thought of the Lady's Celtic origin -and though we cannot say that we have ourselves been so fortunate as

to see many "delicate and blonde beauties" in the Highlands, yet light eyes in abundance have met us there,

"When Meg enchanted smiled, and

waved her golden hair.'

Mrs Siddons, then, thought that the most captivating feminine

loveliness" must have been combined with energy and strength of mind to enable their possessor" to fascinate the mind of a hero so dauntless, a character so amiable and so honourable, as Macbeth." Such loveliness she thought was found only in "delicate and blonde beauty."-"According to my notion, such beauty is generally allowed to be most captivating to the other sex -fair, feminine, perhaps even fragile"-and whether we suppose that Shakspeare thought so too, or not, there would have been nothing unworthy of Shakspeare in mentally attributing something of the potency of the charm to the exquisite loveliness of the being who urged him, in his own house, to murder his king. Her beauty, fair, feminine, and fragile, in this way might have worked the will of fate even more powerfully than the ugliness of the foul, masculine and yet misty witches on the heath. Their beards forbade Macbeth to call them women; but his own dear Lady's cheek and chin were soft and smooth even as her bosom —and that was softer, and smoother, and whiter, than the down of the

swan.

Cumberland has said, that Shakspeare represented in Lady Macbeth a woman naturally cruel"-Professor Richardson, a woman " invariably savage"-and Forster, a woman with "s pure demoniac fierce

ness." Other critics have since seen farther and deeper into her character; but Mrs Siddons's Memoranda were written probably some thirty years ago, though now published for the first time in Mr Campbell's work. That Lady Macbeth becomes "a perfectly savage creature," Mrs Siddons here truly says as she often shewed right well; but she was "made so, by ambition, not by nature." After quoting the passage, "I have given

suck, and know," &c. she observes, that "the very use of such a tender allusion in the midst of her dreadful language, persuades one unequivocally that she has really felt the ma ternal yearnings of a mother towards her babe, and that she considered the action the most enormous that ever required the strength of human nerves for its perpetration." That is true. Yet this very passage has been wrongly, though not without reason a thousand times cited in proof of her having been not human-but a manifest fiend. If we mistake not, we read a few weeks ago in the Examiner, a remark on Mrs Siddons's expression, "maternal yearnings of a mother," which we cannot think perfectly just. The acute writer said, that a wolf has "maternal yearnings" towards the cub that draws her dugs. But Shakspeare makes Lady Macbeth say, in the words commented on by Mrs. Siddons, "I know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me"-and she speaks of it "smiling in her face." There is nothing wolfish in such language, and it speaks of more than mere animal instinct. Indeed, we do not believe that women, naturally cruel”-if any such there be-have strong instinctive tenderness for their young ones-whatever may be the case with wolves. Lady Macbeth was for a moment recalling to mind the sweetest joy of her whole life. To have murdered her babe would have been wickeder than now to murder. her king-yet I would have "dashed the brains out, had I but so sworn as you have done to this." Savage words these and more savage still those we have omitted-for her present mood embraced the past-and dire imagination misrepresented memory; for "had she so sworn," yet had she not-we answer for her. "have plucked her nipple from hisboneless gums, and dashed the brains out." The regicide lied against herself, in saying that under any circumstances she could have been an infanticide. The tumult in her soul flung up a holy image to serve a horrid purpose-but we are not shocked even with a momentary belief that she would have been as good as her word had she so sworn-we feel relief from the bloody words, in knowing that they are but air-bubbles

and that 'tis but so much Shakspearean special pleading to strengthen Macbeth, to screw his courage to the sticking-place." The confessions of a criminal must be construed, not by the letter, but the spirit, and we must keep our eyes on the context. Mrs Siddons observes, that "it is only in soliloquy that she invokes the powers of hell to unsex her." And why such invocation at all, unless she had felt much of her sex's repugnance to deeds of blood? Many "blank misgivings of a creature about to move in a world not yet realized"—and many visitations worse to bear than blank misgivings-fear recoiling from her own hideous apprehensions, and horror imaging gouts of yet unspilt blood. Such is she in her soliloquies. But Mrs Siddons says "she makes her very virtues the means of a taunt to her lord. "You have the milk of human kindness in your breast I have had mother's milk in mine-I could, for great ambition's sake, have dried up the current at its source-shall you be weaker than a woman!'" "Had he not resembled my father as he slept!" Who has not shuddered at that reflection! Her baby's smile-her father's hoary head-not recollected, but rising of themselves before her-and the infatuated wretch employing the one image to instigate her husband to commit murder- deterred by the other from hurting a hair on the head of the Lord's Anointed-whom, but for that likeness-yet likeness to any other eye there would have been none none to Macbeth's-she would have mangled like a tigress. But her husband has murdered her king then-then-she goes and besmears the sleeping grooms and returning, says, My hands are of your colour -but I would scorn to shew a heart so white." Cruel enough, in all conscience-but her conscience then slept not the sleep that knows no waking and we know that soon after it awoke, and stretched her heartstrings till they cracked. Shakspeare, the minister and interpreter of nature, knew that though she planned and instigated, she could not with her own hand perpetrate that main murder. Neither did she first suggest it. "There can be no doubt," says Mrs Siddons, "that Macbeth, in

the first instance, suggested his design of assassinating the king." Some such dark hint there had been in "those portentous letters." No wonder she seemed insensible, on their first meeting after his return, "to all the perils which he had encountered in battle, and to all the happiness of that safe return." That insensibility has been long understood by allbut we have seen it cited as a proof of her want of conjugal affection! Nay, we can hardly trust our eyes on reading the words even of Thomas Campbell :— "Insensitive as we have seen her to the slightest joy at the return of her husband!" "Twas no time for such sort of joy. The man was alive and well-and standing before her in all his fair proportions. But "a deed without a name" had been conceived in both their hearts-it" possessed hers wholly"

"That

she is so entirely swallowed up, says Mrs Siddons, by the horrible design, as to have entirely forgotten the perils her husband had encoun tered, and all thoughts of happiness on his return. This is the only instance in which we have ever found Mr Campbell forgetful-and, therefore, seemingly blind to a glare of nature. Shakspeare makes her drink wine, or other spirituous liquors, before the murderous hour. which hath made them drunk hath made me bold." She had gulped the Glenlivet in mad mouthfuls-and the mountain-dew had made her athirst for blood. It had produced the desired and not unusual effect-else had she not exulted to herself in the power of the potion-with such savage glee contrasting her own wakeful boldness with the drunken sleep of the poor wretches who should have watched, and were never to waken. The Lady Macbeth of Cumberland, Richardson, and Forster, would have indulged herself in her cups after the murder, not before it -for " pure demoniac fierceness would not have needed to have recourse to "sma' still."

wretchedness, I, from this moment, have always assumed the dejection of countenance and manners which I thought accordant to such a state of mind; and though the author of this sublime composition has not, it must be acknowledged, given any directions whatever to authorize this assumption, yet I venture to hope that he would not have disapproved of it. It is evident, indeed, by her conduct in the scene which succeeds the mournful soliloquy, that she is no longer the presumptuous, the determined creature, that she was before the assassination of the King." In proof of this, Mrs Siddons alludes to the striking indications of sensibility, nay, tenderness and sympathy, which she exhibits for the first time on the approach of her husband; and adds, that in her opinion this conduct is nobly followed up by her during the whole of their subsequent eventful intercourse. "The sad and new experience of affliction has subdued the insolence of her pride, and the violence of her will, for she comes now to seek him out, that she may at least participate his misery. Far from her former habits of reproach and contemptuous taunting, you perceive that she now listens to his complaints with sympathizing feelings, and so far from adding to the height of his affliction the burden of her own, she endeavours to conceal it from him with the most delicate and unremitting attention. But it is in vain; as we may observe in his beautiful and mournful dialogue with the physician on the subject of his cureless malady. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?' All her thoughts are now directed to divert his from those sorry fancies, by turning them to the approaching banquet, in exhorting him to conciliate the good will and good thoughts of his guests, by receiving them with a disengaged -air, and cordial, bright, and jovial demeanour. Yes! smothering her sufferings in the deepest recesses of her own wretched bosom, we cannot but perceive that she devotes her self entirely to the effort of supporting him."

Mr Campbell cannot go along with his illustrious friend in this view of Lady Macbeth's character and conduct;-nor can we. Yet, by quali

fying their opinions, we think that we shall come near the truth. "That the poet meant us to conceive her more than a piece of august atrocity," says Mr Campbell," or to leave a tacit understanding of her being naturally amiable, I make bold to doubt.' So do we-but Mrs Siddons, while she allows her good feelings, does not, we think, go so far as to say that she was naturally amiable." Mr Campbell cannot think that "she seeks out Macbeth that she may at least participate in his wretchedness." Is that, he asks, "her real motive? No. She seems to me to have no other object than their common preservation." This is hardly fair, even to such a criminal. No doubt, it is politic to snatch him from his "sorry fancies"-the solitary indulgence of which, or the yielding to them in company, may breed suspicion; yet we feel, without perhaps being able to prove it by citation of many words, that there is pity and tenderness then in her behaviour to her husband, and that she is sad to see that the iron has entered his soul. She may not have sought him "in a dutiful and unselfish tenderness," as Mrs Siddons somewhat too decidedly and broadly asserts, yet it looks, from her language, as if much of such tenderness did steal upon her once haughty, but now humbled heart, during that rueful talk-that her misery is not all for her own sake-and that while she is anxious he should shew himself calm before others, that his mental trouble may not seem to be from guilt, she is at the same time anxious for his own sake-whom she loves

that he should banish the phantoms that haunt him so terriblyand enjoy with her-as far as that may be the masterdom achieved by their common crime. We remember well "the dejection of countenance and manners," which Mrs Siddons assumed to give the impression of her wretchedness, and as well the mournfulness of her voice, perfectly suited, as we thought, to a prevailing pity for her unhappy husband, all through the conversation to which we have been alluding, and to every word she uttered-and our memory of her power and pathos in that scene is too faith

ful to allow us to doubt that she was true to nature and Shakspeare.

"At least insensible as we have seen her to the slightest joy at the return of her husband," says Mr Campbell, "it seems unnecessary to ascribe to her any new-sprung tenderness, when self-interest sufficiently accounts for her conduct." This is not an answer to Mrs Siddons. Mixed motives are the most common; simple self-interest seldom sufficiently accounts for the conduct of a great-minded criminal in fearful predicament-and why suppose that Lady Macbeth had never loved her husband? Her tenderness was not new-sprung; for up to the hour she received that "portentous letter," there was not a better wife in the North. She proves that by the beautiful panegyric she pronounces on her husband; and, but for those accursed witches, the worthy couple, after a long and well-spent life, would have died in their beds, and many a pitiful pibroch wailed round their tombs. How does she receive Macbeth on his return? She does not leap into his arms, nor he into hers, nor is there any smothering with kisses.

"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! Great Glamis ! wor

we should forget all her former life. He left it all indeed to our imagination-but our imagination figures to itself a beautiful Lady Macbeth and an innocent, who for years had been the lovely light of her lord's castle-halls, and whose virtues had been sung to a hundred harps on the heather hills. But pride and ambition ruined all-nor had even they prevailed, but for the intervention of the ministers of hell and fate. "Let it be here recollected," says Mrs Siddons, "as some palliation, that she had probably from childhood commanded all around her with a high hand; had uninterruptedly, perhaps, in that splendid station, enjoyed all that wealth, all that nature had to bestow; that she had possibly no directors, no controllers, and that in womanhood her fascinated lord had never once opposed her inclinations. But now her new-born relentings, under the rod of chastisement, prompt her to make palpable efforts in order to support the spirits of her weaker, and, I must say, more selfish husband. Yes; in gratitude for his unbounded affection, and in commiseration of his sufferings, she suppresses the anguish of her heart, even while that anguish is precipitating her into the grave, which at this moment is yawning to receive her."

But let us quote all Mrs Siddons's memoranda on the Fifth Act.

"Behold her now, with wasted form, with wan and haggard coun tenance, her starry eyes glazed with the ever-burning fever of remorse, and on their lids the shadows of death. Her ever-restless spirit wanders in troubled dreams about her dismal apartment; and, whether waking or asleep, the smell of innocent blood incessantly haunts her imagination :

'Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not

sweeten

This little hand.'

"How beautifully contrasted is this exclamation with the bolder

image of Macbeth, in expressing the same feeling!

'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash the blood

Clean from this hand?'