Chapter 27

[92] When at Naples, I have often stood upon the rock at the extreme point of Posilippo, and looked down upon the little Island of Nisida, and thought of this scene till I forgot the Lazaretta which now deforms it: deforms it, however, to the fancy only, for the building itself, as it rises from amid the vines, the cypresses and fig-trees which embosom it, looks beautiful at a distance.

[93] "The contention of the two Houses of York and Lancaster," in two parts, supposed by Malone to have been written about 1590.

[94] I abstain from making any remarks on the character of Joan of Arc, as delineated in the First part of Henry VI.; first, because I do not in my conscience attribute it to Shakspeare, and secondly, because in representing her according to the vulgar English traditions, as half sorceress, half enthusiast, and in the end, corrupted by pleasure and ambition, the truth of history, and the truth of nature, justice, and common sense, are equally violated. Schiller has treated the character nobly: but in making Joan the slave of passion, and the victim of love, instead of the victim of patriotism, has committed, I think, a serious error in judgment and feeling; and I cannot sympathize with Madame de Stael's defence of him on this particular point. There was no occasion for this deviation from the truth of things, and from the dignity and spotless purity of the character. This young enthusiast, with her religious reveries, her simplicity, her heroism, her melancholy, her sensibility, her fortitude, her perfectly feminine bearing in all her exploits, (for though she so often led the van of battle unshrinking, while death was all around her, she never struck a blow, nor stained her consecrated sword with blood,--another point in which Schiller has wronged her,) this heroine and martyr, over whose last moments we shed burning tears of pity and indignation, remains yet to be treated as a Dramatic character, and I know but one person capable of doing this.

[95] See Henry VI. Part III. Act. iii. sc. 3--

QUEEN MARGARET.

Warwick, these words have turned my hate to love,-- And I forgive and quite forget old faults, And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.

[96] Horace Walpole observes, that "it is evident from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancasterian prejudices even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them."

[97] See her letters in Ellis's Collection.

[98] Under similar circumstances, one of Katherine's predecessors, Philippe of Hainault, had gained in her husband's absence the battle of Neville Cross, in which David Bruce was taken prisoner.

[99] Ellis's Collection. We must keep in mind that Katherine was a foreigner, and till after she was seventeen, never spoke or wrote a word of English.

[100] Hall's Chronicle

[101] Hall's Chronicle, p. 781.

[102] The court at Blackfriars sat on the 28th of May, 1529. "The queen being called, accompanied by the four bishops and others of her counsel, and a great company of ladies and gentlewomen following her; and after her obeisance, sadly and with great gravity, she appealed from them to the court of Rome."--_See Hall and Cavendish's Life of Wolsey._

The account which Hume gives of this scene is very elegant; but after the affecting _naivete_ of the old chroniclers, it is very cold and unsatisfactory.

[103] "The queen answered the Duke of Suffolk very highly and obstinately, with many high words: and suddenly, in a fury she departed from him into her privy chamber."--_Vide Hall's Chronicle_.

[104] _Vide_ Cavendish's Life of Wolsey.

[105] Winter's Tale, act iii. scene 2.

[106] I have constantly abstained from considering any of these characters with a reference to the theatre; yet I cannot help remarking, that if Mrs. Siddons, who excelled equally in Hermione and Katherine, and threw such majesty of demeanor, such power, such picturesque effect, into both, could likewise feel and convey the infinite contrast between the ideal grace, the classical repose and imaginative charm thrown round Hermione, and the matter-of-fact, artless, prosaic nature of Katherine; between the poetical grandeur of the former, and the moral dignity of the latter,--then she certainly exceeded all that I could have imagined possible, even to _her_ wonderful powers.

[107] This affecting passage is thus rendered by Shakspeare:--

Nay, forsooth, my friends, They that must weigh out my afflictions-- They that my trust must grow to, live not here-- They are, as all my other comforts, far hence, In mine own country, lords.

_Henry VIII._ _act_ iii. _sc._ 1

[108] Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that this scene "is above any other part of Shakspeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and pathetic; without gods, or furies, or poisons, or precipices; without the help of romantic circumstances; without improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and without any throes of tumultuous misery."

I have already observed, that in judging of Shakspeare's characters as of persons we meet in real life, we are swayed unconsciously by our own habits and feelings, and our preference governed, more or less, by our individual prejudices or sympathies. Thus, Dr. Johnson, who has not a word to bestow on Imogen, and who has treated poor Juliet as if she had been in truth "the very beadle to an amorous sigh," does full justice to the character of Katherine, because the logical turn of his mind, his vigorous intellect, and his austere integrity, enabled him to appreciate its peculiar beauties: and, accordingly, we find that he gives it, not only unqualified, but almost exclusive admiration: he goes so far as to assert, that in this play the genius of Shakspeare comes in and goes out with Katherine.

[109] It will be remembered, that in early youth Anna Bullen was betrothed to Lord Henry Percy, who was passionately in love with her. Wolsey, to serve the king's purposes, broke off this match, and forced Percy into an unwilling marriage with Lady Mary Talbot. "The stout Earl of Northumberland," who arrested Wolsey at York, was this very Percy; he was chosen for his mission by the interference of Anna Bullen--a piece of vengeance truly feminine in its mixture of sentiment and spitefulness; and every way characteristic of the individual woman.

[110] The king is said to have wept on reading this letter, and her body being interred at Peterbro', in the monastery, for honor of her memory it was preserved at the dissolution, and erected into a bishop's see.--_Herbert's Life of Henry VIII._

[111] Written, (as the commentators suppose,) not by Shakspeare, but by Ben Jonson.

[112] Mrs. Siddons left among her papers an analysis of the character of Lady Macbeth, which I have never seen: but I have heard her say, that after playing the part for thirty years, she never read it without discovering in it something new. She had an idea that Lady Macbeth must from her Celtic origin have been a small, fair, blue-eyed woman. Bonduca, Fredegonde, Brunehault, and other Amazons of the gothic ages were of this complexion; yet I cannot help fancying Lady Macbeth dark, like Black Agnes of Douglas--a sort of Lady Macbeth in her way.

[113] In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Siddons adopted successively three different intonations in giving the words _we fail_. At first a quick contemptuous interrogation--"_we fail?_" Afterwards with the note of admiration--_we fail!_ and an accent of indignant astonishment, laying the principal emphasis on the word _we_--_we_ fail! Lastly, she fixed on what I am convinced is the true reading--we fail. with the simple period, modulating her voice to a deep, low, resolute tone, which settled the issue at once--as though she had said, "if we fail, why then we fail, and all is over." This is consistent with the dark fatalism of the character and the sense of the line following, and the effect was sublime, almost awful.

[114] _Metaphysical_ is here used in the sense of spiritual or preternatural.

[115] Mrs. Siddons, I believe, had an idea that Lady Macbeth beheld the spectre of Banquo in the supper scene, and that her self-control and presence of mind enabled her to surmount her consciousness of the ghastly presence. This would be superhuman, and I do not see that either the character or the text bear out this supposition.

[116] Cumberland.

[117] Professor Richardson.

[118] Foster's Essays.

[119] See Dr. Channing's remarks on Satan, in his essay "On the Character and Writings of Milton."--_Works_, p 181.

[120] The vision of Clytemnestra the night before she is murdered, in which she dreams that she has given birth to a dragon, and that, in laying it to her bosom, it draws blood instead of milk, has been greatly admired; but I suppose that those who most admire it would not place it in comparison with Lady Macbeth's sleeping scene. Lady Ashton, in the Bride of Lammermoor, is a domestic Lady Macbeth; but the development being in the narrative, not the dramatic form, it follows hence that we have a masterly portrait, not a complete individual: and the relief of poetry and sympathy being wanting, the detestation she inspires is so unmixed as to be almost intolerable: consequently the character, considered in relation to the other personages of the story, is perfect; but abstractedly, it is imperfect; a basso relievo--not a statue.

[121] Attributed to Seneca.

[122] A comparison has already been made in an article in the "Reflector." It will be seen on a reference to that very masterly Essay, that I differ from the author in his conception of Lady Macbeth's character.

[123] Appollonius Rhodius.--_Vide_ Elton's Specimens of the Classic Poets.

THE END.

Books by Mrs. Anna Jameson

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN: MORAL, POETICAL, AND HISTORICAL.

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