interest them in his lines To the Cottoners. There he speaks of Wakefield and its Pindar, of Bradford and its 'Souter,' of Kendal and its white coats. Bradford, it seems, was notable for its Puritanism Bradford, if I should rightly set it forth, Style it I might the Banbury of the North; And well this title with the town agrees Famous for twanging, Ale, Zeal, Cakes, and Cheese. But why should I set zeal behind their ale! Who love their brothers from their heart i' faith). The English of the last line but one is noticeable. Brath waite says 'many sister,' according to the older-the proper -usage: so many burden' (p. 67, etc.). occur in this couplet from Gower : With many an herb and many a stone Whereof she hath there many one. Both usages I' XVI MILTON'S 'MACBETH' (From The Nineteenth Century for Dec. 1891) T is one of the most curious facts in literary history that Milton at one time proposed to write a drama on the story of Macbeth—that more than thirty years after Shakespeare's great tragedy had been before the world, Milton proposed to take up the theme already treated with such incomparable power. Such a design seems at first sight to imply a strange want of discernment, or an extraordinary self-confidence, or a reckless audacity; 'for what can the man do that cometh after the King?' But the evidence of its entertainment is decisive; and I wish now to consider what motives could have induced Milton to think of such a thing. The evidence that he did think of it is to be found in a well-known MS. in his own handwriting, now one of the treasures of the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. This MS. was in all probability written shortly after his return from his Continental tour, when at last he was leaving his father's roof and beginning an independent life. Till the year 1639, at the close of which he became thirtyone, Milton had been permitted by a highly appreciative and generous father to devote himself to learning and culture, that so he might prepare himself for some great poetical effort. Everything had been done for his education that could be done. Not content with the training and the lore imparted by St Paul's School and by Cambridge, he, with his father's sanction and approval, had continued his studies at home for some six years; and then in 1638 had enjoyed the advantage of a foreign tour, which lasted some ten or eleven months, and acquainted him not only with famous towns and scenes, but also with some of the most distinguished Europeans of his day. Thus, over thirty years of perpetual and thorough preparation had gone by; and at last the time seemed come when the fruit of his long 'wearisome labours and studious watchings' should be put forth. Milton himself clearly felt it was so. He had not been quite at ease that the promise of his youth was so tardy of fulfilment. He speaks in one of his letters—the only extant one in English—of being 'something suspicious of myself,' and of taking notice of a certain belatedness in me': and in another to his friend Diodati ('Damon'), he remarks, 'it is well known, and you well know, that I am naturally slow in writing and averse to write.' Certainly, when he settled down in lodgings of his own (just off Fleet Street, on part of the site of the 'Punch' office of our time), or a few months later, wanting more room for his books, in a ‘gardenhouse' in Aldersgate Street (on the east side, nor far from Maidenhead Court), he recognised that something must really be done and we find him searching for a satisfactory subject. As late as 1639 his thoughts were set upon King Arthur, as can be proved from two of his Latin poems written in that year, viz. the Epitaphium Damonis and the Mansus. But for certain reasons, the chief probably that he had realised the fabulousness of the Arthurian story (Who Arthur was,' he writes in his History of Britain, 'and whether ever any such reigned in Britain, hath been doubted before, and may again with good reason'), he somewhat suddenly as it would seem dismissed that hero, and looked round for a substitute. In the above-mentioned Trinity College MS., most probably penned just at this period, he makes a long list—a hundred minus one-of subjects that might serve his purpose. Of these, fifty-three are taken from the old Testament, and among them Paradise Lost is unmistakably the favourite; eight are from the New Testament; thirty-three are from British history; and five are 'Scotch stories, or rather British of the North Parts'; and last of these, and so last of the whole ninetynine, is 'Macbeth.' Beginning at the arrival of Malcolm at Macduff. The matter of Duncan may be expressed by the appearing of his ghost. Now I propose suggesting and discussing two special reasons for the insertion of Macbeth in this list-the one historical, or having reference to the historical facts; the other didactic, or moral. But before I proceed to these, brief references must be made first to Milton's attitude to the Romantic Drama generally, and to Shakespeare in particular; and secondly, to the state in which Shakespeare's Macbeth has come down to us, and the manner in which it was presented in the seventeenth century. To turn to the first of these points: there is abundant proof that Milton's dramatic sympathies were all in the direction of the classical form. Late in life, in the prefatory note to Samson Agonistes (published in 1671), he issued, as everybody will remember, what we may call a manifesto on this question, so far at least as Tragedy was concerned. After several remarks by no means friendly to the contemporary stage, he names Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as 'the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy. The circumscription of time,' he adds, 'wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is, according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours.' And in the work itself that is thus prefaced, he gives us in fact a Greek play in English, a splendid and a still unsurpassed or unequalled monument of Hellenic scholarship and insight. But it would be a mistake to suppose that these convictions, so trenchantly enounced and so nobly illustrated, belonged only to Milton's senescence, or can be explained by his disgust with the theatre of the Restoration. Years and years before Milton had made up his mind on this matter. In the subject-list, drawn up as we have seen when he began seriously and practically to address himself to what he meant to be the achievement of his life, the dramatic form is the prevailing form-nay, the only form-entertained by him; and it is the classical (¿.e. the Greek) dramatic form. In several cases he specially mentions the chorus, and of whom it is to consist. In many others the very titles sufficiently indicate the models that are in his thoughts; thus Naboth ouxopavrovuevos, Elisæus Hydrochoos, Hezechias, πολιορκούμενος, Josiah, αἰαζόμενος, Herod Massacring or Rachel Weeping, Christus Patiens, Christ Risen, Vortiger immured, `Hardiknute dying in his cups, Athelstan exposing his brother Edwin to the sea and repenting, etc., And from the note added to the Macbeth entry it is certain that his intention was to treat the subject according to the usage of the Attic stage. Similarly, in one of the most magnificent of the many magnificent passages in his prose writing, in the famous account he renders of himself and his doings and his purposes in The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty, when he refers to the form his poem may |