority for his statement; but it is evidently founded upon the following passage in Archbishop Spottiswood's History of the Church of Scotland,' which the writer says was "penned at the command of King James the Sixth, who bid the author write the truth and spare not:" in company with a nobleman of France visiting Aberdeen for the gratification of his curiosity, and recommended by the King to be favourably entertained; as well as with three men of rank, and others, who were directed by his Majesty to accompany "the said Frenchman." All the party are described in the document as knights and gentlemen. We have to inquire, then, who was Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty? Assuredly the King had not in his service a company of Scotch players. In 1599 he had licensed a company of English comedians to play at Edinburgh. Fond as James was of theatrical exhibitions, he had not the means of gratifying his taste, except through the visits of English comedians. Scotland had no drama. "In the end of the year [1599] happened | could bestow. He is admitted to this honour some new jars betwixt the King and the ministers of Edinburgh; because of a company of English comedians, whom the King had licensed to play within the burgh. The ministers, being offended with the liberty given them, did exclaim in their sermons against stage-players, their unruliness and immodest behaviour; and in their sessions made an act, prohibiting people to resort unto their plays, under pain of the church censures. The King, taking this to be a discharge of his licence, called the sessions before the council, and ordained them to annul their act, and not to restrain the people from going to these comedies: which they promised, and accordingly performed; whereof publication was made the day after, and all that pleased permitted to repair unto the same, to the great offence of the ministers." This account by Spottiswood is abundantly confirmed by some very curious entries in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer and the Acts of the Privy Council, which are preserved in the Register House at Edinburgh. The Lord High Treasurer's accounts show that in October, November, and December, 1599, the large sum of 4267. was distributed among certain English comedians. The fortieth volume of the registers of the Town Council of Aberdeen contains some remarkable entries which show that in October, 1607, a company of players, specially recommended by the King, were paid a gratuity from the Corporation of Aberdeen for their performances in that town, one of them subsequently receiving the freedom of the borough; that they are called "the King's servants, who played comedies and stage-plays." The circumstance that they are recommended by the King's special letter is not so important as the description of them as the King's servants. Thirteen days after the entry of the 9th of October, at which first period these servants of the King had played some of their comedies, Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty, is admitted a burgess of Guild of the borough of Aberdeen -the greatest honour which the Corporation There "Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty," was undoubtedly an Englishman; and "The King's servants presently in this borough who play comedies and stage-plays" were as certainly English players. are not many facts known by which we can trace the history of Lawrence Fletcher. He is not mentioned amongst "the names of the principal actors in all these plays," which list is given in the first folio edition of Shakspere; but he undoubtedly belonged to Shakspere's company. The patent of James I., dated at Westminster on the nineteenth of May, 1603, in favour of the players acting at the Globe, is headed "Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare & aliis ;" and it licenses and authorises the performances of "Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condel, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates." The connection in 1603 of Fletcher and Shakspere cannot be more distinctly established than by this document. The patent of James the First of England directed to Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakspere, and others, eighteen months after the performances at Aberdeen, is directed to those persons as our servants.” It does not appoint them the King's servants, but recognises the appointment as already 66 might have been found in Scottish superstitions, more especially in those which are known to have been rife at Aberdeen at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 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, existing. Can there be a reasonable doubt | of the peculiarities of the witchcraft imagery that the appointment was originally made by the King in Scotland, and subsisted when the same King ascended the English throne? Lawrence Fletcher was admitted a burgess of Guild of the borough of Aberdeen as comedian to his Majesty, in company with other persons who were servitors to his Majesty. He received that honour, we may conclude, as the head of the company, also the King's servants. We know not how he attained this distinction amongst his fellows, but it is impossible to imagine that accident so favoured him in two instances. The King's servant who was most favoured at Aberdeen, and the King's servant who is first in the patent in 1603, was surely placed in that position by the voice of his fellows, the other King's servants. William Shakspere is named with him in a marked manner in the heading of the patent. Seven of their fellows are also named, as dis- It was in a somewhat similar manner that tinguished from "the rest of their associates." | Shakspere's representation of the murder of There can be no doubt of the identity of the | Duncan affected the imagination of Mrs. Lawrence Fletcher, the servant of James VI. Siddons:-"It was my custom to study my of Scotland, and the Lawrence Fletcher, the characters at night, when all the domestic servant of James I. of England. Can we cares and business of the day were over. On! doubt that the King's servants who played the night preceding that on which I was to! comedies and stage-plays in Aberdeen, in appear in this part for the first time, I shut 1601, were, taken as a company, the King's myself up, as usual, when all the family were servants who were licensed to exercise the retired, and commenced my study of Lady art and faculty of playing, throughout all | Macbeth. As the character is very short, I the realm, in 1603? If these points are thought I should soon accomplish it. Being evident, what reason have we to doubt that then only twenty years of age, I believed, as William Shakspere, the second named in many others do believe, that little more was the licence of 1603, was amongst the King's necessary than to get the words into my servants at Aberdeen in 1601? Every cir- head; for the necessity of discrimination, cumstance concurs in the likelihood that he and the development of character, at that was of that number recommended by the time of my life, had scarcely entered into King's special letter; and his position in the my imagination. But to proceed. I went licence, even before Burbage, was, we may on with tolerable composure, in the silence well believe, a compliment to him who in of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till 1601 had taught "our James" something of I came to the assassination scene, when the the power and riches of the English drama. 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 These circumstances give us, we think, warranty to conclude that the story of Macbeth might have been suggested to Shakspere upon Scottish ground; that the accuracy displayed in the local descriptions and allusions might have been derived from a rapid personal observation; and that some 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."* This most interesting passage appears to us to involve the consideration of the principles upon which the examination of such a work of art as 'Macbeth' can alone be attempted. To analyse the conduct of the plot, to exhibit the obvious and the latent features of the characters, to point out the proprieties and the splendours of the poetical language,― these are duties which, however agreeable they may be to ourselves, are scarcely demanded by the nature of the subject; and they have been so often attempted, that there is manifest danger of being trite and wearisome if we should enter into this wide field. We shall, therefore, apply ourselves as strictly as possible to an inquiry into the nature of that poetical Art by which the horrors of this great tragedy are confined within the limits of pleasurable emotion. 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 the play which she was herself to act. In the endeavour 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 * Memoranda by Mrs. Siddons, inserted in her 'Life' by Mr. Campbell. 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. We have to regard it as a part of a great whole, which combines and harmonises with all around it; for which we are 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 colouring, 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 assassination scene of the second act is dimly shadowed out in the first lines of the drama, when those mysterious beings,— "So wither'd, and so wild in their attire ; That look not like the inhabitants o' the carth, And yet are on 't," have resolved to go "Upon the heath: There to meet with Macbeth." We know there is to be evil. One of the critics of the last age has observed, "The Witches here seem to be introduced for no other purpose than to tell us they are to meet again." If the Witches had not been introduced in the first scene,-if we had not known that they were about "to meet with Macbeth," the narrative of Macbeth's prowess in the second scene, and the resolution of Duncan to create him Thane of ton's lyrics, as stolen by D'Avenant, but they are not Shakspere's lyrics. The witches of Shakspere essentially belong to the action. From the moment they exclaim "A drum, a drum: all their powers are bent up to the accomplishment of his ruin. Shakspere gives us no choruses of and "We dance to the echoes of our feet;" "We fly by night 'mongst troops of spirits." He makes the superstition tell upon the action of the tragedy, and not a jot farther; and thus he makes the superstition harmonize with the action, and prepare us for its fatal progress and consummation. It was an effect of his unequalled skill to render the superstition essentially poetical. When we hear in imagination the drum upon that wild heath, and see the victorious generals in the Cawdor, would have been comparatively and not Shakspere's; and they sing Middlepointless. The ten lines of the first Witchscene give the key-note of the tragedy. They take us out of the course of ordinary life; they tell us there is to be a "supernatural soliciting;" they show us that we are entering into the empire of the unreal, and that the circle of the magician is to be drawn about us. When the Witches "meet again,' their agency becomes more clear. There they are, again muttering of their uncouth spells, in language which sounds neither of earth nor heaven. Fortunate are those who have never seen the stage-witches of Macbeth, hag-like forms, with beards and brooms, singing D'Avenant's travestie of Shakspere's lyrics, to music, fine and solemn indeed, but which is utterly inadequate to express the Shaksperean idea, as it does not follow the Shaksperean words. Fortunate are they; for, without the stage recollections, they may picture to themselves beings whose "character consists in the imaginative disconnected from the good; the shadowy obscure and fearfully anomalous of physical nature, the lawless of human nature,-elemental avengers without sex or kin."* The stage-witches of 'Macbeth' are not much elevated above the Witch of Edmonton of Rowley and Dekker-" the plain traditional old-woman witch of our ancestors; poor, deformed, and ignorant; the terror of villages, herself amenable to a justice." Charles Lamb (from whom we quote these words) has, with his accustomed discrimination, also shown the essential differences between the witches of Shakspere and the witches of Middleton: "These (Middleton's) are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might Those resort for occasional consultation. * Coleridge's' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 238. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,' vol. i. p. 187. proper temperament for generating or receiving superstitious impressions," we connect with these poetical situations the lofty bearing of the "imperfect speakers," and the loftier words of the " prophetic greeting:" 66 “ All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of All hail, Macbeth ! that shalt be king here It is the romance of this situation which throws its charm over the subsequent horrors of the realization of the prophecy, and keeps the whole drama within the limits which separate tragedy from the 'Newgate Calendar.' If some Tate had laid his hand upon Macbeth,' as upon Lear' (for D'Avenant, who did manufacture it into something to the time of Quin was played as Shakspere's, had yet a smack of the poet in him)-if some matter-of-fact word-monger had thought it good service to "the rising generation" to get rid of the Witches, and had given the usurper and his wife only their ambition to stimulate their actions, he which up + Coleridge. |