5 o LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



indeed proved by these notes. They were made in 1809, or 

 about that time, and are contained in three volumes, lettered 

 * Siddons,' which of themselves prove the great interest taken 

 in Mrs. Siddons' acting. They contain acting editions of 

 the plays in which she appeared, edited by Mrs. Inchbald. 

 Professor Bell was himself in the habit of reading aloud, and, 

 besides critical remarks, he has noted in many places the rise or 

 fall of Mrs. Siddons' voice, putting a mark / for a rise, and \ 

 for a falL The words on which the emphasis fell are underlined. 

 The following is an introductory note on ' Macbeth : ' 



Of Lady Macbeth there is not a great deal in this play, but the 

 wonderful genius of Mrs. Siddons makes it the whole. She makes 

 it tell the whole story of the ambitious project, the disappointment, 

 the remorse, the sickness and despair of guilty ambition, the attain- 

 ment of whose object is no cure for the wounds of the spirit. Mac- 

 beth in Kemble's hand is only a co-operating part. I can conceive 

 Oarrick to have sunk Lady Macbeth as much as Mrs. Siddons does 

 Macbeth, yet when you see Mrs. Siddons play this part you scarcely 

 <ean believe that any acting could make her part subordinate. Her 

 turbulent and inhuman strength of spirit does alL She turns Mac- 

 beth to her purpose, makes him her mere instrument, guides, directs, 

 and inspires the whole plot. Like Macbeth's evil genius she hurries 

 him on in the mad career of ambition and cruelty from which his 

 nature would have shrunk. The nagging of her spirit, the melan- 

 choly and dismal blank beginning to steal upon her, is one of the 

 finest lessons of the drama. The moral is complete in the despair 

 of Macbeth, the fond regret of both for that state of innocence from 

 which their wild ambition has hurried them to their undoing. 



The writer of this note obviously, like Milton, considered a 

 tragedy the moralest of poems, as indeed it is; but special 

 attention may be paid to two points. First, Mrs. Siddons did 

 not herself conceive Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth as turbulent 

 and with inhuman strength ; she represented her as a woman 

 of this type because this conception suited her physical powers 

 and appearance. But in her own memoranda, published in her 

 life by Campbell, she speaks thus of Lady Macbeth's beauty : 



According to my notion it is of that character which I believe 

 is generally allowed to be most captivating to the other sex fair, 

 feminine, nay perhaps even fragile 



