CHAPTER VIII.

LADY MACBETH.

Contemporaneous critics are unanimous in declaring Lady Macbeth to be Mrs. Siddons's finest impersonation, and it is with this rôle that we always connect the Great Actress. She made the part her own, and identified herself with it in the memories of all who saw her. It is essentially in Lady Macbeth that Shakespeare proves himself so thoroughly Anglo-Saxon; the whole conception of the person is Teutonic. The idea of the remorse-haunted murderess, with her despairing fatalism and unswerving ambition, is more nearly allied to "Vala," in the Scandinavian mythology, than anything in the tragedies of Sophocles or Euripides, and this it is that rendered Mrs. Siddons so perfect an embodiment of the character. She was essentially Teutonic in her grandeur, her stateliness, and, at the same time, sustained energy and vitality. Rachel had moments of super-*human grandeur and ferocity, but they only flashed for a moment; hers was the turning-point of passion