Let us for the moment imagine Mrs. Siddons to have been the veritable Lady Macbeth, and acknowledge that never was man more powerfully tempted into evil, nor more deeply punished with his fall from Virtue, than this, the Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor. My concernment in this Essay is neither with his virtue, nor his fall. I neither come to praise, nor bury Cæsar:
‘Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.’
In the reading I desire should be here given to the language of the immortal bard, it will be perceived that the last pronoun is made emphatic. ‘Get thee to bed.’
The household of the castle of Macbeth, excited and disturbed as its members had been throughout the day by the unexpected arrival of the King of Scotland at Inverness, are now subsiding into rest. The King has retired. His suite are provided for in various parts of the quadrangle; and all the tumultuary sounds of preparation and of festive enjoyment have followed the departed day; and Banquo charged with a princely gift to the Lady Macbeth under the title of most kind hostess, from her confiding and now slumbering monarch, has paid his compliments and gone.
Now comes the deeper stillness, and the witching hour of that eventful night; and the noble Thane, having gone the rounds of his hushed castle to place all entrances under both watch and ward, turns to his torch-bearer, the last remaining household servant of the train, and dismisses him with the message I have read. The words excite no surprise in the mind of the attendant. He receives the command and departs upon his errand; to deliver it as had doubtless been his office before, and then retire for the night:
‘Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell.’
Admired Editor, I have now that to say in thine ear that may possibly startle thy preceptions, shock thy wishes, and for the moment interfere with thy store of tragick recollection. I would have thee imagine with me, that Macbeth, stifling all murderous intent, and all disloyal thought, had honestly gone down at the sound of the bell, and, as must have been his wont as is shewn from the manner in which his attendant receives the charge, had soberly partaken of the warm and grateful drink his noble partner had prepared for his refreshing and composing use.
Imagine the illustrious and majestick pair, their household having entirely withdrawn, seated in the deep silence of the night, on either side of a small table as was their happy wont, and gently, calmly, dispassionately, and elegantly sipping that prepared beverage; that ‘drink made ready’ by hands then yet innocent and spotless. Imagine the ingredients of which that dilution must have been composed! Not wine for wine is always ‘ready.’ O call it not by any other W! Let it not be named Glenlivet; think not upon Ferintosh. It was PURE REALITY IN THE LUSTRE OF A MILD GLORIFICATION, mingled with droppings of the dew of morning.