tragedy the date of 1605; but it appears to us more probable that
its production is to be attributed to the close of the year 1604.
It certainly was written between the publication of Harsnet's
_Declaration of Popish Impostures_, in 1603, and the Christmas of
1606; for Shakspeare undoubtedly borrowed, as the commentators have
justly observed, the fantastic names of several spirits from the
above mentioned work, whilst in the entry of Lear on the Stationers'
Registers, on the 26th of November, 1607, it is expressly recorded to
have been played, during the preceding Christmas, before His Majesty at
Whitehall.
It is from the following facts, as established by Mr. Chalmers,
together with two or three additional circumstances, that we have
been induced to throw back a few months the era of the composition
of this play. "Lear is ascertained," observes Mr. Chalmers, "to have
been written, after the month of October, 1604; say the commentators:
(or rather says Mr. Malone) For, King James was proclaimed King _of
Great Britain_, on the 24th of October, 1604; and, it is evident, that
Shakspeare made a minute change in an old rhyming saw:—
———————————— "Fy, fa, fum,
I smell the blood of an _English_ man;"
which Shakspeare, with great attention to the times, changed, in the
following manner:—
"His word was still, Fie, foh, fum,
I smell the blood of a _British_ man."
But, the fact is, that there was issued from Greenwich a royal
proclamation, on the 13th of May, 1603; declaring that, till a compleat
union, the King held, and esteemed, the two realms, as _presently_
united, and as one kingdom; and, the poets, Daniel and Drayton, who
wrote gratulatory verses, on his accession, spoke of the two kingdoms,
as united, thereby, into one realm, by the name of Britain; and of the
inhabitants of England and Scotland, as one people, by the denomination
of British." And he then adds, in a note: "Before King James arrived at
London, Daniel offered to him 'A Panegyrike congratulatory, delivered
to the King's most excellent Majesty at Burleigh-Harrington in
Rutlandshire;' which was printed, in 1603, for Blount, with a Defence
of Rhime:—
"Lo here the glory of a greater day
Than _England_ ever heretofore could see
In all her days. ———— ———— ————
And now she is, and now in peace therefore
_Shake hands with union_, O thou mightie state,
Now thou art all _great Britain_, and no more,
_No Scot, no English_ now, nor no debate."[458:A]
We see here, that even before James took possession of his capital,
poetry had adopted the very language which Shakspeare has used in his
Lear: and that, as early as the 13th of May, 1603, a proclamation had
been issued, declaratory of the King's resolution to hold and esteem
the two realms as united, and as forming but one kingdom.
These two events, therefore, were of themselves, a sufficient ground
for the alteration which our bard thought proper to introduce, and
which, if it occurred, as we suppose, anterior to the definitive
proclamation of October, 1604, must have been considered, by the
monarch, as the greater compliment, on that very account.
A strong additional argument in favour of this chronology, may be
drawn from the attempt made in 1605, to impose on the public the old
play of _King Leir_ for the successful drama of our author. This
production, which had been entered at Stationers' Hall in 1594, was,
with this view, re-entered on the Stationers' books on the 8th of May,
1605, and the entry terminates with these words, "as it was _lately_
acted."[458:B]
Now, as it was intended that the expression _lately_ should be
referred, by the reader, to our author's play, for which this was
meant to be received, it follows, as an almost necessary consequence,
from the common acceptation of the term, that the _Lear_ of Shakspeare
had been acted some months anteriorly, and was not then actually
performing, an inference which agrees well with the date which we have
adopted, but cannot be made to accord with Mr. Malone's supposition
of Shakspeare's tragedy appearing in April, 1605, and the spurious
claimant in May, when there is every reason to conclude that our poet's
drama was then nightly, or, at least, weekly delighting the public.
Another circumstance in support of the era which we have chosen for
this play, is to be derived from the consideration, that, in Mr.
Malone's arrangement, _Cymbeline_ is assigned, and, in our opinion,
correctly assigned, to the year 1605, while, in consequence of the
removal of _The Winter's Tale_ to the epoch of 1613, a change founded
on apparently substantial grounds, the year 1604 is left perfectly open
to the admission for which we contend.
To the numerous sources mentioned by the [459:A]commentators, whence
Shakspeare may have drawn the materials of his _Lear_, is to be added
the celebrated French Romance, entitled _Perceforest_, which, next to
the _Gesta Romanorum_, and the _History of Geoffrey of Monmouth_, is
the oldest authority extant. The story of King Leyr, as here related,
corresponds, in all its leading features, with the fable of our
poet.[459:B]
Of this noble tragedy, one of the first productions of the noblest of
poets, it is scarcely possible to express our admiration in adequate
terms. Whether considered as an effort of art, or as a picture of
the passions, it is entitled to the highest praise. The two portions
of which the fable consists, involving the fate of Lear and his
daughters, and of Gloster and his sons, influence each other in so many
points, and are blended with such consummate skill, that whilst the
imagination is delighted by diversity of circumstances, the judgment
is equally gratified in viewing their mutual co-operation towards
the final result; the coalescence being so intimate, as not only to
preserve the necessary unity of action, but to constitute one of the
greatest beauties of the piece.
Such, indeed, is the interest excited by the structure and
concatenation of the story, that the attention is not once suffered to
flag. By a rapid succession of incidents, by sudden and overwhelming
vicissitudes, by the most awful instances of misery and destitution, by
the boldest contrariety of characters, are curiosity and anxiety kept
progressively increasing, and with an impetus so strong, as nearly to
absorb every faculty of the mind and every feeling of the heart.
Victims of frailty, of calamity, or of vice, in an age remote and
barbarous, the actors in this drama are brought forward with a strength
of colouring, which, had the scene been placed in a more civilised
era, might have been justly deemed too dark and ferocious, but is not
discordant with the earliest heathen age of Britain. The effect of this
style of characterisation is felt occasionally throughout the entire
play, but is particularly visible in the delineation of the vicious
personages of the drama, the parts of Goneril, Regan, Edmund, and
Cornwall being loaded, not only with ingratitude of the deepest dye,
but with cruelty of the most savage and diabolical nature; they are the
criminals, in fact, of an age where vice may be supposed to reign with
lawless and gigantic power, and in which the extrusion of Gloster's
eyes might be an event of no infrequent occurrence.
Had this mode of casting his characters in the extreme, been applied to
the remainder of the _Dramatis Personæ_, we should have lost some of
the finest lessons of humanity and wisdom that ever issued from the pen
of an uninspired writer; but, with the exception of a few coarsenesses,
which remind us of the barbarous period to which the story is
referred, and of a few incidents rather revolting to credibility,
but which could not be detached from the original narrative, the
virtuous agents of the play exhibit the manners and the feelings of
civilisation, and are of that mixed fabric which can alone display a
just portraiture of the nature and composition of our species.
The characters of Cordelia and Edgar, it is true, approach nearly to
perfection, but the filial virtues of the former are combined with
such exquisite tenderness of heart, and those of the latter with such
bitter humiliation and suffering, that grief, indignation, and pity
are instantly excited. Very striking representations are also given of
the rough fidelity of Kent, and of the hasty credulity of Gloster; but
it is in delineating the passions, feelings, and afflictions of Lear,
that our poet has wrought up a picture of human misery which has never
been surpassed, and which agitates the soul with the most overpowering
emotions of sympathy and compassion.
The conduct of the unhappy monarch having been founded merely on the
impulses of sensibility, and not on any fixed principle or rule of
action, no sooner has he discovered the baseness of those on whom he
had relied, and the fatal mistake into which he had been hurried by
the delusions of inordinate fondness and extravagant expectation, than
he feels himself bereft of all consolation and resource. Those to whom
he had given all, for whom he had stripped himself of dignity and
power, and on whom he had centered every hope of comfort and repose
in his old age, his inhuman daughters, having not only treated him
with utter coldness and contempt, but sought to deprive him of all the
respectability, and even of the very means of existence, what in a
mind so constituted as Lear's, the sport of intense and ill-regulated
feeling, and tortured by the reflection of having deserted the only
child who loved him, what but madness could be expected as the result?
It was, in fact, the necessary consequence of the reciprocal action
of complicated distress and morbid sensibility; and, in describing
the approach of this dreadful infliction, in tracing its progress,
its height, and subsidence, our poet has displayed such an intimate
knowledge of the workings of the human intellect, under all its
aberrations, as would afford an admirable study for the enquirer into
mental physiology. He has also in this play, as in that of Hamlet,
finely discriminated between real and assumed insanity, Edgar,
amidst all the wild imagery which his imagination has accumulated,
never touching on the true source of his misery, whilst Lear, on the
contrary, finds it associated with every object, and every thought,
however distant or dissimilar. Not even the Orestes of Euripides, or
the Clementina of Richardson, can, as pictures of disordered reason, be
placed in competition with this of Lear; it may be pronounced, indeed,
from its truth and completeness, beyond the reach of rivalry.
Of all the miseries incident to humanity the apprehension of
approaching loss of reason is, perhaps, the most dreadful. Lear, on
discovering the ingratitude of his eldest daughter, feels compunction
for his treatment of the youngest: "I did her wrong," he exclaims, and
such is the violence of the shock and the keenness of his sufferings,
that, even in this first conflict of resentment and sorrow, he
deprecates this heaviest of calamities:—
"O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!"[462:A]
But when Regan, following the example of her sister, inflicts upon him
still greater dishonour, the fearful assurance is intimately felt, and
he predicts its visitation in positive terms:—
—————————— "You think, I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep:—
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep.—_O, fool, I shall go mad!_"[462:B]
Nothing can impress us with a more tremendous idea of this awful state
of mind, than the feelings of Lear during his exposure to the tempest.
What, under other circumstances, would have been shrunk from with alarm
and pain, is now unfelt, or only so, as a relief from deeper horrors:—
"_Lear._ Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;
But _where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt_. Thoud'st shun a bear:
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thoud'st meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind's free,
The body's delicate: _the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there_.—Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to't?—But I will punish home:—
No, I will weep no more.—In such a night
To shut me out!—Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!—
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that,—
_Kent._ Good my lord, enter here.
_Lear._ Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease;
_This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more_."[463:A]
It is at the close of this scene that the misfortune which he has
dreaded so much, overtakes him: "his wits," as Kent observes, "begin
to unsettle;" but it is not a total dereliction of intellect: Lear is
neither absolutely delirious, nor maniacal; but he labours under that
species of hallucination which leaves to the wretched sufferer a sense
of his own unhappiness: a state of being, beyond all others, calculated
to awaken the most thrilling sensations of pity.
A picture of more terrible grandeur or of wilder sublimity, than what
occurs, during the exposure of the aged monarch to the impetuous fury
of the storm, was never imagined. Every thing conspires to render
it unparalleled in its powers of impression. On a night, when the
conflicting elements of fire, air, and water, deafen nature itself with
their uproar; on a night,
———— "wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry,"[464:A]
is the miserable old king driven out by his unnatural daughters, to
wander over a bleak and barren heath in search of shelter, destitute
of even common necessaries, a very beggar on the bounty of his former
subjects, and accompanied only by his fool, and the faithful though
banished Kent. It is with difficulty that they persuade him to
take refuge from the storm; at length, he yields, at the same time
addressing the fool in terms which, perhaps more than any other lines
in the play, unveil the native goodness of his heart:—
————————————— "Come, your hovel,
_Poor Fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee_."[464:B]
No sooner, however, has the fool entered this hovel, than he returns
horror-struck, followed by Edgar, who rushes on the heath, an almost
naked maniac, and exclaiming,
"Away! the foul fiend follows me!—
Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind."[464:C]
The dialogue which now ensues between these extraordinary characters
is, of itself, a proof of the boundless expansion of the poet's mind.
The torrent of agonizing grief and resentment which flows from Lear,
abandoned by his daughters, verging towards insanity, and aware of its
approach; the wild exuberance of fancy which thrills in the phrenzied
accents of Edgar, who, under the disguise of a madman tormented by
demons, is flying from death threatened by a father; and the quaint
mixture of wisdom, pleasantry, and satire in the language of the honest
fool, who yet heightens, while he means to alleviate the distresses of
his master, are elements of mental strife which harmonise with, and add
a kind of illimitable horror to the storm which howls around.
Nor inferior to this in merit, though of a totally different cast, is
the scene in which the exhausted monarch, having been lulled to sleep
through the effects of an opiate, is awakened by the sound of music,
whilst Cordelia, hanging over him, with an almost breathless anxiety,
at length ventures to address him. The language of the poor old man,
in the moment of partial reminiscence, is, beyond any other effort of
human composition, simple and affecting:—
"_Cor._ How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
_Lear._ You do me wrong, to take me out of the grave:—
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
_Cor._ Sir, do you know me?
_Lear._ You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?—
_Cor._ O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:—
No, sir, you must not kneel.
_Lear._ Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly,
I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks, I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night: Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
_Cor._ And so I am, I am.
_Lear._ Be your tears wet? Yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know, you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.
_Cor._ No cause, no cause.—
_Lear._ You must bear with me;
Pray now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish."[466:A]
27. CYMBELINE: 1605. This play, if not, in the construction of its
fable, one of the most perfect of our author's productions, is, in
point of poetic beauty, of variety and truth of character, and in
the display of sentiment and emotion, one of the most lovely and
interesting. Nor can we avoid expressing our astonishment at the
sweeping condemnation which Johnson has passed upon it; charging
its fiction with folly, its conduct with absurdity, its events with
impossibility; terming its faults too evident for detection, and too
gross for aggravation.[466:B]
Of the enormous injustice of this sentence, nearly every page of
_Cymbeline_ will, to a reader of any taste or discrimination, bring
the most decisive evidence. That it possesses many of the too common
inattentions of Shakspeare, that it exhibits a frequent violation of
costume, and a singular confusion of nomenclature, cannot be denied;
but these are trifles light as air, when contrasted with its merits,
which are of the very essence of dramatic worth, rich and full in all
that breathes of vigour, animation, and intellect, in all that elevates
the fancy, and improves the heart, in all that fills the eye with
tears, or agitates the soul with hope and fear.
In possession of excellences, vital as these must be deemed, cold and
fastidious is the criticism that, on account of irregularities in mere
technical detail, would shut its eyes upon their splendour. Nor are
there wanting critics of equal learning with, and superior taste to
Johnson, who have considered what he has branded with the unqualified
charge of "confusion of manners," as forming, in a certain point of
view, one of the most pleasing recommendations of the piece. Thus
Schlegel, after characterising _Cymbeline_ as one of Shakspeare's
most wonderful compositions, adds,—"He has here connected a novel of
Boccacio with traditionary tales of the ancient Britons reaching back
to the times of the first Roman Emperors, and _he has contrived, by the
most gentle transitions, to blend together into one harmonious whole
the social manners of the latest times with the heroic deeds, and even
with appearances of the gods_."[467:A] It may be also remarked, that,
if the unities of time and place be as little observed in this play, as
in many others of the same poet, unity of character and feeling, the
test of genius, and without which the utmost effort of art will ever be
unavailing, is uniformly and happily supported.
Imogen, the most lovely and perfect of Shakspeare's female characters,
the pattern of connubial love and chastity, by the delicacy and
propriety of her sentiments, by her sensibility, tenderness, and
resignation, by her patient endurance of persecution from the quarter
where she had confidently looked for endearment and protection,
irresistibly seizes upon our affections; and when compelled to fly from
the paternal roof, from
"A father cruel, and a step-dame false,
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady,
That hath her husband banished,"
she is driven to assume, under the name of Fidele, the disguise of
a page, we follow her footsteps with the liveliest interest and
admiration.
The scenes which disclose the incidents of her pilgrimage; her
reception at the cave of Belarius; her intercourse with her lost
brothers, who are ignorant of their birth and rank, her supposed death,
funeral rites, and resuscitation, are wrought up with a mixture of
pathos and romantic wildness, peculiarly characteristic of our author's
genius, and which has had but few successful imitators. Among these
few, stands pre-eminent the poet Collins, who seems to have trodden
this consecrated ground with a congenial mind, and who has sung the
sorrows of Fidele in strains worthy of their subject, and which will
continue to charm the mind and soothe the heart "till pity's self be
dead."
When compared with this fascinating portrait, the other personages of
the drama appear but in a secondary light. Yet are they adequately
brought out, and skilfully diversified; the treacherous subtlety of
Iachimo, the sage experience of Belarius, the native nobleness of
heart, and innate heroism of mind, which burst forth in the vigorous
sketches of Guiderius and Arviragus, the temerity, credulity, and
penitence of Posthumus, the uxorious weakness of Cymbeline, the
hypocrisy of his Queen, and the comic arrogance of Cloten, half fool
and half knave, produce a striking diversity of action and sentiment.
Of this latter character, the constitution has been thought so
extraordinary, and involving elements of a kind so incompatible, as to
form an exception to the customary integrity and consistency of our
author's draughts from nature. But the following passage from the pen
of an elegant female writer, will prove, that this curious assemblage
of frequently opposite qualities, has existed, and no doubt did exist
in the days of Shakspeare:—"It is curious that Shakspeare should, in
so singular a character as Cloten, have given the exact prototype of
a being whom I once knew. The unmeaning frown of the countenance; the
shuffling gait; the burst of voice; the bustling insignificance; the
fever and ague fits of valour; the froward tetchiness; the unprincipled
malice; and, what is most curious, those occasional gleams of good
sense, amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and
confused the man's brain; and which, in the character of Cloten, we are
apt to impute to a violation of unity in character; but in the some
time Captain C——n, I saw that the portrait of Cloten was not out of
nature."[468:A]
Poetical justice has been strictly observed in this drama; the vicious
characters meet the punishment due to their crimes, while virtue,
in all its various degrees, is proportionably rewarded. The scene of
retribution, which is the closing one of the play, is a master-piece of
skill; the developement of the plot, for its fullness, completeness,
and ingenuity, surpassing any effort of the kind among our author's
contemporaries, and atoning for any partial incongruity which the
structure or conduct of the story may have previously displayed.
28. MACBETH: 1606. We have now reached what may justly be termed the
greatest effort of our author's genius; the most sublime and impressive
drama which the world has ever beheld.
Than the conception of the character of Macbeth, it is scarcely
possible to conceive a picture more original and grand? Too great and
good to fall beneath the common temptations to villany, Shakspeare has
called in the powers of supernatural agency, and seizing upon ambition
as the vulnerable part of his hero's character, and placing him between
the suggestions of hell on one side, and those of his fiend-like wife
on the other, he has, in conformity to the letter of the traditions
which were before him, brought about a catastrophe, which, as he has
conducted it, is the most awful on dramatic record. For, whilst the
influence of the world unknown throws a dread solemnity over the
principal incidents, the volition of Macbeth remains sufficiently free
to enable the poet to bring into full play the strongest passions of
the human breast.
Originally brave, magnanimous, humane, and gentle,
——— "not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it,"
and wishing to do that holily which he would highly; fully sensible
also of the enormous ingratitude and guilt which he should incur by the
assassination of the monarch who had loaded him with honours, and who
was moreover his kinsman and his guest, the struggle would necessarily
have terminated on the side of virtue, had not the predictions of the
weird sisters, in part, instantly accomplished, and assuming the form
therefore of inevitable destiny, concealed from his bewildered senses
the eternal truth, that not from fate, but from his own agency alone
could spring the commission of a crime, whose very suggestion had at
first filled him with horror. But even this delusion, which seemed
for a time to deaden the sense of responsibility, would have failed
in its effect, had not the ferocious and sarcastic eloquence of Lady
Macbeth been called in to its aid: dazzled by the splendour with which
she clothes the expected issue of the deed; indignant at the charge of
cowardice, to which she artfully imputes his irresolution, and allured
by the means which she has planned as a security from detection, he, at
length, rushes into the snare.
No sooner, however, has the assassination of Duncan been perpetrated,
than the virtuous principles which had slumbered in the bosom of
Macbeth rise up to accuse and condemn him. Conscience-stricken, and
recoiling with horror from the atrocity of his own deed, he becomes the
victim of the most agonising remorse; he feels deserted both by God and
man, and unable even to deprecate the wrath which night and day pursues
him:
"I have done the deed:—Did'st thou not hear a noise?—
There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, _Murder!_
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them.—
One cried, _God bless us!_ and, _Amen!_ the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands
Listening their fear. I could not say, Amen,
When they did say, God bless us.—
But wherefore could not I pronounce, Amen?
I had most need of blessing, and Amen
Stuck in my throat.—
Methought I heard a voice cry, _Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep._—
Still it cry'd, _Sleep no more!_ to all the house;
_Glamis hath murdered sleep_; and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more."[470:A]
To this dread of vengeance from offended heaven, is soon added the
apprehension of punishment from mankind, his keen abhorrence of his
own iniquity leading him to paint, in the strongest colours, the
detestation and resentment which it must have incurred from others.
This fear of retaliation from his fellow-creatures, together with the
awful prospect of retribution in another world, produce a complete
revolution in his character; he is exhibited distrustful, treacherous,
and cruel, sweeping from existence, without pity or hesitation, all
whose talents, virtues, sufferings, or pretensions seem to endanger a
life, of which, though hourly becoming more wretched and depraved, he
anticipates the close with horror and dismay.
To the very last, the contest is kept up with tremendous energy,
between the native vigour of a brave mind, and the debilitating effects
of a guilty, and, therefore, a fear-creating conscience. The lesson
is, beyond every other, salutary and important, as it proves that
the dominion of one perverted passion subjugates to its own depraved
purposes the very principles of virtue itself; the sensibility of
Macbeth to his own wickedness, giving birth to terrors which urge him
on to reiterated murder, and finally to irretrievable destruction.
The management of the fable of Macbeth presents us with a remarkable
instance of the profound art of Shakspeare, in condensing into one
representation, and with an uninterrupted progress of the action,
an extensive and closely concatenated series of events, forming a
perfect cycle of influential incidents and passions, on a scale
commensurate with that of nature, and for which it were in vain to
look, where the unrelaxing unities of time and place have imposed
their fetters on the poet. "Let any one, for instance," observes
Schlegel, "attempt to circumscribe the gigantic picture of Macbeth's
murder, his tyrannical usurpation, and final fall, within the narrow
limits of the unity of time, and he will then see, that, however many
of the events which Shakspeare successively exhibits before us in
such dread array, he may have placed anterior to the commencement of
the piece, and made the subject of after recital, he has altogether
deprived it of its sublimity of import. This drama, it is true,
comprehends a considerable period of time: but in the rapidity of its
progress, have we leisure to calculate this? We see, as it were, the
fates weaving their dark web on the bosom of time; and the storm and
whirlwind of events, which impel the hero to the first daring attempt,
which afterwards lead him to commit innumerable crimes to secure the
fruits of it, and drive him at last, amidst numerous perils, to his
destruction in the heroic combat, draw us irresistibly along with them.
Such a tragical exhibition resembles the course of a comet, which,
hardly visible at first, and only important to the astronomic eye,
when appearing in the heaven in a nebulous distance, soon soars with
an unheard of and perpetually increasing rapidity towards the central
point of our system, spreading dismay among the nations of the earth,
till in a moment, with its portentous tail, it overspreads the half of
the firmament with flaming fire."[472:A]
But, in fact, as hath been remarked by the same admirable critic,
_Macbeth_, in its construction, bears a striking affinity to the
celebrated trilogy of Æschylus, which included the _Agamemnon_, the
_Choephoræ_, and the _Eumenides_, or _Furies_, pieces which were
successively represented in one day. "The object of the first is the
murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, on his return from Troy. In the
second, Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother: _facto pius
et sceleratus eodem_. This deed, although perpetrated from the most
powerful motives, is repugnant however to natural and moral order.
Orestes as a Prince was, it is true, entitled to exercise justice
even on the members of his own family; but he was under the necessity
of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of the tyrannical usurper
of his throne, and of going to work like an assassin. The memory of
his father pleads his excuse; but although Clytemnestra has deserved
death, the blood of his mother still rises up in judgment against him.
This is represented in the Eumenides in the form of a contention among
the gods, some of whom approve of the deed of Orestes, while others
persecute him, till at last the divine wisdom, under the figure of
Minerva, reconciles the opposite claims, establishes a peace, and puts
an end to the long series of crimes and punishments which desolated the
royal house of Atreus.
"A considerable interval takes place between the period of the first
and second pieces, during which Orestes grows up to manhood. The second
and third are connected together immediately in the order of time.
Orestes takes flight after the murder of his mother to Delphi, where we
find him at the commencement of the Eumenides.
"In each of the two first pieces, there is a visible reference to the
one which follows. In Agamemnon, Cassandra and the chorus prophesy, at
the close, to the arrogant Clytemnestra and her paramour Ægisthus, the
punishment which awaits them at the hands of Orestes. In the Choephoræ,
Orestes, immediately after the execution of the deed, finds no longer
any repose; the furies of his mother begin to persecute him, and he
announces his resolution of taking refuge in Delphi.
"The connection is therefore evident throughout, and we may consider
the three pieces, which were connected together even in the
representation, as so many acts of one great and entire drama. I
mention this as a preliminary justification of Shakspeare and other
modern poets, in connecting together in one representation a larger
circle of human destinies, as we can produce to the critics who object
to this the supposed example of the ancients."[473:A]
To these observations of M. Schlegel, the following excellent remarks
have been added by a writer in the Monthly Review:—"Shakspeare's
Macbeth," says this critic, "bears a close resemblance to this
trilogy of Æschylus, which gives, in three distinct acts, a history
of the house of Agamemnon. In Macbeth, also, are three acts or deeds,
distinct from each other, and separated by long intervals of time;
namely, the regicide of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, and the fall
of Macbeth; the first serving to shew how he attained his elevation,
the second how he abused it, and the third how he lost it. A chorus
of supernatural beings, (the witches of Shakspeare operate like the
furies of Æschylus,) in both these tragic poems, hovers over the fate
of the hero; and, by impressing on the spectator the consciousness of
an irresistible necessity, all the extenuation which the atrocities
could admit is introduced. Criticism, in comparing the master-pieces
of these master-poets, may be permitted to hesitate, but not to
draw stakes. To the plot or fable of Shakspeare must be allowed the
merit of possessing, in the higher degree, wholeness, connection,
and ascending interest. The character of Clytemnestra may be weighed
without disparagement against that of Lady Macbeth: but all the
other delineations are superior in our Shakspeare; his characters
are more various, more marked, more consistent, more natural, more
intuitive. The style of Æschylus, if distinguished for a majestic
energetic simplicity, greatly preferable to the mixt metaphors and
puns of Shakspeare, has still neither the richness of thought nor
the versatility of diction which we find displayed in the English
tragedy."[474:A]
The _supernatural machinery_ of this play, which forms one of its
most striking features, is founded on a species of superstition
that, during the life-time of Shakspeare, prevailed in England and
Scotland in an unprecedented degree. _Witchcraft_ had attracted
the attention of government under the reign of Henry the Eighth,
in whose thirty-third year was enacted a Statute which adjudged
all Witchcraft and Sorcery to be Felony without Benefit of Clergy;
but, at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, the evil seems
to have been greatly on the increase, for Bishop Jewel, preaching
before the Queen, in 1558, tells her,—"It may please your Grace to
understand that Witches and Sorcerers within these few last years
are marvelously increased within your Grace's realm. Your Grace's
subjects pine away, even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their
flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft, I
pray God they never practise further then upon the subject."[475:A]
How prevalent the delusion had become in the year 1584, we have the
most ample testimony in the ingenious work of Reginald Scot, entitled
"The Discoverie of Witchcraft," which was written, as the sensible and
humane author has informed us, "in behalfe of the poore, the aged, and
the simple[475:B];" and it reflects singular discredit on the age in
which it was produced, that a detection so complete, both with regard
to argument and fact, should have failed in effecting its purpose.
But the infatuation had seized all ranks, with an influence which
rivalled that resulting from an article of religious faith, and Scot
begins his work with the observation, that "the fables of Witchcraft
have taken so fast hold and deepe root in the heart of man, that fewe
or none can, now adaies, with patience indure the hand and correction
of God. For if any adversitie, greefe, sicknesse, losse of children,
corne, cattell, or libertie happen unto them; by and by they exclaime
uppon witches;—insomuch as a clap of thunder, or a gale of wind is no
sooner heard, but either they run to ring bels, or crie out to burne
witches[475:C];" and, in his second chapter, he declares "I have heard
to my greefe some of the minesterie affirme, that they have had in
their parish at one instant, xvij or xviij witches: meaning such as
could worke miracles supernaturallie[475:D];" a declaration which, in
a subsequent part of his book, he more particularly applies, when he
informs us, that "seventeene or eighteene were condemned at once at St.
Osees in the countie of Essex, being a whole parish, though of no great
quantitie."[475:E]
The mischief, however, was but in progress, and received a rapid
acceleration from the publication of the "Dæmonologie" of King James,
at Edinburgh, in the year 1597. The origin of this very curious
treatise was probably laid in the royal mind, in consequence of the
supposed detection of a conspiracy of two hundred witches with Dr.
Fian, "Register to the Devil," at their head, to bewitch and drown
His Majesty, on his return from Denmark, in 1590. James attended the
examination of these poor wretches with the most eager curiosity, and
the most willing credulity; and, when Agnis Tompson confessed, that
she, with other witches to the number just mentioned, "went altogether
by sea, each one in her riddle, or sieve, with flaggons of wine,
making merry and drinking by the way, to the kirk of North Berwick,
in Lothian, where, when they had landed, they took hands and danced,
singing all with one voice,—
"Commer[476:A] go ye before, commer goe yè,
Gif ye will not go before, commer let me:"
and "that Geilis Duncane did go before them, playing said reel on a
Jew's trump," James immediately sent for Duncane, and listened with
delight to his performance of the witches' reel on the Jew's-harp!
On Agnis, however, asserting, that the Devil had met them at the Kirk,
His Majesty could not avoid expressing some doubts; when, taking him
aside, she "declared unto him the very words which had passed between
him and his Queen on the first night of their marriage, with their
answer each to other; whereat the King wondered greatly, and swore by
the living God, that he believed all the Devils in Hell could not have
discovered the same."[476:B]
That the particulars elicited from the confessions of these unfortunate
beings, which, it is said, "made the King in a wonderful admiration,"
formed the basis of the Dæmonologie, may be, therefore, readily
admitted. It is also to be deplored, that, weak and absurd as this
production now appears to us, its effects on the age of its birth,
and for a century afterwards, were extensive, and melancholy in
the extreme. It contributed, indeed, more than any other work on
the subject, to rivet the fetters of credulity; and scarcely had a
twelvemonth elapsed from its publication, before its result was visible
in the destruction, in Scotland, of not less than six hundred human
beings at once, for this imaginary crime![477:A]
The succession of James to the throne of Elizabeth served but to
propagate the contagion; for no sooner had he reached this country,
than his Dæmonologie re-appeared from an English press, being printed
at London, in 1603, in quarto, and with a Preface to the Reader, which
commences by informing him of "the fearefull abounding at this time in
this Countrey, of these detestable slaves of the Divel, the Witches, or
enchanters[477:B];" a declaration which, during the course of the same
year, was accompanied by a new statute against Witches, one clause of
which enacts, that "Any one that shall use, practise, or exercise any
invocation or conjuration of any evill or wicked spirit, or consult,
covenant with, entertaine or employ, feede or reward, any evill or
wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose; or take up any dead
man, woman or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other
place where the dead body resteth, or the skin, bone, or other part of
any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft,
sorcery, charme, or enchantment; or shall use, practise, or exercise
any witchcraft, enchantment, charme, or sorcery, whereby any person
shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed, in his
or her body, or any part thereof, such offenders, duly and lawfully
convicted and attainted, shall suffer death."[478:A]
We cannot wonder if measures such as these, which stamped the already
existing superstitions with the renewed authority of the law, and
with the influence of regal argument and authority, should render a
belief in the existence of witchcraft almost universal; fashion and
interest on the one hand, and ignorance and fear on the other, mutually
contributing, by concealing or banishing doubt, to disseminate error,
and preclude detection.
Who those were who, at this period, had the misfortune to be branded
with the appellation of Witches; what deeds were imputed to them, and
what was the nature of their supposed compact with the Devil, are
questions which will be most satisfactorily answered in the words of
Reginald Scot, whose book is not only extremely scarce, but highly
curious and entertaining; and two or three chapters from this copious
treasury of superstition, with a very few comments from other sources,
will exhaust this part of the subject.
"The sort of such as are said to be witches," writes Scot, "are women
which be commonly old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of
wrinkles; poore, sullen, superstitious, and papists; or such as knowe
no religion; in whose drousie minds the divell hath gotten a fine seat;
so as, what mischeefe, mischance, calamitie, or slaughter is brought
to passe, they are easilie persuaded the same is doone by themselves;
imprinting in their minds an earnest and constant imagination thereof.
They are leane and deformed, shewing melancholie in their faces, to the
horror of all that see them. They are doting, scolds, mad, divelish,
and not much differing from them that are thought to be possessed with
spirits; so firme and stedfast in their opinions, as whosoever shall
onelie have respect to the constancie of their words uttered, would
easilie beleeve they were true indeed.
"These miserable wretches are so odious unto all their neighbors, and
so feared, as few dare offend them, or denie them anie thing they aske:
whereby they take upon them; yea, and sometimes thinke, that they can
doo such things as are beyond the abilitie of humane nature. These go
from house to house, and from doore to doore for a pot full of milke,
yest, drinke, pottage, or some such releefe; without the which they
could hardlie live: neither obtaining for their service and paines, nor
by their art, nor yet at the divels hands (with whome they are said to
make a perfect and visible bargaine) either beautie, monie, promotion,
welth, worship, pleasure, honor, knowledge, learning, or any other
benefit whatsoever.
"It falleth out many times, that neither their necessities, nor their
expectation is answered or served, in those places where they beg or
borrowe; but rather their lewdness is by their neighbors reproved.
And further, in tract of time the witch wareth odious and tedious
to her neighbors; and they againe are despised and despited of hir;
so as sometimes she cursseth one, and sometimes another; and that
from the maister of the house, his wife, children, cattell, &c. to
the little pig that lieth in the stie. Thus in processe of time they
have all displeased hir, and she hath wished evil luck unto them
all; perhaps with cursses and imprecations made in forme. Doubtless
(at length) some of hir neighbors die, or falle sicke; or some of
their children are visited with diseases that vex them strangelie: as
apoplexies, epilepsies, convulsions, hot fevers, wormes, &c. Which
by ignorant parents are supposed to be the vengeance of witches.
Yea and their opinions and conceits are confirmed and maintained by
unskilfull physicians: according to the common saieng; _Inscitiæ
pallium maleficium et incantatio_, Witchcraft and inchantment is the
cloke of ignorance: whereas indeed evill humors, and not strange words,
witches, or spirits are the causes of such diseases. Also some of their
cattell perish, either by disease or mischance. Then they, uppon whom
such adversities fall, weighing the fame that goeth upon this woman
(hir words, displeasure, and cursses meeting so justly with their
misfortune) doo not onlie conceive, but also are resolved, that all
their mishaps are brought to passe by hir onelie means.
"The witch on the other side expecting hir neighbors mischances, and
seeing things sometimes come to passe according to hir wishes, cursses,
and incantations (for Bodin himself confesseth, that not above two in a
hundred of their witchings or wishings take effect) being called before
a Justice, by due examination of the circumstances is driven to see
hir imprecations and desires, and hir neighbors harmes and losses to
concurre, and as it were to take effect: and so confesseth that she (as
a goddes) hath brought such things to passe. Wherein, not onelie she,
but the accuser, and also the Justice are fowlie deceived and abused;
as being thorough hir confession and other circumstances persuaded (to
the injurie of Gods glorie) that she hath doone, or can doo that which
is proper onelie to God himselfe.
"Another sort of witches there are, which be absolutelie cooseners:
These take upon them, either for glorie, fame, or gaine, to doo any
thing, which God or the divell can doo: either for fortelling things
to come, bewraieng of secrets, curing of maladies, or working of
miracles."[480:A]
To this chapter from Scot, which we have given entire, may be added the
admirable description of the abode of a witch from the pen of Spenser,
who, as Warton hath observed, copied from living objects, and had
probably been struck with seeing such a cottage, in which a witch was
supposed to live:—
"There in a gloomy hollow glen she found
A little cottage built of stickes and reedes
In homely wise, and wald with sods around;
In which a Witch did dwell, in loathly weedes
And wilful want, all carelesse of her needes;
So choosing solitarie to abide
Far from all neighbours, that her divelish deeds
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off unknowne whomever she envide."[480:B]
This very striking picture for ever fixed the character of the
habitation allotted to a witch; thus in a singularly curious tract,
entitled "Round about our Coal-Fire," published about the close of
the seventeenth century, and which details, in a pleasing manner, the
traditions of the olden time, as a source of Christmas amusement,
it is said that "a Witch must be a hagged old woman, living in a
little rotten cottage, under a hill, by a wood-side, and must be
frequently spinning at the door: she must have a black cat, two or
three broom-sticks, an imp or two, and two or three diabolical teats to
suckle her imps."
Of the wonderful feats which the various kinds of witches were supposed
capable of performing, Scot has favoured us with the following succinct
enumeration: there are three sorts of witches he tells us, "one sort
can hurt and not helpe, the second can helpe and not hurt, the third
can both helpe and hurt. Among the hurtfull witches there is one sort
more beastlie than any kind of beasts, saving wolves: for these usually
devour and eate yong children and infants of their owne kind. These be
they that raise haile, tempests, and hurtfull weather; as lightening,
thunder, &c. These be they that procure barrennesse in man, woman, and
beast. These can throwe children in waters, as they walke with their
mothers, and not be seene. These can make horsses kicke, till they
cast their riders. These can passe from place to place in the aire
invisible. These can so alter the mind of judges, that they can have
no power to hurt them. These can procure to themselves and to others,
taciturnitie and insensibilitie in their torments. These can bring
trembling to the hands, and strike terror into the minds of them that
apprehend them. These can manifest unto others, things hidden and lost,
and foreshew things to come; and see them as though they were present.
These can alter men's minds to inordinate love or hate. These can kill
whom they list with lightening and thunder. These can take away man's
courage.—These can make a woman miscarrie in childbirth, and destroie
the child in the mother's wombe, without any sensible means either
inwardlie or outwardlie applied. These can with their looks kill either
man or beast.—
"Others doo write, that they can pull downe the moone and the
starres. Some write that with wishing they can send needles into the
livers of their enemies. Some that they can transferre corne in the
blade from one place to another. Some, that they can cure diseases
supernaturallie, flie in the aire, and danse with divels. Some write,
that they can plaie the part of _Succubus_, and contract themselves to
_Incubus_.—Some saie they can transubstantiate themselves and others,
and take the forms and shapes of asses, woolves, ferrets, cowes, asses,
horsses, hogs, &c. Some say they can keepe divels and spirits in the
likenesse of todes and cats.
"They can raise spirits (as others affirme), drie up springs, turne
the course of running waters, inhibit the sune, and staie both day
and night, changing the one into the other. They can go in and out at
awger holes, and saile in an egge shell, a cockle or muscle shell,
through and under the tempestuous seas.—They can bring soules out of
the graves. They can teare snakes in pieces.—They can also bring to
pass, that chearne as long as you list, your butter will not come;
_especiallie, if either the maids have eaten up the creame; or the
good-wife have sold the butter before in the market_."[482:A]
The only material accession which the royal James has made to this
curious catalogue of the deeds of witchcraft, consists in informing us,
that these aged and decrepid slaves of Satan "make pictures of waxe
or clay, that by the roasting thereof, the persons that they beare
the name of, may be continually melted or dried away by continuall
sicknesse[482:B];" and his mode of explaining how the devil performs
this marvel, is a notable instance both of his ingenuity and his
eloquence. This deed he says "is verie possible to their master to
performe: for although that instrument of waxe have no vertue in that
turne doing, yet may he not very well, even by the same measure,
that his conjured slaves melts that waxe at the fire, may hee not, I
say, at these same times, subtily, as a spirit, so weaken and scatter
the spirits of life of the patient, as may make him on the one part,
for faintnesse, to sweat out the humour of his bodie, and on the
other part, for the not concurrence of these spirits, which causes
his digestion, so debilitate his stomache, that this humour radicall
continually, sweating out on the one part, and no newe good sucke being
put in the place thereof, for lacke of digestion on the other, he at
last shall vanish away, even as his picture will doe at the fire?
And that knavish and cunning workeman, by troubling him, onely at
sometimes, makes a proportion, so neere betwixt the working of the one
and the other, that both shall end as it were at one time."[483:A]
It remains to notice the nature of the compact or bargain, which
witches were believed to enter into with their seducer, and the species
of homage which they were compelled to pay him; and here again we must
have recourse to Scot, not only as the most compressed, but as the most
authentic detailer of this strange credulity of his times. "The order
of their bargaine or profession," says he, "is double; the one solemne
and publike; the other secret and private. That which is called solemne
or publike, is where witches come together at certaine assemblies, at
the times prefixed, and doo not onelie see the divell in visible forme;
but confer and talke familiarlie with him. In which conference the
divell exhorteth them to observe their fidelitie unto him, promising
them long life and prosperitie. Then the witches assembled, commend a
new disciple (whom they call a novice) unto him: and if the divell find
that yoong witch apt and forward in renunciation of Christian faith,
in despising anie of the seven sacraments, in treading upon crosses,
in spetting at the time of the elevation, in breaking their fast on
fasting daies, and fasting on sundaies: then the divell giveth foorth
his hand, and the novice joining hand in hand with him, promiseth to
observe and keepe all the divels commandements.
"This doone, the divell beginneth to be more bold with hir, telling
hir plainlie, that all this will not serve his turne; and therefore
requireth homage at hir hands: yea he also telleth hir, that she must
grant him both hir bodie and soule to be tormented in everlasting
fire; which she yeeldeth unto. Then he chargeth hir, to procure as
manie men, women, and children also, as she can, to enter into this
societie. Then he teacheth them to make ointments of the bowels and
members of children, whereby they ride in the aire, and accomplish all
their desires. So as, if there be anie children unbaptized, or not
garded with the signe of the crosse, or orisons; then the witches may
and doo catch them from their mothers sides in the night, or out of
their cradles, or otherwise kill them with their ceremonies; and after
buriall steale them out of their graves, and seeth them in a caldron,
until their flesh be made potable. Of the thickest whereof they make
ointments, whereby they ride in the aire; but the thinner potion they
put into flaggons, whereof whosoever drinketh, observing certaine
ceremonies, immediatelie becommeth a maister or rather a mistresse in
that practise and facultie.
"Their homage with their oth and bargaine is received for a certeine
terme of yeares; sometimes for ever. Sometimes it consisteth in the
deniall of the whole faith, sometimes in part.—And this is doone
either by oth, protestation of words, or by obligation in writing,
sometimes sealed with wax, sometimes signed with blood, sometimes by
kissing the divels bare buttocks.
"You must also understand, that after they have delicatlie banketted
with the divell and the ladie of the fairies; and have eaten up a fat
oxe, and emptied a butt of malmesie, and a binne of bread at some noble
man's house, in the dead of the night, nothing is missed of all this
in the morning. For the ladie _Sibylla_, _Minerva_, or _Diana_ with
a golden rod striketh the vessel and the binne, and they are fully
replenished againe." After mentioning that the bullock is restored
in the same magical manner, he states it as an "infallible rule, that
everie fortnight, or at the least everie moneth, each witch must kill
one child at the least for hir part." He also relates from Bodin, that
"at these magicall assemblies, the witches never faile to danse, and
whiles they sing and danse, everie one hath a broome in hir hand, and
holdeth it up aloft."[485:A]
To these circumstances attending the meetings of this unhallowed
sisterhood, King James adds, that Satan, in order that "hee may the
more vively counterfeit and scorne God, oft times makes his slaves to
conveene in those very places, which are destinate and ordained for
the conveening of the servants of God (I meane by churches):—further,
witches oft times confesse, not only his conveening in the church
with them, but his occupying of the pulpit."[485:B] For this piece
of information James seems to have been indebted to the confessions
of Agnis Tompson; but he also relates, that the devil, as soon as he
has induced his votaries to renounce their God and baptism, "gives
them his marke upon some secret place of their bodie, which remaies
soare unhealed, whilst his next meeting with them, and thereafter
ever insensible, however it be nipped or pricked by any;" a seal of
distinction which, he tells us at the close of his treatise, is of
great use in detecting them on their trial, as "the finding of their
marke, and the trying the insensiblenes thereof," was considered as
a positive proof of their craft. His Majesty, however, proceeds to
mention another mode of ascertaining their guilt, terminating the
paragraph in a manner not very flattering to his female subjects,
or very expressive of his own gallantry. "The other is," he tells
us, "their fleeting on the water: for as in a secret murther, if the
dead carkasse bee at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer,
it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying to the heaven
for revenge of the murtherer, God having appointed that secret
supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret unnaturall crime, so
it appeares that God hath appointed (for a supernaturall signe of
the monstrous impietie of Witches) that the water shall refuse to
receive them in her bosome, that have shaken off them the sacred
water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite thereof: No, not
so much as their eyes are able to shed teares (threaten and torture
them as you please) while first they repent (God not permitting them
to dissemble their obstinacie in so horrible a crime) albeit the
women-kind especially, be able otherwayes to shed teares at every light
occasion when they will, yea, although it were dissemblingly like the
Crocodiles."[486:A]
Such are the chief features of this gross superstition, as detailed by
the writers of the period in which it most prevailed in this country.
_Scot_ has taken infinite pains in collecting, from every writer on
the subject, the _minutiæ_ of Witchcraft, and his book is expanded
to a thick quarto, in consequence of his commenting at large on the
particulars which he had given in his initiatory chapters, for the
purpose of their complete refutation and exposure; a work of great
labour, and which shows, at every step, how deeply this credulity had
been impressed on the subjects of Elizabeth. _James_, on the other
hand, though a man of considerable erudition, and, in some respects, of
shrewd good sense, wrote in defence of this folly, and, unfortunately
for truth and humanity, the doctrine of the monarch was preferred to
that of the sage.
When such was the creed of the country, from the throne to the cottage;
when even the men of learning, with few [486:B]exceptions, ranged
themselves on the side of the Dæmonologie, it was highly judicious
in Shakspeare, in his dramatic capacity, to adopt, as a powerful
instrument of terror, the popular belief; popular both in his own
time, and in that to which the reign of Macbeth is [487:A]referred.
And, in doing this, he has shown not less taste than genius; for in the
principal authorities to which he has had recourse for particulars;
in the _Discoverie_ of _Scot_, in the _Dæmonologie_ of _James_, and
even in the _Witch_ of _Middleton_, a play now allowed to have been
anterior to his own drama, the ludicrous and the frivolous are blended,
in a very large proportion, with that which is calculated to excite
solemnity and awe. With exquisite skill has he separated the latter
from the former, exalting it with so many touches of grandeur, and
throwing round it such an air of dreadful mystery, that, although the
actual superstition on which the machinery is founded, be no more,
there remains attached to it, in consequence of passing through the
mind of Shakspeare, such a portion of what is naturally inherent in the
human mind, in relation to its apprehensions of the invisible world of
spirits, such a sublime, though indistinct conception of powers unknown
and mightier far than we, that nearly the same degree of grateful
terror is experienced from the perusal or representation of _Macbeth_
in modern days, as was felt in the age of its production.
In the very first appearance, indeed, of the Weird Sisters to Macbeth
and Banquo on the blasted heath, we discern beings of a more awful and
spiritualised character than belongs to the vulgar herd of witches.
"What are these," exclaims the astonished Banquo,—
——————————— "What are these,
So wither'd, and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips:—
_Macb._ Speak, I charge you.
_Banq._ The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them:—Whither are they vanish'd?
_Macb._ Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted
As breath into the wind."
Even when unattended by any human witnesses, when supporting the
dialogue merely among themselves, Shakspeare has placed in the
mouths of these agents imagery and diction of a cast so peculiar and
mysterious, as to render them objects of alarm and fear, emotions
incompatible with any tendency towards the ludicrous. But when,
wheeling round the magic cauldron, in the gloomy recesses of their
cave, they commence their incantations, chanting in tones wild and
unearthly, and heard only during the intervals of a thunder-storm,
their metrical charm, while flashes of subterranean fire obscurely
light their haggard features, their language seems to breathe of hell,
and we shrink back, as from beings at war with all that is good. Yet is
the impression capable of augmentation, and is felt to have attained
its acmé of sublimity and horror, when, in reply to the question of
Macbeth,
"How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is't you do?"
they reply,—
"_A deed without a name._"
Much, however, of the dread, solemnity, and awe which is experienced
in reading this play, from the intervention of the witches, is lost in
its representation on the stage, owing to the injudicious custom of
bringing them too forward on the scene; where, appearing little better
than a group of old women, the effect intended by the poet is not only
destroyed, but reversed. Their dignity and grandeur must arise, as evil
beings gifted with superhuman powers, from the undefined nature both
of their agency and of their external forms. Were they indistinctly
seen, though audible, at a distance, and, as it were, through a hazy
twilight, celebrating their orgies, and with shadowy and gigantic
shape flitting between the pale blue flames of their cauldron and the
eager eye of the spectator, sufficient latitude would be given to the
imagination, and the finest drama of our author would receive in the
theatre that deep tone of supernatural horror with which it is felt to
be so highly imbued in the solitude of the closet.
FOOTNOTES:
[419:A] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 357.
[420:A] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 362.
"For he is but a bastard to the time,
That doth not smack of observation," &c.
[420:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 413. Act iii. sc. 1.
[421:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. pp. 451. 454-456. Act iii. sc. 4.
[422:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 447. note 9.
[423:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 290.
[423:B] "Of all the characters of Shakspeare," remarks Mr. Felton,
"none more resemble his best female advocate (Mrs. Montagu) than the
Countess of Rousillon."—Imperfect Hints, part i. p. 65.
[424:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. pp. 248, 249. Act i. sc. 3.
[425:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. pp. 313. 315. Act iii. sc. 2.
[426:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. pp. 336. 338, 339. Act ii. sc. 2.
[427:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. pp. 341, 342. Act ii. sc. 2.
[427:B] Ibid. vol. xii. pp. 438-441. Act iv. sc. 1.
[428:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 456. note 5.
[428:B] Ibid. p. 366. et seq. Act iii. sc. 1.
[428:C] Ibid. p. 378. Act iii. sc. 3.
[428:D] Ibid. p. 404. et seq. 459. et seq.
[430:A] Supplemental Apology, p. 381.
[430:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 185.
[430:C] It is most probable that Shakspeare derived his materials from
a version of Belleforest, who copied Bandello. The story forms the 22d
tale of the first part of Bandello, and the 18th history of the 3d
volume of Belleforest.
[431:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 182.
[431:B] Schlegel on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. p. 166.
[434:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. pp. 43, 44. Act ii. sc. 1.
[434:B] Ibid. p. 59. Act ii. sc. 5.
[434:C] Ibid. p. 76, 77. Act ii. sc. 7.
[435:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 66.
[435:B] Epistle Dedicatory to _The Comical Gallant_, 1702.
[435:C] Supplemental Apology, pp. 320. 345.
[435:D] Royal and Noble Authors, apud Park, vol. i. p. 82.
[436:A] Supplemental Apology, p. 345.
[437:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 127.
[438:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 391.
[438:B] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 319.
[441:A] Life of Chaucer, vol. i. pp. 509-512. 8vo. edit.
[442:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. pp. 312. 316.
[442:B] Supplemental Apology, p. 446. et seq.
[443:A] The Works of Ben Jonson, by W. Gifford, Esq. 9 vols. 8vo. 1816.
vol. i. p. cclxxii.
[444:A] MS. Harl. 7002.—Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 6.
[445:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 317.
[445:B] Reliq. Wotton. p. 425.
[445:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 312.
[446:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 3.
[446:B] Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 355, 356.
[446:C] Ibid. vol. xix. p. 2.
[446:D] Supplemental Apology, p. 391.
[447:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 354.
[447:B] Supplemental Apology, p. 394.
[447:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 214. note.
[449:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. pp. 125-127.
[449:B] I conceive that by "_dangerous nature_" in this passage, is
meant a nature, from acute sensibility and sudden misfortune, liable to
be overpowered, to be thrown off its poize, and to suffer from mental
derangement.
[449:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. pp. 182, 183.
[451:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. pp. 159-165. Act iv. sc. 3.
[451:B] Ibid. vol. xix. p. 166.
[452:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 179.
[452:B] Supplemental Apology, pp. 411, 412.
[454:A] History of Fiction, vol. ii. 1st edit. pp. 367, 368.—See Mr.
Douce's enumeration of the sources whence the plot of this play might
have been extracted, in his Illustrations, vol. i. p. 152. et seq.
[455:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 298, 299. Act iii. sc. 1.
[456:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. pp. 303-306. Act iii. sc. 1.
[456:B] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 132., where several
passages, which may have suggested the imagery in Claudio's
description, are quoted.
[456:C] Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. p. 169.
[458:A] Supplemental Apology, pp. 417, 418.
[458:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 127.
[459:A] For these consult not only the Variorum edition of Shakspeare,
but Mr. Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, and Mr. Douce's Illustrations.
See also the story of Lear, from Caxton's Chronicle of 1480, extracted
by Mr. Dibdin, in the British Bibliographer, vol. ii. p. 578.
[459:B] Warton tells us, that Perceforest was originally a metrical
romance, and written about the year 1220. See his History of Poetry,
vol. i. p. 464.
[462:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. p. 381. Act i. sc. 5.
[462:B] Ibid. vol. xvii. p. 441. Act ii. sc. 4.
[463:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. pp. 459-461. Act iii. sc. 4.
[464:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. pp. 445, 446. Act iii. sc. 1.
[464:B] Ibid. p. 456. Act iii. sc. 2.
[464:C] Ibid. p. 463. Act iii. sc. 4.
[466:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xvii. pp. 564-567. Act iv. sc. 7.
[466:B] Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 649.
[467:A] Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. p. 183.
[468:A] Letters of Anna Seward, vol. iii. p. 246.
[470:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. pp. 110, 111, 112. 114.
[472:A] Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. i. pp. 352, 353.
[473:A] Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. i. pp. 95, 96.
[474:A] Monthly Review, vol. lxxxi. p. 119, 120.
[475:A] Strype's Annals of Reformation, vol. i. p. 8. The apprehension
expressed at the close of this quotation, was realised some years
afterwards, when a Mrs. Dier was accused of conjuration and witchcraft,
because the Queen had been "under excessive anguish _by pains of her
teeth_: insomuch that she took no rest for divers nights."—Vide
Strype's Annals, vol. iv. p. 7.
[475:B] Epistle to Sir Roger Manwood, p. 1.
[475:C] Discoverie of Witchcraft, chap. i. pp. 1, 2.
[475:D] Ibid. p. 4.
[475:E] Discourse of Divels and Spirits, p. 543.; annexed to the
Discoverie of Witchcraft.
[476:A] Gossip.
[476:B] These extracts are taken from a pamphlet entitled, "Newes from
Scotland," reprinted in the Gent. Magazine, vol. xlix. p. 449. See also
Gent. Magazine, vol. vii. p. 556.
[477:A] See Nashe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, as quoted by Mr. Reed, in his
Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 5. note.
[477:B] King James's Works, as published by James, Bishop of Winton,
folio, 1616, p. 91.
[478:A] This act against witches was not repealed until the year 1736,
being the ninth of George the Second!
[480:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, book i. chap. 3. pp. 7-9.
[480:B] Todd's Spenser, vol. iv. pp. 480, 481. Faerie Queene, book iii.
canto 7. stanza 6. and note.
[482:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, book i. chap. 4. pp. 9-11.
[482:B] James's Works, by Winton, p. 116.
[483:A] James's Works, by Winton, p. 117.
[485:A] Discoverie of Witchcraft, book iii. chap. 1, 2. pp. 40-42.
[485:B] Works apud Winton, pp. 112, 113.
[486:A] King James's Works apud Winton, pp. 111. 135, 136.
[486:B] Among these we find the mighty name of Bacon; this great
man attributing, in the Tenth Century of his Natural History, the
achievements and the confessions of witches and wizards to the effects
of a morbid imagination.
[487:A] To the traditions of Boethius and Holinshed, we may add a
modern authority in the person of Sir John Sinclair, who tells us that
"In Macbeth's time, Witchcraft was very prevalent in Scotland, and
two of the most famous witches in the kingdom lived on each hand of
Macbeth, one at Collace, the other not far from Dunsinnan House, at
a place called the Cape. Macbeth applied to them for advice, and by
their counsel built a lofty Castle upon the top of an adjoining hill,
since called Dunsinnan. The moor where the Witches met, which is in
the parish of St. Martin's, is yet pointed out by the country-people,
and there is a stone still preserved which is called _the Witches
Stone_."—Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xx. p. 242.