defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoon ’Revealed to Roman crowds, now Christian grown, That Pagan anguish which, in Parian stone, The Rhodian artist,’ and so on.  It is not only that this is bad in itself; but that it is unworthy of the company in which it is found; that such verses should not have appeared with the name of a good versifier like Lord Lytton.  We must take exception, also, in conclusion, to the excess of alliteration.  Alliteration is so liable to be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and yet it is a trick that seems to grow upon the author with years.  It is a pity to see fine verses, such as some in ‘Demos,’ absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one wearisome consonant.

CHAPTER II—­SALVINI’S MACBETH

Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance of Macbeth.  It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of local colour that he chose to play the Scottish usurper for the first time before Scotsmen; and the audience were not insensible of the privilege.  Few things, indeed, can move a stronger interest than to see a great creation taking shape for the first time.  If it is not purely artistic, the sentiment is surely human.  And the thought that you are before all the world, and have the start of so many others as eager as yourself, at least keeps you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see the actor ‘bend up each corporal agent’ to realise a masterpiece of a few hours’ duration.  With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing.  And this is more particularly true of last week’s Macbeth; for the whole third act was marred by a grievously humorous misadventure.  Several minutes too soon the ghost of Banquo joined the party, and after having sat helpless a while at a table, was ignominiously withdrawn.  Twice was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed so little hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an awkward pause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air.  The arrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk that made him nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and worthily topped the whole.  It may be imagined how lamely matters went throughout these cross purposes.

In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini’s Macbeth had an emphatic success.  The creation is worthy of a place beside the same artist’s Othello and Hamlet.  It is the simplest and most unsympathetic of the three; but the absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is redeemed by gusto, breadth, and a headlong unity.  Salvini sees nothing great in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, and that