Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849

Ay, Seward – reserved and close as he is – he wants nerve —pluck– he is close upon the coward – and that would be well, were there the slightest tendency towards change of purpose in the Pale Face; but there is none – he is as cruel as ever – the more close the more cruel – the more irresolute the more murderous – for to murder he is sure to come. Seward, you said well – why does not the poor devil speak up – speak out? Is he afraid of the spiders?

TALBOYS.

Murderous-looking villain – no need of words.

NORTH.

I did not say, sir, there was any need of words. Why, will you always be contradicting one?

TALBOYS.

Me? I? I hope I shall never live to see the day on which I contradict Christopher North in his own Tent. At least – rudely.

NORTH.

Do it rudely – not as you did now – and often do – as if you were agreeing with me – but you are incurable. I say, my dear Talboys, that Macbeth so bold in a "twa-haun'd crack" with himself in a Soliloquy – so figurative – and so fond of swearing by the Stars and old Mother Night, who were not aware of his existence – should not have been thus tongue-tied to his own wife in their own secretest chamber – should have unlocked and flung open the door of his heart to her – like a Man. I blush for him – I do. So did his wife.

BULLER.

I don't find that in the record.

NORTH.

Don't you? "Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters." She sees in his face self-alarm at his own murderous intentions. And so she counsels him about his face – like a self-collected, trustworthy woman. "To beguile the time, look like the time;" with further good stern advice. But – "We shall speak farther," is all she can get from him in answer to conjugal assurances that should have given him a palpitation at the heart, and set his eyes on fire —

"He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my despatch;
Which shall, to all our nights and days to come,
Give solely sovereign sway and Masterdom."

There spoke one worthy to be a Queen!

SEWARD.

Worthy!

NORTH.

Ay – in that age – in that country. 'Twas not then the custom "to speak daggers but use none." Did Shakspeare mean to dignify, to magnify Macbeth by such demeanour? No – to degrade and minimise the murderer.

TALBOYS.

My dear sir, I cordially agree with every word you utter. Go on – my dear sir – to instruct – to illumine —

SEWARD.

To bring out "sublime flashes of magnanimity, courage, tenderness," in Macbeth —

BULLER.

"Of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind" – the mind of Macbeth in his struggle with the allurements of ambition!

NORTH.

Observe, how this reticence – on the part of Macbeth – contrasted with his wife's eagerness and exultation, makes her, for the moment, seem the wickeder of the two – the fiercer and the more cruel. For the moment only; for we soon ask ourselves what means this un-husbandly reserve in him who had sent her that letter– and then a messenger to tell her the king was coming – and who had sworn to himself as savagely as she now does, not to let slip this opportunity of cutting his king's throat. He is well-pleased to see that his wife is as bloody-minded as himself – that she will not only give all necessary assistance – as an associate – but concert the when, and the where, and the how – and if need be, with her own hand deal the blow.

SEWARD.

She did not then know that Macbeth had made up his mind to murder Duncan that very night. But we know it. She has instantly made up hers – we know how; but being as yet unassured of her husband, she welcomes him home with a Declaration that must have more than answered his fondest hopes; and, therefore, he is almost mute – the few words he does utter seem to indicate no settled purpose – Duncan may fulfil his intention of going in the morning, or he may not; but we know that the silence of the murderer now is because the murderess is manifestly all he could wish – and that, had she shown any reluctance, he would have resumed his eloquence, and, to convert her to his way of thinking, argued as powerfully as he did when converting himself.

BULLER.

You carry on at such a pace, sir, there's no keeping up with you. Pull up, that I may ask you a very simple question. On his arrival at his castle, Macbeth finds his wife reading a letter from her amiable spouse, about the Weird Sisters. Pray, when was that letter written?

NORTH.

At what hour precisely? That I can't say. It must, however, have been written before Macbeth had been presented to the King – for there is no allusion in it to the King's intention to visit their Castle. I believe it to have been written about an hour or so after the prophecy of the Weirds – either in some place of refreshment by the roadside – or in such a Tent as this – kept ready for the General in the King's Camp at Forres. He despatched it by a Gilly – a fast one like your Cornwall Clipper – and then tumbled in.

BULLER.

When did she receive it?

NORTH.

Early next morning.

BULLER.

How could that be, since she is reading it, as her husband steps in, well on, as I take it, in the afternoon?

NORTH.

Buller, you are a blockhead. There had she, for many hours, been sitting, and walking about with it, now rumpled up in her fist – now crunkled up between her breasts – now locked up in a safe – now spread out like a sampler on that tasty little oak table – and sometimes she might have been heard by the servants – had they had the unusual curiosity to listen at the door – murmuring like a stock-dove – anon hooting like an owl – by-and-by barking like an eagle – then bellowing liker a hart than a hind – almost howling like a wolf – and why not? – now singing a snatch of an old Gaelic air, with a clear, wild, sweet voice, like that of "a human!"

"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised."
"Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue,
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which Fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal."

BULLER.

Grand indeed.