‘Macbeth' and Irving by Frederick Wedmore — Read

I question if _Macbeth_ can ever, in the hands of _any_ tragedian, make the same mark as _Hamlet_. _Hamlet_, as far as the opportunities for the display of the one actor are concerned, might almost have been written by an actor's playwright of our day, bent on securing prominence for the ‘star. ' Macbeth claims little of our sympathy. Most of us wonder more at his wife, and care more for Macduff. But it is a point in Henry Irving's art, as displayed in this play, that he brings into such high relief all that Macbeth had of noble, or of the remains of noble: reverence and awe; indignation at crimes that seemed to him baser, because they were done for pettier ends, than his own; admiration of courage in another, and of character more resolute than his; hesitation, having gone so far, to go yet further in the taking of innocent blood. Macbeth's attitude before the prayer of the grooms; his righteous satire -- ‘your spirits shine through you' -- on the hired murderers; his invocation to his wife; his almost tender and pitying warning to Macduff --

‘But get thee back: my soul is too much charged / With blood of thine already' --