J.JACI SON

[Inverness.]

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF MACBETH.

THE Tragedie of Macbeth' was first published in the folio collection of 1623. Its place in that edition is between Julius Cæsar and Hamlet. In the entry on the Stationers' register, immediately previous to the publication of the edition of 1623, it is also classed amongst the Tragedies. And yet, in every modern reprint of the text of Shakspere, Macbeth is placed the first amongst the Histories. This is to convey a wrong notion of the character of this great drama. Shakspere's Chronicle-histories are essentially conducted upon a different principle. The interest of Macbeth is not an historical interest. It matters not whether the action is true, or has been related as true: it belongs to the realms of poetry altogether. We might as well call Lear or Hamlet historical plays, because the outlines of the story of each are to be found in old records of the past. The editors of the first folio, therefore, had a truer conception of the principle upon which Macbeth was written than those who have succeeded them. In other respects, also, they have better understood their author: they lived in an age when the principles of metrical harmony were appreciated in a higher spirit than they were a century afterwards, and they printed the poet's lines, therefore, for the most part as he wrote them. Upon this subject we have expressed ourselves so fully in the notes on particular passages, that we have only here to say that our text is, with very few exceptions, a restoration of the text of the original folio.

Malone and Chalmers agree in assigning this tragedy to the year 1606. Their proofs, as we apprehend, are entirely frivolous and unsatisfactory. The Porter says, "Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty:" the year 1606 was a year of plenty, and therefore Macbeth was written in 1606. Again, the same character says, "Here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales, against either scale." This passage Malone most solemnly tells us, "without doubt, had a direct reference to the doctrine of equivocation avowed and maintained by Henry Garnet, superior of the order of the Jesuits in England, on his trial for the Gunpowder Treason, on

the 28th of March, 1606, and to his detestable perjury." There is more of this sort of reasoning, in the examination of which it appears to us quite unnecessary to occupy the time of our readers. We have two facts as to the chronology of this play which are indisputable :—the first is, that it must have been written after the crowns of England and Scotland were united in one monarch, who was a descendant of Banquo:

"Some I see

That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry."

The second is, that Dr. Forman has most minutely described the representation of this tragedy in the year 1610. The following extract from his 'Book of Plays, and Notes thereof, for common Policy,' is copied by Mr. Collier from the manuscript in the Bodleian Library :—

"In Macbeth, at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday, there was to be observed, first, how Macbeth and Banquo, two noblemen of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood before them three women, fairies, or nymphs, and saluted Macbeth, saying three times unto him, Hail, Macbeth, King of Coudor, for thou shalt be a king, but shalt beget no kings, &c. Then, said Banquo, What, all to Macbeth and nothing to me? Yes, said the nymphs, Hail to thee, Banquo; thou shalt beget kings, yet be no king. And so they departed, and came to the court of Scotland, to Duncan King of Scots, and it was in the days of Edward the Confessor. And Duncan bade them both kindly welcome, and made Macbeth forthwith Prince of Northumberland; and sent him home to his own castle, and appointed Macbeth to provide for him, for he would sup with him the next day at night, and did so.

“And Macbeth contrived to kill Duncan, and through the persuasion of his wife did that night murder the king in his own castle, being his guest. And there were many prodigies seen that night and the day before. And when Macbeth had murdered the king, the blood on his hands could not be washed off by any means, nor from his wife's hands, which handled the bloody daggers in hiding them, by which means they became both much amazed and affronted.

"The murder being known, Duncan's two sons fled, the one to England, the other to Wales, to save themselves: they, being fled, were supposed guilty of the murder of their father, which was nothing so.

"Then was Macbeth crowned king, and then he, for fear of Banquo, his old companion, that he should beget kings but be no king himself, he contrived the death of Banquo, and caused him to be murdered on the way that he rode. The night, being at supper with his noblemen, whom he had bid to a feast (to the which also Banquo should have come), he began to speak of noble Banquo, and to wish that he were there. And as he thus did, standing up to drink a carouse to him, the ghost of Banquo came and sat down in his chair behind him. And he, turning about to sit down again, saw the ghost of Banquo, which fronted him, so that he fell in a great passion of fear and fury, uttering many words about his murder, by which, when they heard that Banquo was murdered, they suspected Macbeth.

"Then Macduff fled to England to the king's son, and so they raised an army and came into Scotland, and at Dunston Anyse overthrew Macbeth. In the mean time, while Macduff was in England, Macbeth slew Macduff's wife and children, and after, in the battle, Macduff slew Macbeth.

"Observe, also, how Macbeth's queen did rise in the night in her sleep and walk, and talked and confessed all, and the doctor noted her words."

Here, then, the date of this tragedy must be fixed after the accession of James I. in 1603, and before the representation at which Forman was present in 1610. Mr. Collier is inclined to believe that the play was a new one when Forman saw it acted. Be that as it may, we can have no doubt that it belonged to the last ten years of Shakspere's life; and was probably not far separated from the Roman plays.

SUPPOSED SOURCES OF THE PLOT.

THAT Shakspere found sufficient materials for this great drama in Holinshed's History of Scotland' is a fact that renders it quite unnecssary for us to enter into any discussion as to the truth of this portion of the history, or to point out the authorities upon which the narrative of Holinshed was founded. Better authorities than Holinshed had access to have shown that the contest for the crown of Scotland between Duncan and Macbeth was a contest of factions, and that Macbeth was raised to the throne by his Norwegian allies after a battle in which Duncan fell: in the same way after a long rule was he vanquished and killed by the son of Duncan, supported by his English allies. But, with the differences between the real and apocryphal history, it is manifest that we can here have no concern. In the Illustrations of the several acts we have reprinted the passages in Holinshed with which Shakspere was manifestly familiar. His deviations from the chronicler will be readily traced. There is another story, however, told also in the same narrative, which

*See Skene's Highlanders of Scotland,' vol. i., p. 116.

Shakspere with consummate skill has blended with the story of Macbeth. It is that of the murder of King Duff by Donwald and his wife in Donwald's castle of Forres :-—

"The king got him into his privy chamber, only with two of his chamberlains, who, having brought him to bed, came forth again, and then fell to banqueting with Donwald and his wife, who had prepared divers delicate dishes and sundry sorts of drinks for their rear-supper or collation, whereat they sat up so long, till they had charged their stomachs with such full gorges, that their heads were no sooner got to the pillow but asleep they were so fast that a man might have removed the chamber over them sooner than to have awaked them out of their drunken sleep.

"Then Donwald, though he abhorred the act greatly in heart, yet through instigation of his wife he called four of his servants unto him (whom he had made privy to his wicked intent before, and framed to his purpose with large gifts), and now declaring unto them after what sort they should work the feat, they gladly obeyed his instructions, and, speedily going about the murder, they enter the chamber (in which the king lay) a little before cock's crow, where they secretly cut his throat as he lay sleeping, without any bustling at all: and immediately by a postern gate they carried forth the dead body

into the fields.

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Donwald, about the time that the murder was in doing, got him amongst them that kept the watch, and so continued in company with them all the residue of the night. But in the morning, when the noise was raised in the king's chamber how the king was slain, his body conveyed away, and the bed all beraid with blood, he with the watch ran thither, as though he had known nothing of the matter, and breaking into the chamber, and finding cakes of blood in the bed and on the floor about the sides of it, he forthwith slew the chamberlains as guilty of that heinous murder. For the space of six months together, after this heinous murder thus committed, there appeared no sun by day, nor moon by night, in any part of the realm, but still was the sky covered with continual clouds, and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with lightnings and tempests, that the people were in great fear of present destruction."

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It was originally the opinion of Steevens and Malone that a play by Thomas Middleton, entitled "The Witch,' had preceded Macbeth, and that Shakspere was consequently indebted to Middleton for the general idea of the witch incantations. Malone subsequently changed his opinion; for in a posthumous edition of his 'Essay on the Chronological Order,' he has maintained that The Witch' was a later production than Macbeth. We shall refer to this question in our Supplementary Notice.

For the Local Illustrations affixed to each Act we have the gratification of acknowledging our obligation to Miss Martineau, who in 1838 visited all the localities to which this tragedy refers. Mr. Creswick's sketches, which also adorn our pages, were made on the several spots in 1839.

COSTUME.

THE rudely sculptured monuments and crosses which time has spared upon the hills and heaths of Scotland, however interesting to the antiquary in other respects, afford but very slender and uncertain information respecting the dress and arms of the Scotch Highlanders in the 11th century; and, attempt how we will to decide from written documents, a hundred pens will instantly be flourished against us. Our own opinion, however, formed long ago, has within these few years been confirmed by that of a most intelligent modern historian,* who says "it would be too much perhaps to affirm that the dress, as at present worn, in all its minute details, is ancient; but it is very certain that it is compounded of three varieties in the form of dress which were separately worn by the Highlanders in the seventeenth century, and that each of these may be traced back to the remotest antiquity." These are:-1st, The belted plaid; 2nd, The short coat or jacket; 3rd, The truis. With each of these, or, at any rate, with the two first, was worn, from the earliest periods to the seventeenth century, the long-sleeved, saffron-stained shirt, of Irish origin, called the Leni-croich.† Piscottie, in 1573, says, they (the Scotch Highlanders) be cloathed with ane mantle, with ane schirt, saffroned after the Irish manner, going bare-legged to the knee." And Nicolay d'Arfeville, cosmographer to the King of France, who published at Paris, in 1583, a volume entitled 'La Navigation du Roy d'Escosse Jacques, cinquiesme du nom, autour de son Royaume et Isles Hebrides

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The Highlanders of Scotland,' by W. F. Skene, F.S.A. Scot. 2 vols 12mo., London, Murray, 1837.-Mr. Skene in this excellent work has also thrown great light upon the real history of Macbeth, from a careful investigation and comparison of the Irish annals and the Norse Sagas.

+ "From the Irish words leni, shirt, and eroich, saffron."—Martin's Western Isles of Scotland.