NOTES ON A READING OF SHAKESPEARE.

It does not seem to me that Macbeth has met the witches before. His first greeting to them and his greeting to his wife in which he speaks of them as of a first impression seem to prove that with the beginning of the drama, his temptation begins. He has thought before, and his wife, with an almost intuitive knowledge of his character, has divined his thoughts. He could well confide in her, for in ambition they are made of the same stuff. But it seems to me more dramatic that the witches should appear first to him when his thoughts are ready and the time is ripe. Only with the union of the two can action take place, and temptation comes when action is possible. These embodiments of sin and temptation appear just at the crucial moment, but victoriousthey dominate the play.

There is something peculiarly dramatic, and at the same time fearful, in Macbeth's attitude at the royal feast. The double deceitful reference to Banquo, whom he knows to be "safe in a ditch, with twenty trenched gashes on his head, the least a death to nature," is horrible and revolting to the moral sense. Macbeth has lost all honor, all scruple, when after the dread apparition of Banquo, he can say again:

"I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here!"

There is a similar use made of a crime-hardened conscience in Poe's "Black Cat." There the murderer in the same revolting and deliberate defiance knocks against the wall, where he knows his murdered wife lies buried, and the "Black Cat" comes to betray him. The artifice is alike in both cases: the criminal is betrayed by his own calm recklessness, but in Macbeth the instrument of

the dead man's ghost is higher than that of a cat, however horrible and revolting the latter may be, and the effect is more nobly dramatic.

Macbeth and Banquo are both scrupulous cravens,-both "would not play false, and yet would falsely win." Macbeth starts when the prophecy of the witches coincides with his inmost thoughts. Apparently the witches come to him as an embodiment of ripened sin. To Banquo they bring the first incentive. He must have had the germs of ambition before, but it is Macbeth's evident faith and his direct action upon that faith which stir the heart of Banquo to crime. It is a crime of omission-of leaving undone those things which ought to be done. Both Macbeth and Banquo hesitate,-Macbeth from sin, Banquo from good,-and both sin. It is Lady Macbeth who prevents her husband from playing the ignoble coward; Banquo stands alone; a powerful influence might have turned him,-but the momentum was lacking and Banquo miserably yielded. The crime is grosser even than Macbeth's, for there is less incentive-but Banquo's brutal assassination atones for his sin. Macbeth's crime indirectly and utterly unconsciously spreads crime about it. Banquo at the hands of Macbeth lost his soul and his life.

The dramatic atmosphere of Julius Cæsar is true and the consequences are absolutely inevitable. The first two acts are like a black, lowering storm-cloud, swelling and unfolding until it darkens the whole sky. There is a little relief perhaps in the characters of the women, but there is no light. Treachery, plotting, and conspiracy,-the thunder-cloud must break-and break in "cross-blue lightning" that leaves the earth awe-struck and trembling. It is hard to judge which is the more admirable--the tremendous overshadowing gloom that prefaces the storm, or the wild and magnificent climax that bursts forth in uncontrollable fury. It is only the master-hand that can weave the cloud and guide the thunder-bolt.

It is a marvellously dramatic opening, the first entrance of Cæsar surrounded by friends and enemies. All seem equally subservient-all but Brutus, who is ever reserved but honest. Casca, Cassius and Antonius seem to pause equally.

"Peace, ho! Cæsar speaks," says Casca.

"Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Cæsar," says Cassius. "Cæsar, my lord?" cries Antonius.

There is at their first appearance a wonderful similarity in the three, a wish to be among the first. Time only can distinguish the traitor from the true.

"If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,

He should not humor me,"

says Cassius, in true self-revelation.

Cassius is disgruntled with the lack of distinction; Casca is disliked and distrusted; Brutus is a theorist, blind to the inevitable, but unselfishly noble. But Antonius? Was he attached to Cæsar by love or assurance of profit? Cassius fears him; does Cassius

recognize his greed or his fidelity?

The union of the storm and the conspiracy is a wondrous dramatic conception, and each lends strength and terror to the other. But the expression of the night, so full of a wild majestic horror, is in the attitude of Casca and Cassius. Casca is terrified; he represents the crouching fear and the trembling that follows on the deafening peals of thunder. Cassius breasts the storm in wild exultation; he is at one with the raging of the element.

"And when the cross-blue lightning seemed to open
The breast of Heaven, I did present myself
Even in the aim and very flash of it."

It is wonderful art that actually realizes before the imagination a storm of the external world in the expression of its effects upon the minds of men.

Cassius grows in stature with the growth of the play, until toward the end he excites more sympathy than the coolly noble

Brutus, priding himself on his own nobility and rising in lofty selfcomplacency above his equals. Brutus is too noble to collect money himself, but he can receive it without scruple from Cassius, whom he censures face to face for his itching palm. The motives for Brutus' anger are decidedly ignoble and the insults which he heaps upon Cassius are almost unpardonable. Cassius, with his fiery, impulsive temperament, with his intense devotion to his friend, is marvellously patient and generous before Brutus' most cruel thrusts. There is always a great pity for the man who might have succeeded-for the man of ability whom the very fates seem to take pleasure in defeating. Cassius' very resignation, his submission in matters when he knew best to the friend whose superiority he recognized so clearly in social life, is a noble trait of character. Cassius was by no means unworthy to fight at the side of Brutus.

Shakespeare sees even the politician with the eyes of the poet. He does not stoop to hideous realism. Marullus and Flavius scorn the mob,-the one openly, with the born superiority that is unresented by inferiors; the other under a veil of hypocrisy. Yet both speak with the dignity and the true eloquence born of the poet, not of the politician. The grandeur of the ancient Rome, of the austere republic, clings about her last representatives. The men are base, but they dwell in sacred Rome, and the atmosphere of the great old city is felt in her degenerate successors. Cæsar and Brutus have the nobility of the man; Flavius and Marullus the stern majesty of the eternal city.

X., '02.

The endeavor to stir up an interest in debating was not in vain, for from the indifference of the College has been gathered a hearty Debating Club. The first debate, held Friday, May third, was interesting not only as a debate, but also as the beginning of an institution bound to grow and flourish. It may confidently be asserted now that debating has at last reached a firm footing in the College. The discussion of the other evening, besides testifying to the interest aroused in the new organization, also proved that we shall be able to produce debaters well worthy to represent us in intercollegiate debate.

The reasons for the failure of former movements of this sort are several. Heretofore the membership of the debating clubs has been far too indefinite. Henceforth membership will be sharply defined. Formerly, entrance into the clubs was possible to all. Hereafter membership will be elective, making the club an honorary society, and thus increasing its importance and worth. Now, too, there is connected with the club a member of the faculty, one who will always be ready to offer any assistance in his power. Thus have the faults belonging to former clubs been largely eliminated and most of the virtues of successful organizations added. And it is because of these things that the future of debating in Tufts College appears so promising. What remains now is that the college community shall testify its interest whenever it may be called upon to do so.

F. L. H., 'OI.