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"Chieftain! although on Pharian shore

Thou liest exhumed, not thus thy fate deplore;
Earth conquered by thee no worthy tomb hath been,
Heaven can but compass thee, greatest of men."

We object in the first place to "Chieftain"; it sounds rather odd to call a dead man such names. "Inhumatus" does not mean exhumed exactly, if we are to be strict about the matter. Besides, since Pompey is dead once and for all, it is hardly fair to bring him to life again, both in defiance of the laws of nature and grammar. And what meaning shall we attach to the last line,

"Heaven can but compass thee, greatest of men"?

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The last meaning in the world, we should suppose, rather than the one the author intended to convey. "But" can be used in two contradictory senses. Compass," of all words, is the worst by which to strive to define "tegi," and, lastly, "greatest of men is clumsy and unnatural for the simple "magne" of the original.

No. 8 is good enough versification, but it has very little relation to the original, and rather loses by the departure.

Though unburied, glorious chieftain, on the Pharian sand you lie, Thus alone the generous Parcæ deemed it meet for you to die; Earth' you conquered, how could Pompey find in earth a worthy grave? Sleep beneath the arch of Heaven, Heaven alone you might not brave." With the exception of the last line, this is a good piece of rhyme; but we confess to a liking for the original still.

No. 9 is the last and the best. We give it without any words of our own, and leave it to our readers to decide which they prefer, the Latin of Molsa or the English of this translation.

"We grieve not, Pompey, that to thee

No earthly tomb was given;

All lands subdued, naught else was free
To cover thee but Heaven."

LADY MACBETH.

LADY MACBETH is one of the most interesting of Shakespeare's characters, and far more interesting than any other female character he has delineated. Before we can sufficiently admire this wonderful creation of genius, we must reflect that, in making her a woman, Shakespeare has rudely violated all our ideas of the softness, the delicacy and refinement which are ascribed to the female sex. To do this and yet be completely successful is one of the most difficult tasks.

Besides, where else has wickedness ever been painted in such colors as to excite, not disgust, (for who ever felt disgust in studying the character of Lady Macbeth?) but wonder? Who else has so robed it that it seems to be not a crawling monster, hideous in its deformity, and revolting in every aspect, but a sublimely moving spectre passing among men like a destroying angel, whom they fear and tremble at, yet cannot comprehend? Look at some of Shakespeare's other characters and see the contrast. Iago's wickedness is that of the common fiend of a nursery tale. In his black heart dwell no passions uncommon to other villains. Duplicity, treachery, ingratitude, are all there, and if he ever reaches the sublime, it is when he carries these to perfection, and leaves nothing by them untried which lies within the scope of human ken. Macbeth himself is but a toy in the hands of temptation. He is met by the witches on the heath who first proclaim him king to be, yet dares not believe their prophecy till one part of their prediction is fulfilled, and he is made the Thane of Cawdor. He desires to be king, the way is clear before him, the spirits promise him success, but he hesitates, hearkens to coward conscience, and finally gives up the prize from sheer incompetency to seize it. He is villain enough to murder Banquo, yet when the unbidden ghost rises at his feast, his vaunting courage forsakes him, and he babbles like an idiot.

Throughout, he is supported by supernatural aids, and when these fail him he becomes weak and powerless. A mere creature of destiny, when once the ambition to become a king has seized him, it is scarcely proper to class him among the number of rational beings. Lady Macbeth, however, is peerless, in whatever light we view her. There is not a weakness in her clearly defined character. Whatever she does is well done, whatever she undertakes is performed. Such minds as hers rule men and guide nations. When once the VOL. VIII. NO. 70.

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idea of sovereignty has entered her mind, it fastens there, and will not leave it until sovereignty has been attained. With lightningthought she sees what must be done, how and when, and resolves to do it. When Macbeth whispers her his budding hopes, he finds them already as real things to her, and the dark plot which he has hardly dared to think of, she has matured and is ready to execute. Stern, self-supporting, almost superhuman, she rises superior to all the weaknesses womankind is subject to, and her indomitable will knows no opposition. She is a wife, but to be a queen she would make her husband a murderer, and despises him only when he shrinks from the horrid crime. She is a mother, but rather than be thwarted in her plans," she would pluck her nipple from her infant's boneless gums, and dash its brains out, even while it was smiling in her face." Nay! but for one compunction (the first and last her heart of flint feels) she had done the deed itself. And yet it is impossible for us to look upon her as a monster. And I ask of what dramatic character, ancient or modern, can the same be justly said? In the words of Hazlitt, "the magnitude of her resolution transcends the magnitude of her crime, but we fear her more than we hate."

There is a strong similarity between Lady Macbeth and Antigone. So far as mere character is concerned, the resemblance is striking; the incidents of the play, however, are different, and the parts they individually act, as it suited the fancy of the poet. That we feel as great, yes, a greater interest in Lady Macbeth than Antigone, notwithstanding the unfavorable light in which we must view her, is proof of Shakespeare's superiority. In both the main element is will. With Antigone, however, it may have been momentary, and have not existed, were it not for the particular part she felt it her duty to perform, the burial of Polynices.

But with Lady Macbeth it is everything. Her determination to face danger, her coolness and intrepidity when once it is encountered, show her will to have been the element of her character. Both are self-reliant in the highest degree, obstinate it may be in their plans, and look with the same scorn upon the lukewarmness of those from whom it would seem natural that they should have sought assistance. But how different were their motives, and in this view how incomparably superior as a character must Lady Macbeth be! Antigone defies the unjust decrees of man, but she relies upon the rewards which the gods will bestow upon her for having done a pious act. Virtue, sisterly affection, the heroism more or less incident to every

noble nature, all point one way. With her it is an easy thing to die when death will be so glorious, and when it will be a passport for her to a life among the gods. The poet makes her feel this, and while we must admire her fortitude and devoted self-sacrifice, still the thought is ever present to our minds, as it evidently was to hers, that she was getting well paid for it. Lady Macbeth had no such heavenly rewards to expect, no divine assistance to sustain her. Not only does she defy man and run the risk of a disgraceful death; she shows an equal contempt for God, and faces the certainty of everlasting punishment without a fear. Common villains stifle their fears of future punishment by some insane belief in chance, or total disbelief of a future at all. They think if once the clutches of human justice are evaded, they need have no further fear. Not so here. She longs for sovereignty, yet she realizes the awful price at which it must be bought. For one hour's brief rule she willingly accepts an eternity of torture.

"Come, come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell! that my keen knife see not the wound it makes; nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry, Hold! hold!"

Macbeth himself is but a negative character, wavering between good and evil. In her hands he is an arch-fiend; under different influences he could as easily have been a saint. We know not whether to pity or blame him most. Has the influence of a strong over a weak mind ever been more finely described than by Shakespeare in these two characters ? With what utterances does she strengthen Macbeth's wavering purpose! Till, led on by her step by step, he too forgets the magnitude of her guilt in the magnitude of her resolution, and exclaims in surprise and admiration,

"Bring forth men-children only,

For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males."

NEW BOOKS.

Cecil Dreeme. By THEODORE WINTHROP. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

1861.

THEODORE WINTHROP, as his biographer states, "knew not only what to see and to describe, but what to think." The truth of this statement as regards the two former points is amply vindicated by his contributions to the Atlantic Monthly, and of the truth of the latter, the work before us is sufficient proof.

Cecil Dreeme was written to beguile leisure hours, and but for the untimely death of Major Winthrop it might never have been made public, certainly not in its present state, which is doubtless crude, and wanting the finishing touches of its author. All the characters are brought vividly before the reader, representing, as they do, strange characteristics of human nature. In Densdeth we seem to recognize another incarnation of the evil principle, which is conveyed to us in language by Goethe's "Faust," and in music by Mozart's "Don Giovanni." Winthrop's theory of existence explains Densdeth's life; "to every sin is appointed its own misery;" the deeper plunged in guilt, the deeper in suffering. We also detect a certain fondness for suicide as a remedy for sorrow or remorse, and even a deliberate defence of it will be found on p. 170. The pleasure we derive from the book is certainly not owing to its very improbable plot, but rather to the agreeable style in which it is written, and to the frequently occurring Orphic sayings, "guesses at truth" they might be called. One great merit is the almost entire absence of sentimentality; unfortunately, reminiscences of "The Old Curiosity Shop" led to the perpetration of the worst passage in the volume, p. 239. The author's love for and taste in Art is shown throughout the story, and a most excellent critique of Verdi's music occurs in the chapter entitled "Lydian Measures." Again, the good taste of the author spares us the recital of any love passages between Robert and Cecil, and, like Mr. Dickens in his latest book, he has left us to infer the result from the last sentence: "And so with clasped hands we knelt beside our sister, and in silence prayed for strength in the great battle with sin and sorrow, through the solemn days of our life together."

For Better, For Worse. A Story from "Temple Bar" and "Tales of the Day." Boston: T. O. H. P. Burnham. 1861.

THIS is one of a class of novels which is very popular, apparently written by an English woman, and dealing with the higher classes of English society. Without plot or any apparent plan of development, and without a single strongly marked character, the story is certainly interesting. A beautiful

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