seemed a sort of emphatic demand from her of an inference which himself had already pondered, but dared not give utterance to. It appeared almost an interrogation, and was spoken by Mr. Cooke precisely as it would have been had the interrogative been prefixed thus:

What if- -Duncan comes here to-night?

She accordingly, familiar with the workings of his mind, and seeing them now in exact conformity to what her meditations had previously augured, interprets his half-expressed meaning, and "gives his thoughts a tongue." This is perfectly coincident with his whole conduct through the drama. He ponders his crimes; fears to disclose them; wher. disclosed, hesitates-letting "I dare not, wait upon I would;" finally, his ambition masters his fear, and he proceeds to action. Lady Macbeth appears to have possessed, together with eaqually ambitious views, a stronger intellect, a steadier purpose and more intrepidity of execution. In fact her whole character, both of mind and heart, seems to have been made of sterner stuff; and from this very circumstance her guilt, according to professor Richardson's own hypothesis,* ought to be considered less aggravated than that of her husband: since such as are endued with naturally amiable propensities, and either pervert them to their purpose, or act in their despite, have much to answer for beyond those, who in sinning do no violence to nature, but rather accord with it. The same original conformation which makes her less amiable as a woman, makes her also less criminal as an assassin. When the ingenious professor attributed to this lady a character invariably savage, he must surely have forgotten that remarkable relenting which withheld her from the murder of the sleeping monarch:

"Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done it."

Bearing in mind our previous ideas of lady Macbeth's collectedness of nature, and this trait alone is sufficient to redeem her from utter, unmitigated reprobation. Considering her ardent aspirations for the crown; her previous vaunts of her own courage; the opportunity that now offered to gain the one and to prove the other;

* See his Analysis of the Characters of Shakspeare.

and at a moment so dreadfully propitious, that a similitude, a shadow, which memory conjured up and compared with the slumBering monarch, should wrest from her the victim, at the risk of losing him forever, at the mercy of accident or discovery, and dependent solely on her husband, whose infirmity of purpose she had before deprecated, and whose retorts she might well expect when convicted of similar "brain-sickness" with himself:-this, we repeat, exempts her from a total destitution of the human charities, by showing her accessible to filial, though not to loyal feeling.

We have observed thus much on the death of Duncan-the only crime in which lady Macbeth had any direct participation. If any palliative for this crime, let it not be forgotten that in its perpetration conjugal affection concurred with ambition.* It was not that she loved Duncan less, but Macbeth more. At that period of their history the notions of loyalty among the Scots, as well as of every other moral obligation, appear to have been very loose. Add to this, that the character of Duncan, though eulogized by Macbeth as possessing virtues that would plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, was virtuous, like that of too many of his species, only when compared with those worse than themselves. His treachery to the Danes during a recent truce, in which he first inebriated, then murdered them (a circumstance to which Banquo alludes) was the very counterpart of the scene in which he was himself doomed to be a sufferer. From the perverted ingenuity of lady Macbeth's reasoning powers, of which many examples occur in the piece, it is not improbable she might have considered herself an avenger rather than an assassin-an appointed minister of that "wild justice," which lord Bacon has so finely denominated revenge. For the commission of this crime, however, prompted as it was by the united force of ambition, conjugal regard, and re

We are at a loss for the ground of Mr. Steevens's suggestion that she was deficient in this particular. To us, she appears to have returned, after her manner, all her lord's expressions of endearment: "My thane," "my husband!” "Gentle my lord!

Sleek o'er your rugged looks, be bright and jovial

Among your guests to-night.

Macbeth. I shall my love,

And so, I pray, be you," &c.

taliation, she was not competent, it seems, without the aid of artificial stimulants:

"That which has made them drunk, has made me bold,"

is her exclamation after having drugged the potions of the grooms. The surprisal of Macduff's castle, and the massacre of all his race, by far the most savage deed in the play, was the act of Macbeth alone. The murder of Banquo also, was the spontane. ous suggestion of Macbeth's mind; and when his lady inquires respecting his meditated object, his reply seems to indicate that, in her husband's opinion at least, she was not callous to the inflictions of remorse:

"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,

Till thou applaud the deed."

But if her husband's opinion were insufficient, we have ample evidence of her susceptibility to the agonies of self-reproach, in the subsequent scene, which represents her as their martyr; in that bewildered reason, those midnight walks, and perturbed ejaculations, which, who that has witnessed, can never forget. Marmontel has somewhere invested misfortune with the sacred right of purifying her victims from their offence, and the man whom Heaven has punished, should become innocent in our sight. The furies which lady Macbeth had once let forth upon others, turned back upon their owner and destroyed her. Whatever were her crimes, her fate was their avenger. The same sensibility which detests the one, should commiserate the other. Had she been the greatest of offenders, this would be but just to her; that she was not the greatest, we have humbly attempted to establish.

That critics, so respectable as those employed on this play, the Johnsons, Steevenses, Richardsons, &c. should have exercised so little of their wonted discrimination in regard to this part, we have before noted as, in our apprehension, extraordinary. That iord Kaimes, especially, whose penetration as a philosopher enabled him to investigate principles and consequences, and whose profession as a lawyer accustomed him to compare evidence and decide between contending claims; that his lordship should have pronounced lady Macbeth a "character too bad to be con

formable to human nature," is at once too flattering to that nature in general, and too merciless to this individual instance. Lady Macbeth participates with her lord in the murder of their sovereign; its recollection haunts her repose, and finally drives her to madness and to death. Macbeth, to whom the assassination of Duncan was but a noviciate in guilt, proceeds from crime to crime, undeterred by those compunctious visitings which his better sense continued to him; and finishes his career with full possession of his reason, with a bold defiance of his fate. Which of these individuals should seem the most culpable? Yet the former has been the object of anathema, and the latter of comparative condolence.

It is grateful to the philanthropist to diminish the number of atrocious offenders, and something is also gained for poor human nature by endeavours to lessen the enormity of offence. "Who would wantonly add weight to the stone of Sisyphus?" Whatever items we can fairly deduct from individual guilt, we so far diminish that aggregate which weighs so heavily on our common race. Should the preceding reflections promote in any degree so salutary a purpose, they will scarcely be classed with idle reveries. They refer to a character which, considered either as an historic instance or a poetic fiction, is certainly entitled to justice; and those to whom this claim would be unavailing, who feel not lady Macbeth's interests, may yet take some heed to their own: since it is probable few exercises of the human mind are more pernicious, than that which consists in the contemplation of consummate, un-'· mingled depravity. From this, the intellect in its healthy state revolts with loathing:-it is only when diseased and morbid that it discovers an appetite for poison. We are far from contending that the character of lady Macbeth, with every allowance, does not exhibit deplorable deficiency; but not that desperate criminality which, independent of the disgust it occasions, loses its moral effect, since its excess generates incredulity. We have merely endeavoured that she should not be consigned to entire and unequalled infamy; not be considered a "monster" beyond parallel; not be ranked with the Tullias and Clytemnestras of antiquity; or the Catherines of Medicis and of Muscovy in more recent times. We all sympathize with the faithful follower of "de Montfort," in that simple exclamation over the body of his master:

"Thou wert too good to do a cruel deed,

And so it killed thee!"

Yet de Montfort was the murderer of his fellow. Does not the character of lady Macbeth authorize the same conclusion, since her offence received the same awful expiation? Let this reflection recommend her memory to our mercy, and spare her in future from proving that bitterest imprecation of the sacred writings:"Thine eye shall not pity her!"

To educe good from evil is the high prerogative only of Divine Providence. But it is even here within the province of the moral alchymist to attempt something like humble imitation. He can decompose, combine, or transmute; and if in the process any latent good should be elicited, or any superficial evil obliterated, the labour will not have been in vain.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

SPURIOUS WORDS.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

I HAVE noticed in some recent numbers of your valuable publication, an endeavour to detect and outlaw several spurious words, which many good writers and most lexicographers have introduced to the English language. This is a meritorious attempt; for as it becomes every good citizen of the commonwealth to prevent, if possible, its being overburthened with the useless or vicious members of other states, it is no less the duty of each good citizen of the republic of letters to protest against the admission of words, not only useless, but such as usurp the places and privileges of natives.

Permit me, therefore, to occupy a page of your miscellany for this purpose.

Unsatisfactoriness is a complicated and unnecessary word; and although acknowledged by Johnson and Walker, yet it is so nicely distinguished from Dissatisfaction, that I doubt whether either would have allowed the necessity of its use. This word is ad