July 17.
In a book recently issued from the Hogarth Press, Allardice Nicoll, professor of English language and literature in the University of London, expounds the great tragedies bequeathed by Shakespeare to the English-speaking world. There is much of value in the small book—164 pages—which he has. written and he uses the simplest language to explain the deep teaching of the plays. Writing of #*Macbeth" he shows that Shakespeare, who rarely dogmatizes concerning the supernatural, introduces the super-mundane element, in the scene in which the witches foretell Macbeth's coming grea! ness, to indicate "that we are not in the presence of the simple murder of a king" but that of a cosmic tragedy. "The simple murder of a king" would, surely, be a theme great enough for an ordinary dramatist, but Shakespeare was not ordinary; his was a universal genius and he gives to his drama that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Regarded from one point of view, the witches ars the evil forces in the tragedy and Macbeth is simply the tool their hands. But Shakespeare designed to show that the tragedy is the tragedy of character as well as the tragedy of fate, The witches are, therefore, the embodiment of Macbeth': own evil desires. They suggest to him nothing that he has not Iready thought of. "Fair is foul ind foul is fair," cry all the hags n unison before they meet with the doomed hero and,. Macbeth. on entering the stage, utters their own words: "as and fair a day I have not seel This is one of many suggestive notes in this series of lectures. and it will bear serious thinking. "The devil tempts us all but the idle man tempts the devil." Our own secret purposes and ambitions, says Shakespeare, come at last to life; they bar our path and demand that we translate into action the hidden pur~ poses that we scarcely confess even to ourselves. "Son of man,' said the ancient prophet, "hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark? every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they so The Lord sooth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth." Herein is the greatness of the master of English literature. The light of his genius shines into those "chambers of imagery"
dhe Jays bare the sub-conscious thoughts that are the springs of our reasoning. Those evil spirits of thought that flit to and fro in the recesses of the mind are dragged into the light and, in the lurid glare of the ehtastroph we see that the end had its inception the, apparently, innocent dreams with which we beguiled our Ieisure. We doubt that even Shakespeare's extensive vocal bulary the word, psychology, to bee found. But the ideas, now hailed as a new science, were as clear as daylight to his intuition He read the universal mind with unerring wisdom and set forth unconscious case the ethical lessons that others leora by laborious study.
Witches were by no means uncommon in Shakespeare's day nor have they altogether dis-Jappeared in ours. His audiences saw nothing unlikely in the idea that the grim sisters should meet Macbeth and foretell the future. They were no apparitions to those who saw the play acted in the days of good King James J, who was the wisest fool in Christendom, but actual flesh and blood, such as might then be found in many a clachan of his Majesty's northern dominions. But the lesson the unthinking audience failed to note was that these real crones were but shadows and the reality behind them was the phantom ambitions of the Thane of Cawdor. The unsubstantial thought was more real and more potent than the corporeal existence of the three hags and their witch's cauldron. "Illusion," said Buddha, "all is illusion." Surely it is so, "The solemn temple, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded leave not a wrack behind." This is as true in science as it is in poetry. When all these things we see are gone, the unseen things, electricity, gravitation, cohesion will remain in undimin.. ished strength for these are not mundane but universal, Shakespeare wrote no moral to his plays. The drama, itself, is the moral. "he Lord hath forsaken the earth," the old prophet said, but Macbeth found that it was not so and that there were other unseen things too strong for him. Fat Nemesis, a guilty conscience. The very powers of nature seem-Jed linked agains Wood itself could Dunsinane.
"T have enough," he ries. "My way of life is fallen into the sear and yellow leaf." He had gained all and in gaining had lost all that. was worth the gaining, Ther: was nothing left but to die manfully and show that the elemental virtue of courage was loft when all that he had sinned for was lost.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.