John Philip Kemble

“ Banquo is impatient to be the father of a king; and there reigns in his very nature a royalty that seems to realize his expectations: He is not only a soldier of undaunted enterprise, but so consummate a politician, that, should he conspire against me, he will infallibly carry his designs successfully into execution. There lives no other man, whose attempts I fear; but his good genius holds as high an ascendant over mine, as, it is said, Cæsar's did over that of Mark Antony. ”

“ That Shakspeare has not put into any mouth the slightest insinuation against the personal courage of Macbeth, is in itself a decisive proof, that he never meant his nature should be liable to so base a reproach. His deadliest enemies, they who have suffered most from his oppression and cruelty, in the deepest expressions of their detestation of his person and triumph over his fallen condition, are never allowed by the poet to utter a syllable in derogation from his known character of intrepidity. ”

“ Macbeth and Richard are, both, as intrepid as man can be; yet it may be said of each, without any diminution of that praise, that he is sometimes terror-struck at the recollection of his crimes. The characters that Shakspeare draws, are human creatures; and however their peculiarities may individuate them, yet they are always connected with the general nature of man by some fine link of universal interest, and by some passion to which they are liable in common with their kind. ”

“ Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
Serg. Yes;
As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion. [12]
He is equal partner with the son of Sinel in command; yet Rosse and Angus bear him no greeting from a master overflowing in the plenty of his joys; they are commissioned with the royal thanks and favours to Glamis only. When the victorious Captains are heralded into the monarch's presence, the gracious Duncan bursts into an enthusiastic encomium of the deserts of Cawdor, while he welcomes Banquo, not with actual accumulation of dignifying rewards, but in a brief phrase of courtly compliment ”

“ And, indeed, were not the horror excited by Macbeth's crimes, qualified by the delight we receive from our esteem for his personal courage, the representation of this tragedy would be insupportable.
Macbeth, unable to bear the reproach of cowardice from a woman,—a woman too who holds the complete sway of his affections and his reason,—in one sentence vindicates to himself the dignity of true courage, and unfolds the whole nature of the character we are to expect in him:—
I dare do all that may become a man ”

“ Richard's crimes are the suggestions of his own disposition, originally bad, and at last confirmed in evil; he knows no "compunctious visitings of nature;" alive only to the exigencies of his situation, he is always at full leisure to display his valour. Macbeth is driven into guilt by the instigations of others; his early principles of virtue are not extinct in him; distracted by remorse, he forgets the approach of danger in the contemplation of his crimes ”

“ Whateley speaks of the quality of their courage, and says:—
"In Richard it is intrepidity, and in Macbeth no more than resolution: in him (Macbeth) it proceeds from exertion, not from nature; in enterprise he betrays a degree of fear, though he is able, when occasion requires, to stifle and subdue it." ”

“ My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree,
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;
All several sins, all us'd in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all,—Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair.—There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me. ”

“ Is then this desire to secure his crown against Banquo's issue, alleged as a proof that Banquo falls a sacrifice to Macbeth's personal fear, and not to his jealous ambition? It proves exactly the contrary. Fleance, we are to believe, is Banquo's sole heir. Let us suppose Fleance dead, and Banquo consequently left childless. Where is the tyrant's security? Banquo's expectations are not necessarily buried in this infant's grave: Actual does not include possible progeny; the loss of one son does not forbid the being blessed with others. ”

“ No; it is the impulse of a dauntless temper, that hurries the bridegroom of Bellona through the dismal conflict, again to confront the enemy, and hold him point to point, till his resistless arm has curbed the over-confident presumption of, the royal invader of his country, and raised, on his discomfiture, the trophies of a second, and more brilliant, triumph.
The imagination being now fully prepared to receive him, Macbeth presents himself on the scene. A deputation from his sovereign meets him, with these gracious acknowledgements of his important services:—
Rosse. ”

“ Steevens, for some cause or other, seems determined to be blind on this side; otherwise, he must have seen, if consciousness of guilt be, as he says, the measure of pusillanimity, that, by his own rule, JachimO should have been the victor in his combat with Posthumus; for he ought to have been braver than his adversary,—in the same proportion, as a vain mischievous liar is still less atrociously a wretch than an ungrateful murderer. Mr. Steevens concludes:—"Who then can suppose that Shakspeare would have exhibited his Macbeth with increasing guilt, but undiminished bravery?" ”

“ Because Macbeth is not more pusillanimous than Richard, it will not, it may be said, conclusively follow, that he is a brave man: This is true: But this could not be objected by Mr. Whateley and Mr. Steevens, who make Richard, in all his actions, their uniform standard of inborn, perfect, never-wavering Intrepidity. ”

“ The appeal for judgement on the quality of the courage of Macbeth, does not depend, as questions of criticism often necessarily must, on conjecture and inference; it addresses itself directly to the plain meaning of every passage where Shakspeare touches on this subject. The shortness of the time allotted for the performance of a play, usually makes it impracticable to allow the principal personages space sufficient for their unfolding themselves gradually before the spectator ”

“ Steevens says,—"The truly brave are never disgraced by unnecessary deeds of cruelty. The victims of Richard, therefore, are merely such as obstructed his progress to the crown, or betrayed the confidence he had reposed in their assurances of fidelity. Macbeth cuts off a whole defenceless family, though the father of it was the only reasonable object of his fear."
Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 299. Mr. Steevens is so indulgent to Richard, as totally to overlook the unnecessary cruelty with which he condemns a son to death, only be- cause the father refuses compliance with his orders:—
K. Rich. ”

“ In every fine art there is an excellence that soars above the control of its ordinary laws. When the soul is captivated by beauties irreconcileable to the strict discipline of precept, Sensibility properly assumes the arbitration between method and genius; and its decisions justify us in concluding that our admiration is rationally fixed. Truth of character and passion, the real touchstone and test of dramatic worth, is the unrivalled attribute of Shakspeare's muse ”

“ The dauntless determination of each of the tyrants, in the battle that avenged his subjects on the horrors of his reign, is the result of that agonizing emotion of grief, shame, and pride, which, if it be despair, is, at least, the despair of an innate and unextinguishable courage. ”

“ Macbeth would have been fool as well as villain, his work would have been still to do, had he not comprehended son and father, both, in his bloody purpose. Thus, the securing of the crown against Banquo's issue, is so far from being a secondary, that it is, indeed, the only instigation to this double murder. Banqio might have lived the lease of nature, if the Sisters had never revealed the scheme of his nativity. ”

“ Unmoved by Macduff's taunts and determined assault, Macbeth counsels him to employ his valour where success may attend on it; and generously warns him not to persist in urging an unequal contest with a foe, whom Destiny has pronounced invincible. Here is demonstration that, in the scene with the Witches, Macbeth does not from personal fear revert to his former resolution against the life of Macduff. ”

“ Here again it is proved, if words bear any intelligible meaning, that Fleance acts a principal, not a secondary, part in Macbeth's consideration.
To reign,—not precariously, and in the daily hazard of the worst that treason can do; to reign, secure from all the efforts of domestic malice and foreign invasion; thus to enjoy his ill-acquired sovereignty, is the aim of the usurper's crimes ”

“ If, by the truly brave mentioned above, we could understand the ingetoious commentator to mean the virtuously brave, his maxim would be undeniable: but if by the truly brave, he means the constitutionally brave,—as, by instancing the example of King Richard, he evidently does,—then it is false; for, unhappily, the truly brave, in this sense, have stained the records of all ages with deeds of unnecessary cruelty.
"Had Richard," says the Dissertation, "once been"— (like Macbeth,) —"a feeling and conscientious character, when his end drew nigh he might also have betrayed evidences of timidity ”

“ In a word, Macbeth does not determine on the death of Banquo, Fleance, and Macduff, from personal fear: he conceives the perpetration of these crimes, evidently because his ambition renders the father and son objects of his envy, and the disobedient Thane, of his hatred.
We come now to consider Macbeth and King Richard the Third, as they are immediately opposed to each other in the Remarks; and are to answer the arguments employed to prove, that Richard is superior to Macbeth in personal courage. Equal, not to say superior, firmness under equal trials, will refute some of them ”

“ Steevens could be, really, so illiterate as not to know, that the Grecian and Roman poets call Bellona, indifferently, sometimes the wife of Mars, sometimes his mother, at others his sister, and even his nurse? The inconsistencies of the Theogony are endless. Shakspeare, probably, took Bellona, as the moderns usually do, for the sister of Mars:—
Lastly, and most to the point;—Mars is not alluded to in this passage at all: The Bridegroom here figuratively wedded to Bellona— (however ill this truth may accord with Mr. Steevens's purpose,) —can be no other person, but Macbeth. ”

“ There is scarcely a speech Macbeth delivers, that may not be brought within the scope of this critic's argument, if refinements of so fanciful a kind are to be admitted as proofs of timidity, Mr. Whateley ought to have known that this attention to Banquo, so far from being the sudden and irresistible impulse of his timidity in guilt, is all studied, and prepared beforehand: Shakspeare expressly bids us look for it, when, immediately before the supper, Macbeth thus addresses the Queen, whom he keeps in ignorance of the intended murder;—
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo ”

“ Macbeth, if he could cut his way through Malcolm's army, would flee from a beleaguered and untenable castle,— (as Shakspeare knew he did, [144] ) —to make a stand, where he might face his enemies, and fight for his crown on fairer terms of battle.
Let it be granted, however, that to turn his back on danger, misbecomes a brave man under any circumstances:—What excuse then will Mr. Steevens find for Richard, who twice consults his safety by flight? Once, when he deserts that great man, the Duke, his father, in the battle of Wakefield, where he fell ”

“ Was retreat ever thought disgraceful, when the superior numbers and resistless good fortune of the foe made all further struggle useless? Does not history, ancient and modern, abound with examples of famous warriors who have magnanimously endured defeat, and reserved themselves to the hour of future victory? ”

“ The remainder of the scene evinces, beyond the possibility of cavil, that this distribution of the speeches is not adopted for the purpose of showing Banquo's superiority, in being perfectly calm [28] under an occurrence that had disturbed Macbeth; for, if Macbeth— (and very naturally,) —is amazed when he sees the Witches are vanished [29] , and likens them, in their disappearance, to the melting of breath into the element; still, Banquo—this carelessly-curious Banquo!—is not less moved. The utterance of his wonder at their strange evanescence, is dictated by a most striking thought ”

“ In reading dramatic poetry, we are apt to resign ourselves to the emotion which the general idea of the passion of the speaker excites, without pausing scrupulously to weigh each word of the phrase in which his sentiment is expressed. ”

“ Though the observance or neglect of the much-debated unities in the concoction of a play, as Dryden expresses himself, may excite the praise or censure of the learned and curious; yet it must be allowed, that the Grecian or modern arrangement of acts and scenes is but a conventional merit or defect, that can contribute nothing either to the amendment or depravation of the mind. ”

“ In answer to his fair correspondent's objections to the tragedy of Douglas, Mr. Hume says:—"The value of a theatrical piece can less be determined by an analysis of its conduct, than by the ascendant which it gains over the heart, and by the strokes of nature which are interspersed through it."—This is all that the most devoted admirers of Shakspeare contend for. ”

“ That Macbeth's superstition proceeds from credulity, [118] is a truth not likely to be disputed: but, superstition is a weakness by no means incompatible with personal courage: if it were, Mr. Whateley and Mr. Steevens would not be able a moment longer to sustain their own character of Richard; for its influence operates as powerfully in him, as in Macbeth: Macbeth's superstition rests on the assurances of supernatural agents, whose first promises to him had already been made good ”