5.-STAGE CORRUPTIONS OF THIS PLAY, BY OMISSION OR INSERTION.

FIRST, as to omissions; in this, perhaps the most closely and rigidly coherent of all its author's compositions, and, consequently, that in which any curtailment most necessarily implies mutilation.

*

Passing over mere suppressions of detail, let us come to the comic scene of the porter, which immediately follows the murder scene between Macbeth and his lady, and respecting which we entirely dissent from the opinion so positively expressed by Coleridge, that it was "written for the mob by some other hand." Coleridge himself, in the very next paragraph of these notes, alluding to a subsequent passage of this play, indicates the true spirit and bearing of this comic introduction. Shakespeare, he observes, never introduces the comic "but when it may react on the tragedy by harmonious contrast." Precisely so. horror of this midnight assassination is thrown into the boldest possible relief by the fact of its being perpetrated under the mask of grateful, plenteous, jovial, and even riotous hospitality. As the murder scene receives its last heightening of effect from that wherein the guests are seen retiring to rest, and Banquo tells Macbeth

The king's a-bed:

He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices:
This diamond he greets your wife withal,

By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
In measureless content ;-

The

so, in this same disputed passage of the drunken porter, wherein we are presented, as it were, with the last heavy, expiring fumes of the nocturnal entertainment, the touch of humorous colloquy between this drolly-moralizing domestic and the gentlemen who

* 'Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 246.

are up thus early to awaken the king for his intended journey, and are quite unsuspecting of mischief,gives the more overpowering force to the burst of indignant horror produced by their discovery of the sanguinary fact.

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The introduction of this comic passage having, for this reason, we believe, been deliberately determined on by the dramatist, what more natural than that it should be made to issue chiefly from the mouth of the half-sobered porter? It is a most essential part of the dramatic incident, that the criminal pair should be startled in the very moment of completing their sanguinary deed, by those loyal followers who are come to awaken the sovereign whom their host and hostess have put to sleep for ever. They must be admitted, and the porter, of course, must make his appearance, the fittest representative, too, of the latest portion of the night's carousing, and the fittest, therefore, to give the dialogue a gravely comic turn. Another dramatic purpose, too, is served by the interposing of this interval in the chain of tragic circumstance—the allowing of time for Macbeth, after retiring from the scene, lost," as his lady tells him, "so poorly in his thoughts," to wash his hands, put on his night-dress, and assume that perfect selfpossession, in speech at least, wherewith he comes forth to meet the early risers, Macduff and Lenox. The omission of the whole passage in acting, except a very few words, by bringing Macbeth forward again, cool and collected, so immediately after he has withdrawn in such confusion, destroys, in this important place, the coherence and probability of the incident. Modern decorum, no doubt, demands the omission of the greater part of the porter's share in the dialogue; but there seems no such reason for suppressing the "devil-porter" soliloquy, wherein he "had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire," amongst whom he tells us of "an equivocator, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven."

The second theatrical mutilation that we have to notice, is the total omission of Lady Macbeth's appearance in the discovery scene. We hardly need point out the doubly gross improbability involved herein. On the one hand, the lady's clear understanding of the part it behoves her to act, and her perfect selfpossession, must of themselves bring her forward, as the mistress of the mansion, to enquireWhat's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak.

On the other hand, her solicitude to see how her nervous lord conducts himself under this new trial of his self-possession, so vital to them both, must force her upon the scene. Strange, therefore, does it seem, that we should miss her altogether, as we do in the present mode of performance, from this critical passage of the incident. How much deep illustration of character, too, as we have shown in a preceding page, is lost by this one brief suppression,-besides that it strikes out one complete link in the main dramatic interest.

A minor injury, but still injurious, is the omission, in the following scene, of the "old man," and of the dialogue which passes between him and Rosse outside the castle. It was plainly one deliberate aim of the great artist, to keep the association and affinity which he chose to establish between spiritual and material storm and darkness continually before us:

Old Man. Threescore and ten I can remember well;
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

Ah, good father,

Rosse.
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is it night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth intomb,
When living light should kiss it?

Old M.
Even like the deed that's done, &c.

"Tis unnatural,

The next suppression, again, really mutilates the chain of dramatic interest-depriving us, in the first place, of that expressive history which Lenox, in conversation with another lord, gives us of the progress of suspicion and disaffection among Macbeth's own adherents:

My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
Which can interpret further: only, I say,

Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth.-Marry, he was dead.

And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;

Whom, you may say, if it please you, Fleance kill'd,

For Fleance fled.-Men must not walk too late.

Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous

It was for Malcolm, and for Donalbain,
To kill their gracious father? damned fact !
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive,
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well. And I do think

That, had he Duncan's sons under his key

(As, an't please heav'n, he shall not), they should find

What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.

But, peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd
His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,

Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell

Where he bestows himself?

The answer tells us the state of the rightful cause, of which Macduff is become the leader:

The son of Duncan,

From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court; and is receiv'd
Of the most pious Edward with such grace,
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
Is gone to pray the holy king, on his aid
To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward;
That, by the help of these (with Him above
To ratify the work), we may again

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives;
Do faithful homage, and receive free honours;

All which we pine for now.

And this report

Hath so exasperate the king, that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.

Lenox. Sent he to Macduff?

Lord. He did: and with an absolute Sir, not I,
The cloudy messenger turns me his back,

And hums; as who should say, You'll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.

Len.
And that well might
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England, and unfold
His message ere he come; that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accurs'd!

Lord.

My prayers with him!

This passage, at present wholly omitted on the stage, is clearly necessary in order to make us understand the full import of Macbeth's cruel revenge upon Macduff's family. But we find a much more important omission-the most injurious of all-in the entire suppression of the character of Lady Macduff, and of the scenes in Macduff's castle, until his lady runs out pursued by the murderers. Here, indeed, is a mutilation quite unaccountable. It mars the whole spirit and moral of the play, to take anything from that depth and liveliness of interest which the dramatist has attached to the characters and fortunes of Macduff and his lady. They are the chief representatives in the piece, of the interests of loyalty and domestic affection, as opposed to those of the foulest treachery and the most selfish and remorseless ambition. After those successive gradations of atrocity, the treacherous murder of the king, the cowardly assassination of his chamberlains, and the flagitious taking-off of Banquo, the wanton, savage, and undisguised slaughter of the defenceless wife and children, brought to the very eyes and ears of the auditor, carries his indignation to that final pitch of intensity which is necessary to make him sympathise to the full in the aspiration of the bereaved husband and father