第47章 CRITICISMS(4)

There is nothing here of that compression which is the note of a really sovereign style.It is unfair,perhaps,to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side with one of the signal masterpieces of another,and a very perfect poet;and yet it is interesting,when we see how the portraiture of a dog,detailed through thirty odd lines,is frittered down and finally almost lost in the mere laxity of the style,to compare it with the clear,simple,vigorous delineation that Burns,in four couplets,has given us of the ploughman's collie.It is interesting,at first,and then it becomes a little irritating;for when we think of other passages so much more finished and adroit,we cannot help feeling,that with a little more ardour after perfection of form,criticism would have found nothing left for her to censure.A similar mark of precipitate work is the number of adjectives tumultuously heaped together,sometimes to help out the sense,and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect)to help out the sound of the verses.I do not believe,for instance,that Lord Lytton himself would defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoon 'Revealed to Roman crowds,now CHRISTIAN grown,That PAGAN anguish which,in PARIAN stone,The RHODIAN artist,'and so on.It is not only that this is bad in itself;but that it is unworthy of the company in which it is found;that such verses should not have appeared with the name of a good versifier like Lord Lytton.We must take exception,also,in conclusion,to the excess of alliteration.Alliteration is so liable to be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it;and yet it is a trick that seems to grow upon the author with years.It is a pity to see fine verses,such as some in 'Demos,'absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one wearisome consonant.

II -SALVINI'S MACBETH

SALVINI closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance of MACBETH.It was,perhaps,from a sentiment of local colour that he chose to play the Scottish usurper for the first time before Scotsmen;and the audience were not insensible of the privilege.Few things,indeed,can move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking shape for the first time.If it is not purely artistic,the sentiment is surely human.And the thought that you are before all the world,and have the start of so many others as eager as yourself,at least keeps you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises,if it does not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see the actor 'bend up each corporal agent'to realise a masterpiece of a few hours'duration.With a player so variable as Salvini,who trusts to the feelings of the moment for so much detail,and who,night after night,does the same thing differently but always well,it can never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing.And this is more particularly true of last week's MACBETH;for the whole third act was marred by a grievously humorous misadventure.

Several minutes too soon the ghost of Banquo joined the party,and after having sat helpless a while at a table,was ignominiously withdrawn.Twice was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage before his time;twice removed again;and yet he showed so little hurry when he was really wanted,that,after an awkward pause,Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air.The arrival of the belated spectre in the middle,with a jerk that made him nod all over,was the last accident in the chapter,and worthily topped the whole.It may be imagined how lamely matters went throughout these cross purposes.

In spite of this,and some other hitches,Salvini's Macbeth had an emphatic success.The creation is worthy of a place beside the same artist's Othello and Hamlet.It is the simplest and most unsympathetic of the three;but the absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is redeemed by gusto,breadth,and a headlong unity.Salvini sees nothing great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle,and that courage which comes of strong and copious circulation.The moral smallness of the man is insisted on from the first,in the shudder of uncontrollable jealousy with which he sees Duncan embracing Banquo.He may have some northern poetry of speech,but he has not much logical understanding.In his dealings with the supernatural powers he is like a savage with his fetich,trusting them beyond bounds while all goes well,and whenever he is crossed,casting his belief aside and calling 'fate into the list.'For his wife,he is little more than an agent,a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit to command.The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch.He always yields to the woman's fascination;and yet his caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress)are singularly hard and unloving.Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement.Love has fallen out of this marriage by the way,and left a curious friendship.Only once -at the very moment when she is showing herself so little a woman and so much a high-spirited man -only once is he very deeply stirred towards her;and that finds expression in the strange and horrible transport of admiration,doubly strange and horrible on Salvini's lips -'Bring forth men-children only!'