LADY MACBETH.
Shakspeare should be read at least once a year. This is to the mind what an excursion in the country is to the body—a strengthening, health-producing process. Each perusal will not be a repetition of the preceding. On the contrary, no two perusals will ever be alike. Read him as a boy, you will be dazzled and delighted: read him year by year after, and you will, with each year, behold beauties, sealed to you before, from your own comparative narrowness of mind and want of experience. Each event of your life will render you fitter to study him. Each new acquaintance you form—each history you read—each science you study—each country you travel into—each step you advance in life—each friend you lose by treachery or death, will prepare you still further. Could you go on adding to your experience much more than has ever (except in Shakspeare’s own case) been added to that of mortal man, each new progress would still enlarge your capacity for appreciating him. All men comprehend him differently. The king reads him as he would listen to the princely counsels of a royal father. The beggar may find in him something applicable to himself, and something likely to make him happier and wiser, which he himself had before never thought of—or of which he had only formed a vague idea. The statesman—the general—the prince royal—the husband—the father—the wife—the lover—the unfortunate—the happy—may all come here, and carry away, from the boundless reservoir, something apparently intended for themselves. He seems to have described or alluded to every thing. He seems to have taken in the whole range of human nature.
Poor old general Montholon, who was with Napoleon at St. Helena—one of the most faithful of the friends who have adhered to the fallen family—is the companion of the Prince Louis Napoleon, in his late invasion of France. Nearly all were very young men. This white-headed old soldier appeared among them strangely. Had they succeeded, it was doubtless their hope to give respectability to their cause by his presence.
The same thing is proposed in Julius Cæsar, by the conspirators, respecting Cicero.
“Cassius. But what of Cicero? shall we send him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.
Casca. Let us not have him out.
Cinna. No, by no means.
Metellus. O, let us have him; for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,