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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

"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. There 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

existing. Can there be a reasonable doubt 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 distinguished from "the rest of their associates." There can be no doubt of the identity of the Lawrence Fletcher, the servant of James VI. of Scotland, and the Lawrence Fletcher, the servant of James I. of England. Can we doubt that the King's servants who played comedies and stage-plays in Aberdeen, in 1601, were, taken as a company, the King's servants who were licensed to exercise the art and faculty of playing, throughout all the realm, in 1603? If these points are evident, what reason have we to doubt that William Shakspere, the second named in the licence of 1603, was amongst the King's servants at Aberdeen in 1601? Every circumstance concurs in the likelihood that he was of that number recommended by the King's special letter; and his position in the licence, even before Burbage, was, we may well believe, a compliment to him who in 1601 had taught "our James" something of the power and riches of the English drama.

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

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of the peculiarities of the witchcraft imagery 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, If through the shuddering midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cryLest in some after-moment aught more mean Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene!"

It was in a somewhat similar manner that Shakspere's representation of the murder of Duncan affected the imagination of Mrs. Siddons:-"It was my custom to study my characters at night, when all the domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night preceding that on which I was to appear in this part for the first time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my study of Lady Macbeth. As the character is very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many others do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination. But to proceed. I went on with tolerable composure, in the silence of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till I came to the assassination scene, when the 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

my chamber, where I found my husban 1 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 earth., And yet are on 't,"

have resolved to go

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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

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

resort for occasional consultation.

"A drum, a drum : Macbeth doth come," 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

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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:"

"All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of
Glamis !

All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of
Cawdor!

All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king here-
after."

throws its charm over the subsequent horrors of the realization of the prophecy, and

It is the romance of this situation which

keeps the whole drama within the limits which separate tragedy from the ' Those Newgate Calendar.' If some Tate had laid his hand upon 'Macbeth,' as upon ‘Lear' (for D'Avenant, who did manufacture it into something which up 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

originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth, he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination. These witches hurt the body; those have power over the soul."+ But the witches of the stage Macbeth' are Middleton's witches,

* Coleridge's' Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 238. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,' vol. i. p. 187.

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+ Coleridge.

would have produced a George Barnwell instead of a Macbeth.

It is upon the different reception of the supernatural influence, proceeding out of the different constitution of their minds, by which we must appreciate the striking differences in the characters of Macbeth, Banquo, and Lady Macbeth. These are the three who are the sole recipients of the prophecy of the Witches; and this consideration, as it appears to us, must determine all that has been said upon the question whether Macbeth was or was not a brave man. There can be no doubt of his bravery when he was acting under the force of his own will. In the contest with "the merci

66 valour's minion."

less Macdonwald" he was In that with "Norway himself" he was "Bellona's bridegroom." But when he encountered the Witches, and his will was laid prostrate under a belief in destiny, there was a new principle introduced into his mind. His self-possession and his self-reliance were gone :

Why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature?"

And then comes the refuge of every man of unfirm mind upon whom temptation is laid :

"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir."

If he had opposed the chance, he would have been safe; but his will was prostrate before the chance, and he perished. It is perfectly clear that the faint battle had been fought between his principle and his "black and deep desires" when he saw something to "o'er-leap" even beyond the life of Duncan," the prince of Cumberland." In the conflict of his mind it is evident that he

communicates to his wife the promises of

those who "have more in them than mortal

knowledge," not only that she might not lose the "dues of rejoicing," but that he might have some power to rely upon stronger "Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear than his own will. He was not deceived Things that do sound so fair?"

But he yet depended upon his reason. With marvellous art Shakspere at this moment throws on the straw which is to break the camel's back :

"The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king, Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor."

In a few minutes he knows he is Cawdor:

"Glamis, and thane of Cawdor:

The greatest is behind." But Banquo receives the partial consummation of the prophecy with an unsubdued mind :

"Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths; Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence." The will of Banquo refuses to be mixed up with the prophecy. The will of Macbeth becomes the accomplice of the "instruments of darkness," and is subdued to their purposes :

there. It is clear that Lady Macbeth had no reliance upon the prophecy working out itself. She had no belief that chance would make him king without his stir :—

"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised."

It was not thou mayst be, or thou wilt be, but thou shalt be. The only fear she had was of his nature. She would "catch the nearest way." She instantly saw that way. The prophecy was to her nothing but as it regarded the effect to be produced upon him who would not play false, and yet would wrongly win. All that is coming is clear before her, through the force of her will:—

"The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements."

Upon the arrival of Macbeth, the breathless rapidity with which she subjects him to her resolve is one of the most appalling things in the whole drama. Her tremendous will is the real destiny which subjugates his indecision. Not a word of question or expla

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