and, and
as influencing the action of the drama, than as an individual conception
of amazing power, poetry, and beauty: or if they do individualize her,
it is ever with those associations of scenic representation which Mrs.
Siddons has identified with the character. Those who have been
accustomed to see it arrayed in the form and lineaments of that
magnificent woman, and developed with her wonder-working powers, seem
satisfied to leave it there, as if nothing more could be said or
added.[112]

But the generation which beheld Mrs. Siddons in her glory is passing
away, and we are again left to our own unassisted feelings, or to all
the satisfaction to be derived from the sagacity of critics and the
reflections of commentators. Let us turn to them for a moment.

Dr. Johnson, who seems to have regarded her as nothing better than a
kind of ogress, tells us, in so many words, that "Lady Macbeth is merely
detested." Schlegel dismisses her in haste, as a species of female fury.
In the two essays on Macbeth already mentioned, she is passed over with
one or two slight allusions. The only justice that has yet been done to
her is by Hazlitt, in the "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays." Nothing
can be finer than his remarks as far as they go, but his plan did not
allow him sufficient space to work out his own conception of the
character, with the minuteness it requires. All that he says is just in
sentiment, and most eloquent in the expression; but in leaving some of
the finest points altogether untouched, he has also left us in doubt
whether he even felt or perceived them; and this masterly criticism
stops short of the _whole_ truth--it is a little superficial, and a
little too harsh.

In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is represented as the ruling
motive, an intense over-mastering passion, which is gratified at the
expense of every just and generous principle, and every feminine
feeling. In the pursuit of her object, she is cruel, treacherous, and
daring. She is doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and blood; for the murder
she instigates is rendered more frightful by disloyalty and ingratitude,
and by the violation of all the most sacred claims of kindred and
hospitality. When her husband's more kindly nature shrinks from the
perpetration of the deed of horror, she, like an evil genius, whispers
him on to his damnation. The full measure of her wickedness is never
disguised, the magnitude and atrocity of her crime is never extenuated,