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To-return to 1 Lady Macbeth . There is no mention of ¦ ' murder in her husband's letter ^ yet she , tdOjhasiihe conception in'her mind ; but in this Maginn contends she only followed the thought of her hutband : ——" ILove for him is in fact her guiding passion . She sees that he covets the throne , ^ -that his happiness is wrapt up in the hope of being a king , — -andher partis accordingly taken without hesitation , With the blindness of affection , she persuades herself that he is full of the milk of human kindness , and that he would reject false and unholy ways of attaining the
object of his desire . She deems it , therefore , her duty to spirit him to the taslc . Fate and metaphysical aid , she argues , have destined him for the golden round of Scotland . Shall she not lend her assistance ? She does not ask the question twice . She will . Her sex , her woman ' s breasts , her very nature , Oppose the task she has prescribed to herself ; but she prays to the ministers of murder , to the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts , to make thick her blood , and stop up the access and passage of remorse ; and she succeeds in mustering the desperate courage which bears her through . "
As to Macbeth , Maginn says that " He is not haunted by any feeling for the sin , any compassion for his victim ;—the dread of losing the golden opinions he has so lately won , the consequences of failure , alone torment him . His wife has not to suggest murder , for that has . been already resolved upon ; bdt [ to represent the weakness of drawing back , after a resolution has once been formed . She well knows that the momentary qualm will pass off , —that Duncan is to be slain , perhaps when time and place will not so well adhere , ' , ' she argues , —* now it can be done with safety ^ Macbeth is determined to wade through slaughter to a throne . If he passes this moment he loses the eagerly desired coward in his
prize , and lives forever after a own esteem ; or he may make the attempt at a moment when detection is so near at hand , that the stroke which sends Duncan to his fate will be but the prelude-of the destruction of my husband . ' She ^ therefore rouses him to do at once that from which she knows nothing but fear of- detection deters him ; and , feeling that there are no conscientious scruples to overcome , applies herself to show that the present is the most favourable instant . It is for him she thinks—for him she is unsexed : —for his ambition she works—for his safety she provides . " Lady-Macbeth feels , in the manner of her lord , that he can be confounded not by the crime , but only by the frustrated attempt .
" When it has been accomplished , he is for a while visited by brain-sick fancies ; and to her , who sees the necessity of prompt action , is left the care of providing the measures best calculated to avert the dreaded detection . She makes light of facing the deadji and assures her husband that " * A' little water clears Tiff of this deed . Howeaajr Is it thenl ' " Does she indeed feel this ? Are these the real emotions of her mind ? Does she think that a little water will washout what has been done , and that it is as easy to make all trace of it vanish from the heart as from the hand ? She shall answer us from her sleep , in the loneliness of midnight , in the secrecy of her chamber . Bold was her . bearing , 1
reckless and defyingher tongue * when her husband was to be served or saved ; but the sigh bursting from her heavily-charged breast , and her deep agony when she feels that , so far from its being easy to get rid of the witness of murder , no washing can obliterate the damned spot , no perfume sweeten the hand once redolent of blood , prove that the recklessness and defiance were only assumed . We find at last what she had sacrificed , how dreadful was the struggle she had to subdue . Her nerve , her courage , mental and physical , was unbroken during the night of murder ; but horror was already seated in her heart . Even then a touch of- what was going , on in h « r bosom breaks , forth . When urging Macbeth to act > she speaks as if she held the strongest ties of human nature in contempt ,
" * I have givon suck , and know How tondor 'tis to lovo the babe that milks mo : I would , when ltwwa smiling' in my face . Have plucked my nipple from his bonoieaa 'gums , And duehod the brains out , had I but no sworn Aa you tiavo done to this . ' Is she indeed so unnatural—so destitute of maternal , of womanly feeling ? No . In the noxt scene we find her deterred from actual participation in killing Duncan , because ho resembled her father in his sleep . This is not the lady to pluck the nipple from the boneless ¦ gums of her infant , and dash out its brains . Her language is exaggerated Ui mere bravado , to . tftywt Macbeth ' * infirmity of purpose by a cjipiy ? ar ^ aon with hex o wn , boasted firmness : put if the o ^^ hMKarlaett , she who bod recoiled from injuring oW '" wiio $ im Stood hn the way of lier hnsband' 0 hopes from a fancied , resorablan . ee to her father ,
would have seen in the smile of her child a talisman of resistless protection . ' ? The murder done , and her husband on the throne , she is no longer implicated in guilt .. She is unhappy in her elevation , and writhes s under a troubled spirit in the midst of assumed gaiety . She reflects with a settled melanchol y that "'Nought ' s had , all ' s spent . When our desire is g-ot without content , 'Tis safer to be tli&t which we destroy * Than by destruction dwell iu doubtful joy . ' This to herself . To cheer her lord , she speaks a different language in the very next line . "' How now , my lord ! why do you keep alone , Of sorriest fancies your companions making- ; Using those thoughts which should indeed hare died With those they think on ?'
Her own thoughts , we have j ust seen , were full as sorry as those of her husband : but she can wear a mask . Twice only does she appear after her accession to the throne ; once masked , once unmasked . Once seated at high festival , entertaining the nobles of her realm , full of grace and courtesy , performing her stately hospitalities with cheerful countenance , and devising witbTrare presence of mind excuses for the distracted conduct of her husband . Once again , when all guard is removed , groaning in despair . " The few words she says to Macbeth after the guests have departed , almost driven out by herself , mark that her mind is completely subdued . She
remonstrates with him at first for having broken up the feast ; but she cannot continue , the tone of reproof , when she finds that his thoughts are bent on gloomier objects . Blood is for ever on his tongue . She had ventured to tell him that the visions 'which startle him were but the painting of his brain , and that he was unmanned in folly . He takes no heed of what she says * and continues to speculate , at first in distraction , then in dread , and lastly in savage cruelty , upon blood . The apparition of Banquo almost deprives him of his senses . He marvels that such things could be , and complains that a cruel exception to the ordinary laws of nature is permitted in his case . Blood , he says ,
"' - has been shed ere now in the olden time , Ere human statute purged the gentle weal , 'and in more civilised times also ; but , when death came , no further consequences followed . Now not even twenty mortal murders [ he remembered the number of deadly gashes reported by the assassin ] will keep the victim in his grave . As long as Banquo ' s ghost remains before him , he speaks in the same distracted strain . When the object of ' his special wonder , by its vanishing , gives him time to reflect , fear of detection , as usual ; is his first feeling . . "' It will have blood , they e&y ; blood will have blood I "
The most improbable witnesses have detected murder . Stones , trees , magotpies , choughs , have disclosed the secretest man of blood . Then come cruel resolves , to rid himself of his fears . Mercy . or remorse is to be henceforward unknown ; the firstlings of his heart are to be the firstlings of his hand , —the bloody thought is to be followed instantly by the bloody deed . The tiger is now fully aroused in his sold . " 'I am in blood Stept In so far , that , should I wade no more , Keturning- were as tedious as go o ' er . ' .
Ho sees on enemy in every castle ; everywhoro he plants his spies ; from every hand he dreads an attempt upon his life . Nearly two centuries after the play was written , the world beheld one of its fairest portions delivered to a rule as bloody as that of the Scottish tyrant ; and so true to nature are the conceptions of Shakspearo , that the speeches of mixed terror and , cruelty , which he has * given to Macbeth , might have been uttered by Robespierre . The atrocities of the Jacobin , after he had stept so
far , in blood , were dictated by fear . ' Robespierre , ' says a quondam satellite , * * devenait plus sombre ; son air renlrogng repoussait to " le monde -p il ne parloit que d ' assassinat , encore d ' assassinat , tou-3 ours d ' assassinut . II o . vait pour que son ombre ne l ' aosaeainat . ' " kady Macbeth Bees this grisly resolution , and ceases to remonstrate or interfere . Her soul is bowed down before his , and he communicated with her no longer . He tells hor to be ignorant of what he plans , until she can applaud him for what he has done . When he abruptly asks her .
» ' How eay ' et thou , —that Maoduir denies his person At our groat bidding ? " she , vrell knowing that she has not said anything about it , and that the question is suggested by his own foar and suspicion , timidly inquires , " ' Have you oont to him , air f The last word is >¦ an emphatic proof that she is wholly subjugated . TooVroll is she aware of . the cause , and the > consequence , of Macboth ' a sending
afterMacduff ; but she ventures not to hint She is no longer the stern-tOngued lady urging on the work of death , and taunting her husband for his hesitation . She now addresses him in the hutnbte tone of an inferior ; wenpw see fright and astbhisb > ment seated on her face . He tells her that she mar vels at his . words , and she would fain persuade herself that they are but the feverish eifusions of an over-wrought mind . Sadly she says ,
" * You lack the season of all nature , sleep . ' Those are the last words we hear from her wakinc lips ; and with a hope that repose may banish those murky thoughts from her husband ' s mind , she takes hand in hand with him , h « r tearful departure from the stage , and seeks her remorse-haunted chamber , there to indulge iti useless reveries of deep-rooted sorrow , and to perish by her own hand amid the crashing ruin of her fortunes , and the fall of that throne which she had so fatally contributed to win *"
This , it must be acknowledged , is first-rate criticism . Let it stand as a specimen-brick of the whole edifice . Every true admirer of Shakspeare will possess himself of the volume .
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LITERARY" REMINISCENCES and MEMOIRS of THOMAS CAMPBELL .. By Cyrus Redding . 2 Vols . —Chas . J . Skeet . A more competent biographer than Mr . C . Redding could , not be found for the author of " The Pleasures of Hope ; " and it is with more than an ordinary welcome that -we receive the present work . We are interested equally by the modesty and candour of the writer , who rather underrates than otherwise his qualifications for the task . The family of the poet belonged to the clan of the Campbells , and Thomas Campbell , the subject
of the present biography , vras , like Thomson , Scottish born ; His birth took phwje at . Glasgow , in a house no longer in existence , situated in the High Street , on the 27 th July , 1777 . His father was then sixty-seven , and his mother nbout thirty-seven years of age , and Thomas was their eighth son . He remembered little about his family , and seldom spoke of Ms early days , except the college ones , with complacency . In Ms schooldays he disliked mechanical routine , and then and afterwards took his own way of acquiring learning . The tendencies of his mind were metaphysical during the student period of his life , though its occasional bias was poetical . of
His ignorance of general branches knowledge was extensive , and led to errors in his natural descriptions , of frequent occurrence in his poetry . His habit , also , of abstraction or thoughtlessness was an early one . The first sketch of his great poem was made during his residence in the Isle of Mull , at Callioch , in 1795-6 . He was at the time tutor in a family there , distantly related to his mother ' s . Roger ' s " Pleasures of Memory " had preceded it by six years . At the University he had already obtained prizes in Greok literature . With this work in manuscript , and some
Greek translations , he arrived in Glasgow , the future all , dark and the present perplexed . He submitted to the drudgery of .-a law clerk as a copyist , but becoming acquainted with Dr . Anderson , hs was introduced to Mundcll , the Edinburgh publisher , who employed him to abridge Bryan Edward ' s " West Indies , " giving him twenty guineas for the job . It wus now tliftt he composed "The Wounded Hussar , " which was sung about the streets of Glasgow ns a ballad . For the copyright of " The Pleasures of Hope he received two hundred printed copies , which produced him about fifty-seven pounds ; but subsequeintly his publishers presented him with twentyfive pounds for every editioii of a thousand copies , edition
and permitted him to publish , a quarto on his own account , which yielded him about six hundred pounds . Campbell , received altogether about nine hundred pounds for that quo poem ; or on the whole about fifteen shillings a line . iM poem underwent various alterations during its progress ? the beginning was difleront ; much was abandoned , much was added . The flip was useu immoderately , and the utmost polish given to expression . This also was the oase with his lyrics . t > r , Anderson was the poet ' s mentor , his g »'« 0 » philosopher and friend , andi would not suiter ft phrase to pass without protiex revision . Wo regret to find Mr . Bedding so severe on Lord Brougham , whose remarks on Campbell Wive excited more , we think , than a counterbalance 01 indignation ; We agree , however , with his dh > - ctooWs estimate of the poet ' s " Gertrude oi
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1230 THCE "LEADER ; [ JSb . 502 . Nov . 5 , 185 9
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 5, 1859, page 1230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2319/page/18/
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