MADAM,
AS you confess that you are not superior to trifles, will you accept of a trifling criticism, which if honoured with a place in your Museum, may, for the future, perhaps occasion a different manner of reading and acting one particular passage in Macbeth, that hitherto has been generally, if not always, misunderstood and misapplied.
In the sixth scene of the fourth act, a messenger of some rank, Rosse, comes to let Macduff know that his castle has been surprised, and his wife and children savagely slaughtered. The young king of Scotland, Malcolm, who had been some time at the English court, solliciting troops and assistance from Edward the Confessor, undertakes to comfort his friend and subject Macduff, who had attended him to England, and was deeply involved in his cause. Macduff, for some moments, remains thunder-struck and silent. Malcolm, by way of consolation, says,
What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows. Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak, whispers the o’er fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macduff pays no regard or attention to Malcolm, but turning to Rosse, says, My children too! Rosse replies, Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. Macduff. And I must be from thence: my wife killed too? Rosse. I’ve said. Macduff makes no immediate answer; but enfolding his arms, and hanging down his head, in all the melancholy silence of inexpressible grief, stands fixed like a statue on the farther side of the stage. Malcolm, endeavouring to awaken Macduff from this lethargy of woe, approaches near to him, and says, Be comforted, let’s make us medicines of our griefs revenge, to cure this deadly grief. Macduff still remains motionless and unmoved; but when he looks up, and sees his royal friend Malcolm returned to Rosse, on the other side of the stage, he sighs deeply, and in a low voice expresses himself thus: He has no children. What all my pretty ones? did you say all? what all? The expression, He has no children, is supposed and understood to refer to Macbeth, who having no children, could not afford to Macduff an adequate revenge. The supposition undoubtedly is natural. In cases of injury, the law of retaliation never fails to occur to our minds, and to be the object of our passions: but the fact is not true. Macbeth had a son, his name was Luthlac. After the death of his father he was extremely troublesome to Malcolm: he claimed the crown; and though a very weak deficient young man, he answered the intentions of a rebellious party, consisting of such followers as had been attached to the late Macbeth. They carried him to Scone, and he was there saluted king. The competition was short, nor had it any very dangerous or extraordinary circumstances. In less than three months the usurper Luthlac was slain by Malcolm: then, and not till then, ended the race of Macbeth.
From hence it evidently appears that the sentence, He has no children, cannot refer to Macbeth. At whom then is it pointed? At Malcolm. The heart-struck Macduff heard with patience the consolatory advice, administred by his royal master; but well knew, and could not avoid expressing to himself, that as Malcolm had no children he could little judge of that torrent of grief with which Macduff must naturally be overwhelmed, at the loss of a wife, and all his pretty ones.
Malcolm was not married; he could not feel the throbs of a parent’s heart, or the anguish of an husband’s love. To him the sweet and inexpressible sensations of nuptial happiness were unknown: he was ignorant of the decent pride, the rising hopes, the alluring prospects, that occupy, and swell alternately a father’s breast. Young and unexperienced, he had not felt those thilling nerves of nature, which are never strung but by virtuous love and parental palpitations. The good natured Malcolm offered his advice unseasonably: he broke prematurely in upon sorrow that must require time and reason to sink itself into the gulph of satiety. The intention of Malcolm was kind to the highest degree. The effect of that intention was exerted in too hasty and too improper a manner, for Malcolm had no children.
This construction seems supported by a sentence which soon follows, where Malcolm again comes to the friendly charge of consolation, and says, Support it like a man. I shall,says Macduff; but I must also feel it as a man; that is, ‘I must feel it as an husband and as a parent:’ or to expatiate upon the thought, Macduff in those few words means thus to express himself: ‘I must in the relation of father and husband, suffer the deepest sensations of grief that human nature can imbibe. Not all the world can repair my loss. By the cruel murder of my wife, I am deprived, for ever deprived, of the best of all my friends. Many are dear to me: she was the dearest. In my children, I have lost the pride of my house, the comforts of my age, the engaging amusements of my domestic hours, the future servants, subjects, and defenders of my king and country. You must be a father and a husband, Malcolm, ‘ere you can measure my grief; for I cannot but remember such things were, that were most precious to me.’
According to this interpretation, the actor must shew by some gesture, some motion either of his head or hand, that Malcolm is the person in his thoughts, when he says, He has no children. After staying some time in the place where he was first struck motionless, he is rouzed at once by indignation and crossing the stage, says to Rosse, What, all my pretty ones?
In this view, I think, Shakespear displays his own character, and reveals his own sentiments as a parent. If the sentence had referred solely to Macbeth (supposing he had no children) it carries with it rage, fury, and revenge? If to Malcolm, it is the reflection of a wise considerate man, who is thankful to his friend for his advice, but conscious that that advice is, for the present, to no purpose,
Buchanan in his History of Scotland evidently proves, that Macbeth had a son at the time when Macduff’s wife and children were slain. Shakespear, the most exact of all dramatic historians, could never intend that he should appear he had none. The following quotation will support me in my assertion.
‘Whilst these things were transacted at Forfar, they who remained of the faction of Macbeth, carried his son Luthlac to Scone (who was sirnamed Fatuus from his want of wit) and there he was saluted king. Malcolm assaulted him in the valley Bogian, where he was slain three months after he had usurped the name of king; out of respect to the kingly race, his, and his father’s bodies were buried in the royal sepulchres in Ionia.’ I am,
Madam,
Your most obedient Humble Servant, C. D.