LADY MACBETH. 185 Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Must minister to himself. Macbeth.-Throw physic to the dogs. I'll none of it. And these lines: Malcom.-What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows: Malcom.-Wife, children, servants, all. Macduff. He has no children. All my pretty ones? Malcom.-Dispute it like a man. Macduff.-I shall do so: But I must also feel it as a man. The speeches of Lady Macbeth were delivered from a conception probably intensified for the stage, and were accordingly suited to the demand of "the groundlings" for violence. The following passage was given with a sort of frantic fury which did not express what it is—a self-possessed purpose of stimulating Macbeth to the murder : Lady Macbeth.-When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would 186 MAGNETIC SUPERIORITY. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now, Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn We have skipped a few lines, as the reader will see, to include, in this last extract, Macbeth's compliment to the strenuous character of his wife, which-either from the gusto with which it was read, or the suitableness of the voice and air of the reader to its spirit and meaning-produced a general smile, over the hushed and admiring audience. The difference of magnetic control might well take the place of physiognomy and phrenology, in all estimates of the higher range of human beings, and it is only by the laws of this undefined science that Mrs. Butler's influence upon others could be explained. When she enters a room, the general recognition of an unusually powerful nature is immediate; and this, of course, excites either a feeling of deference or resistance—the former prevailing, as subordinate natures much outnumber the magnetically unsubmissive. There is natural authority, unaffected consciousness of overruling power of purpose, in this lady's whole physiognomy, tone of voice and manner. Nature has furnished the war AMERICAN NASALITY. 187 rant for this in a proportionate allowance of the indefinable power of electric personal magnetism—an influence felt as readily without acquaintance and without reason as with—and which explains, probably, Mrs. Butler's control over audiences, as it does the excessive devotion of her friends and admirers, and the equally positive hostility of those who take sides against her. No one could listen to her or look at her, for five minutes, without knowing her to be a very remarkable person. By the way-as a missionary of sweet voice-Mrs. Butler might dispense, in her present tour, a corrective more needed in this country than the taste that comes by Operas. From Maine to Georgia, we talk through our noses—and, as this lady chances to be, even among English women, a peculiarly fine example of a speaker of English through the throat and lungs, the opportunity of using these Readings as a tuning-key, is too valuable to be lost. Let any one stand at the door of the Stuyvesant Institute, as the audience goes out, and, with the absolute music of Mrs. Butler's softer tones in his memory, listen to the fashionable voices of the passers by! If he has any comparison in his ear, he will wonder inexpressibly that the music of a tone is not more catching. We should be willing to give any degree of offence that we could afford, if we could provoke curiosity to make this (now) easy comparison. The audiences at these Readings are of the class whose pronunciation is heard and remarked upon by the more intelligent foreigners who come among us, and (from a national sensitiveness which may be reasoned down, but won't stay down), we are not a little interested to have the nasality, by which Americans are at once recognized abroad, corrected by our gentlemen and ladies. Let any listener to Mrs. Butler observe 188 PROPOSED EXPERIMENT. how noble and well-bred seems her utterance from the chest, and (to double the lesson) how it adds to the power of the divine gift of language, to allow, as she does to every sound a liberal and free utterance, and to every word its proper and un-slighted fulness. And then let the departing and delighted auditor, of these model tones, take the first sentence uttered on the way home (“What a pleasant evening!" for example), and ring it against any remembered sentence of the play just read. In nine cases out of ten, the contrast will be as great as between a French horn and a bagpipe. DANIEL WEBSTER, UNDER THE SPELL OF JENNY LIND'S MUSIC. We had a pleasure, the other evening, which we feel very every eye to which there is a road Three or four thousand people saw unwilling not to share with from the point of our pen. it with us; but, as there are perhaps fifty thousand more, to whom the pleasure can be sent by these roads of ink, those three or four thousand, who were so fortunate as to be present, will excuse the repetition-possibly may thank us, indeed, for enlarging the sympathy in their enjoyment. In these days of magnetism, life seems to be of value, only in proportion as we find others to share in what we think and feel. It was perhaps ten minutes before the appearance of Benedict's magic stick; and, in running our eye musingly along the right side of the crowded galley of Tripler Hall, we caught sight of a white object, with a sparkling dark line underneath, around which a number of persons were just settling themselves in their seats. Motionless itself, and with the stir going on around it, it was like a calm half moon, seen over the tops of agitated trees; or like a massive magnolia blossom, too heavy for the breeze to stir, splendid and silent amid fluttering poplar-leaves. We raised our |