LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES (Never before published) MACBETH Shephera. But what's this I was gaun to say? ou, ay!—heard ye "North. I have; they are admirable, full of matter, elegantly written Noctes Ambrosianæ. FRANCIS HARVEY 4 ST. JAMES'S STREET LONDON 1875 1955-4 HE Lectures upon Dramatic Literature by James Sheridan Knowles, delivered more than forty years ago, have never been published. A few presentation copies have lately been printed from the original MS. found in memorandum-books. The lectures are very fragmentary and piecemeal, skipping from book to book. Sometimes one book, serving also as a diary or pockettablet, contains portions of two or three different lectures, with only the subject matter to distinguish them. Mr. Sydney Wells Abbott, of the British Museum, has deciphered them and made a sequence of their contents. The memorandum-books are now carefully preserved in morocco cases. From these Lectures the following pages have been selected for publication at this time, when the production of Macbeth at the Lyceum Theatre is the theme of general interest in artistic and literary circles. London, November, 1875. O exemplify those features in the acting dramatic poem, which contribute mainly to its success, we shall have recourse to Shakespeare; from among those incomparable records which he has left us of his genius, we shall select the tragedy of "Macbeth," as one of the most felicitous in plot and execution. Of this play we shall examine the first act. In the tragedy of " Macbeth," the historical and the romantic are blended with singular effect. The materials with which history has furnished Shakespeare, are extremely few: the success of Macbeth against the Norwegians, his murder of Duncan at the instigation of Lady Macbeth, his usurpation of the throne, and his B |