MACBETH.
It is the opinion of Fleay that "'Macbeth,' in its present state, is an altered copy of the original drama, and the alterations were made by Middleton." Thomas Middleton wrote twenty-three plays. Among them was "The Witch," written, perhaps, in 1613, and published in 1617. Shakspeare's "Macbeth" was first played in 1606. It appears in the Folio of 1623 for the first time in print, as a more finished acting copy than the other plays. The divisions of acts and scenes and the stage directions are carefully marked. The death of Shakspeare occurred in 1616. It is possible that Middleton was the person who prepared the Folio copy of "Macbeth." Scarce a trace, however, of his own style can be suspected; for there is only occasionally a verbal similarity of the charms and incantations employed in "Macbeth" and "The Witch" of later date. In Act iii. 5, the burden of the song, "Come away, come away," and, in Act iv. 1, the song, "Black spirits," &c., are to be found in "The Witch:" the latter is merely indicated as a stage direction in "Macbeth." In Act i. 1, we are reminded of Middleton in "I come, Graymalkin!"[19] and "Paddock calls." He may have shoved his "Malkin" into that first chant of the witches, and spoiled its metre. But although the introduction of Hecate, in Act iii. 5, is said to be not Shakspearean enough in relevancy to the play, it is altogether too Shakspearean in style for Middleton, who never could have written,—
"Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vaporous drop profound;
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distill'd by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion."
And we must notice that Hecate thus introduces and accounts for the "artificial sprites,"—the apparitions which deceive Macbeth in Act iv. 1, and entice him to "be bloody, bold, and resolute." This scene is certainly Shakspeare's. It is therefore probable that he would have preceded it by some inkling of the deceptive nature of the armed head, the bloody child, and the child crowned.
On the ground of an apparently un-Shakspearean style of metre in Act i. 2, which introduces the wounded sergeant, several commentators credit that scene also to Middleton. It is said to be too slovenly and bombastic for Shakspeare.
It is unsafe to limit the critical treatment of Shakspeare's verse to metrical or verbal tests. Æsthetic emergencies will sometimes overrule the decisions of the sharpest critics who construct Shakspeare out of reputed peculiarities of his style. He escapes from them to be raggeder than we think is personal to him, broader than our taste can tolerate, more thin or more fulsome than his grandest tone, whenever occasion summons traits which fit into a deeper consistency than that of style. Then, if the critic of metrical and verbal niceties is not also a human observer, or is too much preoccupied with his theory of the Shakspearean method, he will be apt to disparage some prescriptions of Nature.
It is also a very common procedure to illustrate the excellences of Shakspeare by comparing them with the inferior work of the contemporary dramatists. Either Shakspeare at his best ought to be matched with the other playwrights at their best, or else we ought to concede that his occasional weaknesses, which are like theirs, are not theirs, but his own. It is absurd to keep Shakspeare posturing incessantly in the finest attitude of the several periods of his style. During the Elizabethan age, England's soil stood thick with true poets whose fragrance often makes us suspect that Shakspeare is near. It is dangerous to be too positive upon the matter of sentiment as well as style. Take for an instance this:—
"I am so light
At any mischief, there's no villainy
But is a tune methinks."
That lightness of heart is Middleton's. It is stray pollen from the garden of Shakspeare. But nothing is fructified: there is no tune in the villainous stuff which precedes and follows.