CONTENTS OF NO. LXXX.

FOR

MARCH, 1844.

PAGE

ART. I. Macbeth :-Shakspearian Criticism and Acting.

Macbeth. Knight's Cabinet Edition of Shakspeare. No. XXX. Satur-

day, 12th August, 1843.

1

II. Progress of Art.

1. Hand-Book of Taste, or how to observe Works of Art, especially Car-

toons, Pictures, and Statues. By Fabius Pictor. Longman.

2 The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England. By A.

Welby Pugin. C. Dolman, 61 New Bond street.

III. The Basilica Style of Architecture.

The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, from the time of Constantine to

the Fifteenth Century. With an Introduction and Text. By Henry

Gally Knight, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. Vol. I. Folio. 40 Plates. Lon-

don, 1843.

IV. Strafford, and the Historical Drama.

Strafford. A Tragedy. By John Sterling. London, 1843.

V. The Land Tax.

1. Anti-Corn-law Tract. No. 1.-A Plea for the Total and Immediate Re-

peal of the Corn Laws: with Remarks on the Land-Tax Fraud, &c.

Fourth Edition, enlarged. London: Scott, Webster, and Geary,

Charterhouse square. 1842.

2. The Constitutional Right of a Revision of the Land Tax. Being the

Argument on a Case submitted to Counsel on behalf of the National

Anti-Corn-law League. Second Edition. London: Printed for the Na-

tional Anti-Corn-law League; and sold by James Ridgway, Piccadilly;

by Scott, Webster, and Geary, Charterhouse square; and by John
Gadsby, Manchester. 1842.

3. The Income-Tax Act, 5 and 6 Vict., c. 35. With a Practical and Ex-

planatory Introduction and Index. By John Paget, Esq., of the Mid-

dle Temple, Barrister-at-law. London.

VI. Architectural Monuments of Etruria.

1842.

1. Annali dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica di Roma. 8vo.

Roma, 1829-1842.

2. Bullettini dell' Instituto, &c. 8vo. Roma, 1829-1842.

3. Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria in 1839. By Mrs. Hamilton Gray.

With numerous Illustrations. Hatchard and Son.

4. The History of Etruria. By Mrs. Hamilton Gray. Part I. Hatchard

and Son.

VII. Niebuhr and the Classical Museum.

92

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VIII. British Embassy to Shoa.

The Highlands of Ethiopia. By Major W. Cornwallis Harris. 3 vols.

Longman and Co.

IX. Practical Considerations for the Promotion of British Architecture.

1. An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture. By J. C.

Loudon, F.L.S. A new Edition, with a Supplement containing nearly

three hundred Engravings. Longman and Co.

2. An Encyclopædia of Architecture, Historical, Theoretical, and Practi-

cal. By Joseph Gwilt. Illustrated by more than one thousand En-

gravings on wood. Longman and Co.

3. Ancient and Modern Architecture. Consisting of Views, Plans, Eleva-

tions, Sections, and Details of the most remarkable Edifices in the

World. By M. Jules Gailhabaud. F. Didot and Co., Amen corner.

4. Picturesque Decorations of Rural Buildings in the use of Rough Wood,
Thatch, &c. Illustrated by forty-two Engravings. By T. J. Ricauti.
J. Carpenter, Old Bond street.

5. Manual for Students of British Architecture; with a copious Glossary
of Architectural Terms. By A. Barrington, M.D. G. Bell, Fleet

6. Weale's Quarterly Papers on Architecture. Parts I. and II. Weale,

59 High Holborn S

street.

7. Memorial of the Royal Progress in Scotland. By Sir T. Dick Lauder,
Bart. A. and C. Black.

X. Earl Spencer and the State of Parties.

1. Lord Spencer's Speech on the Repeal of the Corn Laws.

Mercury, November, 1843.

Northampton

2: Remarks by a Junior to his Senior on the State of Ireland. 1844.

3. Letters to the Farmers of Buckinghamshire. By Sir Henry Verney,

Bart.

PAGE

94

11

4. What is to be done? or, Past, Present, and Future. Second Edition. 123

James Ridgway, Piccadilly. 1844.

Liberty of Public Discussion; Van Sandau; The Corporation of London;

Foreign and Colonial Review; Proposed New Coal Duty; Penny

Postage.

ment which its editor's illustrative matter has undergone for the purpose of this cheaper publication. On turning to the 'Pictorial Shakspere' (Part XXXI., April, 1842), we find him telling us, in the Supplementary Notice to Macbeth :'—

wide field. We shall, therefore, apply ourselves as strictly as possible to an inquiry into the nathis great tragedy are confined within the limits ture of that poetical Art by which the horrors of of pleasurable emotion."

WE select for notice this most perfect, as well as neatest and cheapest, of the cabinet editions that have yet appeared of Shakespeare's own Macbeth,' because, amongst all "To analyze the conduct of the plot, to exhibit the beautiful and valuable Shakespearian the obvious and the latent features of the characreprints which its publisher has given to the ters, to point out the proprieties and the splenworld, this is the one which, taken altogether, which, however agreeable they may be to ourdours of the poetical language, these are duties most strikingly illustrates the degree in selves, are scarcely demanded by the nature of which not only our theatrical interpretation, the subject; and they have been so often atbut our literary criticism, of the great dra- tempted, that there is manifest danger of being matic artist, with all their tendency to im-trite and wearisome if we should enter into this provement in recent years, are still behind the results produced by the zeal and ability which have been exerted in facilitating general access to the pure text of his plays. On the one hand, such very serious moral considerations are involved in forming a right estimate of each of the two leading characters in this peculiarly romantic and terrific tragedy, and of their mutual relation; while, on the other, so much critical misconception has been circulated respecting them, and so much theatrical misrepresentation still daily falsifies them to the apprehension of the auditor; that, in "these time-bettering days," we might reasonably have expected to see a popular edition of Macbeth,' prepared, in other respects, with so much care and diligence, come forth accompanied by some editorial indication, at least, of that gross perversion of its most essential meaning, which critic and actor have so long concurred to fix in the public mind. No such indication, however, appears in the "Introductory Remarks" to the edition of this play, issued at the very recent date above specified.

And in the course of this examination, the writer, incidentally, yet very fully, expresses his concurrence in those established critical views respecting the characters and the moral of this drama, which we feel that such important reasons call upon us to controvert.

It is remarkable enough that, while it has been usual to judge, we think too harshly, regarding the moral dignity of a character such as Hamlet's for instance, a kind of sympathy has been got up for Macbeth, and a sort of admiration for his partner in iniquity, such as, we are well persuaded, the dramatist himself never intended to awaken. Misled in this direction, Hazlitt, for example, tells us, in the course of his rapid parallel between the character of Macbeth and that of Richard the Third:- "Macbeth is full of 'the milk of human kindness,' is frank, sogenerous. He is tempted to the

Nor is this at all owing to the greaHVERSITY

TOL. XLI.

2

THE

LIBRARY

commission of guilt by golden opportunities, | genius-such the unerring instinct of sove
by the instigations of his wife, and by pro-reign art!
phetic warnings. Fate and metaphysical
aid conspire against his virtue and his loyal-
ty." Let us proceed to examine, by the very
sufficient light of Shakespeare's text, and by
that alone, how far this view of Macbeth's
character is just, on the one hand, towards
the hero himself and to the other leading
personages of the drama, on the other, to
the poet's own fame, whether as a dramatist
or a moralist.

The very starting-point for an inquiry into
the real, inherent, and habitual nature of
Macbeth himself, independent of those par-
ticular circumstances which form the action
of the play, lies manifestly, though the critics
have commonly overlooked it, in the ques-
tion,-With whom does the scheme of usurp-
ing the Scottish crown by the murder of
Duncan actually originate? We sometimes
find Lady Macbeth talked of as if she were
'Macbeth' is inspired by the very genius the first contriver of the plot and suggester
of the tempest. This drama shows us the of the assassination; but this notion is re-
gathering, the discharge, and the dispelling futed, not only by implication, in the whole
of a domestic and political storm, which tenor of the piece, but most explicitly by that
takes its peculiar hue from the individual particular passage where the lady, exerting
character of the hero. It is not in the spirit" the valour of her tongue" to fortify her
of mischief that animates the "weird sisters," husband's wavering purpose, answers his
nor in the passionate and strong-willed am- objection-
bition of Lady Macbeth, that we find the
main-spring of this tragedy, but in the dis-
proportioned though poetically-tempered soul
of Macbeth himself. A character like his,
of narrow selfishness, with a most irritable by saying
fancy, must produce, even in ordinary cir-

"I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none;"-

"What beast was it, then,

cumstances, an excess of morbid apprehen- That made you break this enterprise to me?
siveness; which, however, as we see in

&c.

Nor time nor place

AR

him, is not inconsistent with the greatest Did then adhere, and yet you would make both,”
physical courage, but generates of necessity
the most entire moral cowardice. When,
therefore, a man like this, ill enough qualified More commonly, however, the Witches
even for the honest and straightforward (as we find the "weird sisters" pertinaciously
transactions of life, is tempted and induced miscalled by all sorts of players and of critics)
to snatch at an ambitious object by the com- have borne the imputation of being the first
mission of one great sanguinary crime, the to put this piece of mischief in the hero's
new and false position in which he finds mind. Thus, for instance, Hazlitt, in the
himself by his very success will but startle account of this play from which we have
and exasperate him to escape, as Macbeth already made one quotation, adopts Lamb's
says, from "horrible imaginings," by the view of the relation between Macbeth and
perpetration of greater and greater actual the witches, as expressed in one of the notes
horrors, till inevitable destruction comes upon to his Specimens of Early Dramatic Poet→→→
him, amidst universal execration. Such, ry." Shakespeare's witches," says Lamb,
briefly, are the story and the moral of Mac- speaking of them in comparison with those
beth. The passionate ambition and indo- of Middleton (that is, comparing two things
mitable will of his lady, though agents in- between which there is neither affinity nor
dispensable to urge such a man to the one analogy), " originate deeds of blood, and be
decisive act which is to compromise him in gin bad impulses to men.
From the moment
his own opinion and that of the world, are that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he
by no means primary springs of the dramatic is spell-bound. That meeting sways his
action. Nor do the weird sisters themselves destiny. He can never break the fascina-
do more than aid collaterally in impelling a tion." Yet the prophetic words in which
man, the inherent evil of whose nature has the attainment of royalty is promised him
predisposed him to take their equivocal sug- contain not the remotest hint as to the means.
gestions in the most mischievous sense. by which he is to arrive at it. They are
And, finally, the very thunder-cloud which, simply-
from the beginning almost to the ending,

after;"

wraps this fearful tragedy in physical dark-"All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king here-
ness and lurid glare, does but reflect and
harmonize with the moral blackness of the

piece. Such is the magic power of creative an announcement which, it is plain, should