spere is familiar. It is especially interesting as a literary question, from the circumstance that if we can trace Shakspere's accurate observation of the things which were around him, in recent events, in scenery, and in the manners of the people, during a brief visit to a country so essentially different in its physical features from his own-of which the people presented so many characteristics which he could not find in England-we may add one more to the proofs which we have all along sought to establish, that Shakspere was the most careful of observers, and the most diligent of workers; that his poetical power had a deep foundation of accuracy; that his judgment was as remarkable as his imagination. Inclining, therefore, to the belief that Shakspere did visit Scotland in 1601,-having the precise date of the visit of a company of players to Aberdeen in October, 1601,-we shall, in the first instance, go through the play of Macbeth with the impression that it may contain some peculiarities which were not wholly derived from books; which might have been more vividly impressed upon the mind of the poet by local associations; which become more clear and intelligible to ourselves when we understand what those associations especially were. We request our readers not to be incredulous at the onset of this examination. We may distinctly state that, as far as any public or private record informs us, there is no circumstance to show that the Lord Chamberlain's company was not in Scotland in the autumn of 1601. It is a curious fact that even three months later, at the Christmas of that year, there is no record that the Lord Chamberlain's company performed before Queen Elizabeth. The Office-Book of the Treasurer of the Chamber records no performance between Shrove Tuesday, the 3rd of March, 1601, and St. Stephen's Day, the 26th of December, 1602. There is a record, however, which shows that Shakspere's company was in London at the beginning of 1602. It is that note in the table-book of the student of the Middle Temple, which proves that Twelfth Night was performed at the feast of that society on the 2nd of February, 1602. If it can be shown that the company to which Shakspere belonged was performing in Scotland in October, 1601, there is every probability that Shakspere himself was not absent. He buried his father at Stratford on the 8th of September of that year. The summer season of the Globe would be ended; the winter season at the Blackfriars not begun. He had a large interest as a shareholder in his company; he is supposed to have been the owner of its properties or stage equipments. His duty would call him to Scotland. The journey and the sojourn there would present some relief to the gloomy thoughts which the events of 1601 must have cast upon him.

The commentators on Shakspere have taken some pains to assign to his tragedy of Macbeth a different origin than the narrative of Holinshed. That narrative was, of course, before the author of Macbeth. It was a striking narrative; and, after the accession of James, the poet's attention might have been drawn to it by other circumstances than its capacity for the drama. Holinshed speaks of "Banquo the Thane of Lochabar, of whom the house of the Stuarts is aescended, the which by order of lineage hath now for a long time enjoyed the crown of Scotland even till these our days." It is clear that Shakspere consulted Holinshed; for he has engrafted some of the circumstances related of the

murder of King Duff upon the story of Macbeth. But we still admit that the commentators might naturally look for some circumstance that should have impressed the history of the fortunes of Macbeth and Banquo more forcibly upon the imagination of Shakspere than the narrative of Holinshed. It was not the custom of the poet to adopt any story that was not in some degree familiar to his audience, either in their chroniclers, their elder dramatists, or in their novelists. Here was a story quite out of the range of the ordinary reading even of educated Englishmen. The wild romance of Scottish history had not as yet been popularized and elevated into poetry. The field was altogether untrodden. The memory of the patrict heroes of Scotland would not be acceptable to those who desired to see revived upon the stage their own "" forefathers' valiant acts that had been long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books."* 'The Scottish History of James IV. slain at Flodden,' of Robert Greene, is altogether a romance, the materials for which can be traced in no Scottish history or tradition. The fable of that wild play has no reference to the death of James IV. at Flodden. It was the knowledge of these facts which probably led Dr. Farmer to the following notion of the origin of Macbeth: "Macbeth was certainly one of Shakspeare's latest productions, and it might possibly have been suggested to him by a little performance on the same subject at Oxford, before King James, 1605."† Dr. Farmer acquired his knowledge of this performance from a description in Wake's Rex Platonicus,' 1607, from which it appears that three young men, habited as sibyls, came forth from St. John's College, singing alternate verses, in which they professed themselves to be the three Sibyls who, according to the ancient history of Scotland, appeared to Macbeth and Banquo, predicting that one should be king, but should have no kingly issue, and that the other should not be king, but should be tne father of many kings.' The actual verses of the little performance were subsequently found annexed to the 'Vertumnus' of Dr. Gwynne, 1607. The whole interlude, as it is called, consists of twenty-nine lines, six of which only have any reference to Banquo, and none whatever to Macbeth. We must seek farther for the origin of Shakspere's Macbeth. A. Nixon, in his 'Oxford Triumphs,' 1605, says "The King did very much applaud the conceit of three little boys dressed like three nymphs." This is very limited applause. "Hearing of this favourable reception," says Chalmers, "Shakspeare determined to write his tragedy, knowing that he could readily find materials in Holinshed's Chronicle, his common magazine." If we believe that the materials of Holinshed were not sufficiently suggestive to the poet,-if we think that local associations might probably have first carried Shakspere to the story of Macbeth, more strikingly than a romantic narrative, mixed up with other legends as strongly seizing upon the imagination,-we may find upon Scottish ground some memories of an event which could not itself be safely dramatized (although even that was subsequently shown upon the stage), but which might have originated that train of thought which was finally to shape itself into the dramatic history of King Duncan's murder, under the influence of "fate and metaphysical aid."

✰ The Latin quotations from Wake may be consulted in Boswell's Malone, vol. xi., pp. 280, 281.

If Shakspere visited Perth in the autumn of 1601, he was in that city within fourteen months of the period when one of the most extraordinary tragedies in the tragic history of Scotland had been acted within its walls. With the details of this real tragedy Shakspere might have been familiar without a visit to Perth; for The Earle of Gowrie's Conspiracie against the Kingis Maiestie of Scotland, at Saint Johnstoun,* vpon Tuesday the fift of August, 1600,' was printed at London by Valentine Simmes (the printer of several of Shakspere's quarto plays) in the same year that the conspiracy took place. Whatever might have been the insinuations of the Presbyterian divines in Scotland, this authorized account could not have presented itself to an unprejudiced English mind except as a circumstantial, consistent, and true relation. The judicial evidence which has been collected and published in recent times sustains this narrative in all essential particulars. Place the poet in the High Gate [High Street] of Perth, looking upon the Castle of Gowrie; let the window be pointed out to him from which the King cried out "I am murdered;" let him enter the "Blak Turnpike," the secret stair which led to the "gallery chalmer" from which the cries proceeded;-let him, surrounded with the courtiers of James, listen to the details of terror which would be crowded into the description of such an event; and Scottish history might then be searched for some parallel of a king murdered by an ambitious subject. Let us see if there are any details in the Discourse of the vnnaturall and vile Conspiracie attempted against his Maiesties person, at Saint Johnstoun, upon the fift day of August, being Tuesday, 1600,' or in the judicial evidence before the court held in Perth on the 22nd of August of that year, or in the previous examinations at the King's Palace at Falkland,† which have any resemblance to the incidents in the tragedy of Macbeth.

John Earl of Gowrie, and his brother Alexander, the Master of Ruthven, were two young noblemen of great popularity. They had travelled; they were accomplished in many branches of knowledge. Amongst the attempts to blacken the character of the unhappy Earl it was desired to be shown that he practised sorceries, and that he conversed with sorcerers. James Weimis, of Bogy, recounts the Earl's conversations with him upon mysterious subjects;-of serpents which could be made to stand still upon pronouncing a Hebrew word; of a necromancer in Italy with whom he had dealings; of a man whose hanging he predicted, and he was hanged; " and that this deponent counselled the Earl to beware with whom he did communicate such speeches, who answered that he would communicate them to none except great scholars." Master William Reid deposed to certain magical characters found in his lord's pocket after his death; that he always kept the characters about him; and that in his opinion it was for no good. Thus, then, we encounter at the onset something like the belief of Macbeth in matters beyond human reason. "I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge." According

* Saint Johnstoun was another name for Perth.

† See Pitcairn's 'Criminal Trials,' vol. ii., p. 146 to p. 332.

A Latin treatise was published at Edinburgh, in 1601, 'De execrabili et nefanda fratrvm Rvvenorvm in serenissimi Scotorum Regis caput Conjuratione,' which learnedly dwells upon the

to the narrative of the Gowrie Conspiracy, Alexander Ruthven met the King as he was going out of his palace at Falkland, and earnestly solicited him to go to Perth, to examine a man who had discovered a treasure.

The King reluctantly consented, but at last did consent. Ruthven then directed "Anurew Henderson, Chamberlain to the said Earl, to ride in all haste to the Earl, commanding him that he should not spare for spilling of his horse, and that he should advertise the Earl that he hoped to move his Majesty to come thither." Compare this with the fifth scene of Macbeth :

Macbeth precedes Duncan. Alexander Ruthven goes before James. The Duke of Lennox says, "After that Master Alexander had come a certain space with his Highness, he rode away and galloped to Perth before the rest of the company towards his brother's lodgings, of purpose, as the deponent believes, to advertise the Earl of Gowrie of his Majesty's coming there." So Macbeth: "Duncan comes here to-night." When Macbeth receives the prophecy of the weird sisters he is so absorbed with

"That suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature,"

that Banquo exclaims

"Look, how our partner's rapt!"

King James thought Alexander Ruthven "somewhat beside himself," and noticed "his raised and uncouth staring and continued pensiveness." The description of the banquet with which Gowrie receives the King,-sorry cheer,

charge against Gowrie of tampering with supernatural aid, and which in one passage bears a still more remarkable resemblance to the original promptings of Macbeth's ambition :-"Quis est enim in noscitandis adolescentum nostri ævi ingenijs adeo peregrinus, qui non continuo subodoretur Govvrium hæreditaria ea scabie pravæ curiositatis prurientem, atque in patris ac aui mores institutaque euntem, consuluisse Magum hunc, quæ sors maneret eum, aut quo fato esset periturus: et veteratoris spiritus astu (ita vt fit) ambigua aliqua responsione fucum illi factum." This is the very sentiment of Macbeth :-

"And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,

That palter with us in a double sense;

That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope."

according to his Majesty, excused upon the suddenness of his coming is very remarkable: "His Majesty being set down to his dinner, the said Earl stood very pensive, and with a dejected countenance, at the end of his Majesty's table, oft rounding [whispering] over his shoulder, one while to one of his servants, and another while to another; and oft-times went out and in to the chamber." Very similar to this is the situation expressed by the original stage direction in Macbeth: "Enter a Sewer, and divers servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth." We can imagine Gowrie, on one of the occasions when he went out and in to the chamber, thinking the very thoughts which Macbeth thinks aloud when he has left the King :

"If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well

It were done quickly."

We can fancy the Master of Ruthven seeking his brother, (the favourite of the people of Perth,) as Lady Macbeth sought her husband :—

"Lady M. He has almost supp'd: Why have you left the chamber?
Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people."

King James is led by Master Alexander "up a turnpike, and through two or three chambers, the said Master Alexander ever locking behind him every door as he passed." Then comes the attempt at assassination. The circumstances in Macbeth are of course essentially different; but the ambition which prompted the murder of Duncan, and the attempt upon James, are identical. The King is held to have said while he was in the death grip of the Master of Ruthven, "Albeit ye bereave me of my life, ye will nought be King of Scotland, for I have both sons and daughters." So

"We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest Malcolm."

It is a singular characteristic of the Gowrie tragedy that the chief conspirators, the Earl of Gowrie and the Master of Ruthven, were put to death in so sudden a way that the real circumstances of the case must always be involved in some doubt. The evidence is not wholly satisfactory. The Duke of Lennox, who was the chief witness of credit, says of himself, the Earl of Mar, and their company, that "Notwithstanding long forcing with hammers, they got nought entry at the said chamber until after the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were both slain. And at their first entry they saw the Earl of Gowrie lying dead in the chamber, Master Alexander Ruthven being slain and taken down the stair before their entry." The official account says that Sir John Ramsey, finding the turnpike-door open (not the regular entrance, but one that led direct from the street), entered the chamber where the King and the Master were struggling. He struck the traitor with his dagger, who was no sooner shot out at the door but he was met by Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir Hugh