old; the Queen, accordingly, must be set down at about forty-eight. The King, it seems reasonable to think, is younger than his wife, or about her own age. Horatio should be older than Hamlet, and Laertes considerably younger. Polonius, whom Coleridge well denotes as "the personification of wisdom no longer possessed," should be deemed about sixty. Ophelia is "a young maid." The courtiers are, obviously, young men. It is Shakespeare's method, in displaying action long past, to display it as if proceeding in the present, and to surround and embellish it with illustrative accessories, often appertaining to a period long subsequent to its own. There was, for example, no University at Wittenberg in the period of "Hamlet," but there was a University there in the time of Shakespeare. King Claudius, like King John (1199), is furnished with cannon; but, in fact, cannon were not in use till the later period of the battle of Cressy (1346). In short, the civilization, the feelings, and the adjuncts of the tragedy [and this determines the character of the dresses and properties that may be used in representing it] are consonant, not with the period to which it relates, but to the period in which it was written. Mr. Booth, however, has been accustomed to dress this piece in conformity with the usages of an ancient period in the history of Denmark, in order to invest its scenes with something of the character of the age to which its story relates.

W. W.

MACBETH

Preface.

"MACBETH" is remarkable, even among the works of
Shakespeare, for sustained continuity of rapid move-
ment, and for a uniform and abiding quality of high and
weird poetic mood. In general, as may be gathered from
Ben Jonson's famous commemorative lines, its author was a
scrupulous and thorough reviser of his own writings. He
did not scorn to reinforce his spontaneous creative power
with laborious art, and thus he produced his "well-torned
and true-filed lines" by striking "the second heat upon the
Muses' anvil." But, in the writing of "Macbeth," he seems
to have enjoyed supreme mental freedom. He possessed an
hour of insight, and his art was merged in inspiration. The
piece is breezy with power, and is totally free from the heavi-
ness and difficulty of a constrained effort. Even the quality
of the verse is invariable throughout this play. No feeble
passages occur in it. The texture of the fifth act is as firm
as the texture of the first. The rush of dramatic action
enters into and vitalizes almost every part of the mechanism.
A piece thus vigorously and happily created cannot lapse from
movement into narrative. All stage versions of " Macbeth,"
accordingly, present, with but slight curtailment or other altera-
tion, the original of Shakespeare. The version herewith
printed gives the text as it is used by Edwin Booth, and illus-
trates it with the stage business-whether traditional or newly
devised-which he employs. Excisions and changes of the
original will be observed in it; but these-few in number,
though important in character - are thought to be necessary

:

and justifiable. Lady Macbeth, for example, is not brought on amid the tumult of horror and consternation which ensues upon the discovery of the murder of Duncan, for the reason that, while the dramatic point here made is splendid and thrilling, it does not often happen that a representative of Lady Macbeth proves able to give it its proper effect. The slaughter of Banquo is omitted, as a needless exhibition of melodramatic violence. The killing of Lady Macduff-an incident usually discarded - is expunged for the same reason. This, indeed, is a superfluity of horror, much like the actual digging out of Gloster's eyes, in "King Lear." The spectre

✓ of Banquo is treated as the “ bodiless creation" of Macbeth's haunted mind. " When all's done," says the Queen, "you look but on a stool." This phantom, in accordance with the old stage direction, "Enter the Ghost of Banquo and sits in Macbeth's place," was always presented in material form and with gory virage, till John Philip Kemble, acting Macbeth, treated it as indred with the illusion of "the air-drawn dagger," and assumed it to be invisible to all but the King. Amplifying lines have been excluded, at various points in the piece. The colloquy between Malcolm and Macduff in Act Fourth has been shortened, and the dubious and nonessential part of Hecate has been omitted. This part, there is reason to believe, was interpolated into Shakespeare's work, after his death, or after he had withdrawn from the theatre. This is the opinion of the Cambridge editors, Clark and Wright, who also think that the parts assigned to "the weird sisters" were expanded by a second author — not improbably Thomas Middleton. This writer was chronologer to the city of London in 1626, and died a little after that year. A play by him, called "The Witch," much resembling “Macbeth," was discovered, in manuscript, in 1779, and Steevens maintained that this was earlier than Shakespeare's "Macbeth," and that Shakespeare borrowed from it the incantations in his tragedy. The editors of the "Biographia Dramatica" follow this view; but the weight of opinion is opposed to it. Shakespeare, it is thought, left theatrical life about 1604; and he died in 1616. "Macbeth," which was never published during his life-time, might readily have been altered