I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, unto the weird sisters :
More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Lady.59 You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

Macbeth. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use :
We are yet but young in deed.

(Exeunt.

It is curious to see by these last two notes, as by the introductory remarks, that Mrs. Siddons conveyed by her demeanour the impression of being already almost broken down, and quite as much in need of sleep as Macbeth. This preparation for the sleeping scene is a very fine idea, and hardly seems to be suggested in the insignificant remarks given by Shakespeare to Lady Macbeth at the close of this scene.

We now come to the fifth act.

Gentlewoman. Lo you, here she comes ! This is her very guise ; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper:.60 Physician. How came she by that light?

Gentlewoman. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Physician. You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman. Ay, but their sense is shut.
Physician. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady. Yet here's a spot.
Physician. Hark! she speaks.

Lady. Out, damned spot! out, I say !-One: 61 two: why, then 'tis time to do’t.62– Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afеard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account ?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him ?

Physician. Do you mark that ?

Lady. The thane of Fife had a wife : 63 where is she now ?— What, will these hands ne'er 64 be clean ?-No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that : with this starting.

Physician. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

65

you mar all

Lady. Here's the smell of the blood still : all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh ! 66

Physician. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

This is the last of these notes by which we have been able to follow the great actress from the exalted prophetic tone of her entrance to the sigh of imbecility at the end.

HOW THE TURKS RULE ARMENIA.

SUPPOSE an English Prime Minister were to persuade himself and a large section of the public that the security of our dominion in India required the sacrifice, once a year, of twenty innocent natives of both sexes, with every circumstance of cruelty and indignity which could add bitterness to death; and suppose a bill were introduced into Parliament for the purpose of giving practical effect to such conclusion. How many members of Parliament would be found to vote for it ? Not one, I believe. The most loyal and submissive of the Minister's followers would recoil from participation in the guilt of so great a crime, even though the alternative should be the probable loss of our Indian empire. He would say to himself that the alternative supposed, though possible or even probable, was by no means certain; that the danger was perhaps, after all, not so great as had been supposed, and might perchance be altogether averted by the operation of events as yet unforeseen; but that, in any case, he must decline to have a hand in the commission of a great crime, be the political gain accruing therefrom ever so important.

Now what is the difference, in point of morality, between the policy which I have supposed and that which has found so many advocates in England during the last eighteen months? We have been told on high authority-and the doctrine has been energetically defended in high quarters—that we are bound for the sake of our own interests' to uphold’ a political system of which we know that one of the inevitable fruits is the periodical torture and slaughter of

10,000 or 20,000’innocent human beings, to say nothing of other evils which are not periodical, but chronic. We are not simply to stand aloof and let matters take their course; we are to uphold 'this periodical sacrifice to the Moloch of British interests,' and must accordingly interfere actively to prevent changes from occurring'in Turkey which would put an end to the sacrifice, if we think that such changes would be detrimental to ourselves.'' In point of morality

1 there really is no difference at all between upholding a system which now and then massacres 20,000 persons, and committing the massacre ourselves. Yet so inconsistent is human nature that those who do not scruple to defend the one would shrink in horror from the other

See Sir Henry Elliot's famous despatch, Blue Book No. 1, for 1877, p. 197.

1

How is this? One cause of the anomaly is probably a defective imagination. We are slow to realise our responsibility for crimes of which the scene is far away, and which are not directly the work of our own hands. Yet if we uphold the system which perpetrates them we are in truth as responsible as if the scene were London, and ours the hands that have been imbrued in innocent blood. Look, for instance, at the arguments in vogue against the annexation of Armenia, wholly or in part, by Russia. Such annexation, we are told, would endanger British interests. But that is a surmise only, and a surmise, moreover, resting on several improbable assumptions. It is an assumption that Russia has any designs on India at all. It is a surmise that Russia is likely to make a railway through the Euphrates valley. It is a surmise that the Porte would always have the will and power to keep open a route to India through the Euphrates valley for the passage of British troops. It is a surmise that Russia would not find her interest in cultivating friendly relations with England, provided England frankly substituted a policy of confidence for a policy of perpetual suspicion and abuse of Russia. And because it is barely possible that one or more of these surmises may come true, just as it is barely possible that Germany is aiming at the annexation of Holland and the invasion of England, we are to oppose--if need be by force of arms—the annexation of any part of Armenia to Russia.

Have those who argue thus made any effort to realise what Turkish rule in Armenia means ? Charity forbids me to believe it, for I do not think so ill of them as to suppose that they would deliberately advocate the indefinite perpetuation of wrongs the most intolerable and cruelties the most revolting, in order to avert some remote and perhaps imaginary danger to British interests. Let me endeavour, then, to give a succinct yet accurate picture of the actual condition of the Christians of Armenia, and then ask the people of England whether they are willing to bear the responsibility of upholding a system which has always produced, and must produce while it lasts, the state of things which I will now proceed to describe. My evidence shall be all official, not that there is any lack of other evidence. I know the country well myself, having spent some considerable time in it rather more than twenty years ago, and paid a visit of some length to it since; but I prefer to give the evidence of Her Majesty's consuls because their natural bias is to palliate rather than exaggerate the misdeeds of the Mussulmans; so that, however black the picture may be, the reader may feel assured that it never goes beyond the facts, but is more likely to fall short of them.

The Blue Book that I propose mainly to consider is that marked “Turkey, November 16, 1877. It treats of the state of the Christians in Turkey. The first despatch I call attention to is one from Mr. Consul Zohrab of Erzeroom, a gentleman who has spent the best part of his life in various parts of Turkey, and who speaks the language as a native. Such a man would not be likely to take an exclusively English standard from which to judge her shortcomings. He has also at times proved himself a defender of the Ottoman Empire by his pen. About sixteen years ago he wrote strongly to a leading paper, accusing me of exaggerating the vices of the governing class in a hook I had lately brought out entitled The Hekim Bashy. In December of 1876 he thus writes from Erzeroom :

The demands of the Government press with crushing weight on all classes. Arrears of taxes (the validity of which no court of justice would admit), current taxes, taxes in advance, aid in money for the war, contributions in kind for the army, means of transport for munitions of war and provisions, are exacted from the Christian and from the Mussulman peasants with pitiless severity, and already thousands of families have been so reduced that they live only by public charity. Unscrupulous employés take advantage of the pressing needs of the Government to augment their own exactions, and as there is no possibility of checking such corruption, seeing that the officers who are supposed to watch over and protect the people (!) are the culprits, it is impossible to state what can be done, while Turkish officials have power, to put an end to this systematic spoliation of the people. In an interview with the pasha he frankly tells him that 'the persons the villagers had to dread most were the officials and the lower grades of officers, who are the real oppressors and robbers.'

The same gentleman, in a despatch dated December 24, 1876, reports a large fire in the city of Van which occasioned the loss of from 800 to 1,000 buildings. We all know the rigorous measures taken by civilised people, on the occasion of a fire, against plunderers. In Turkey they know better than this—the Government officers share with the plunderers. Mr. Zohrab, writing on this occasion, says :

The Christians complain bitterly of the conduct of the Government officials and soldiers, whom they accuse of having directed their efforts, while the fire lasted, to breaking open, carrying off, and concealing property, instead of endeavouring to arrest the flames. In another despatch the consul calls on the Governor-General to ask what steps he intended to take for the protection of the Christians of Van. His Excellency reads a letter from Nazim Bey, who had just arrived in Van, reporting that the fire was accidental; that the soldiers were not at all implicated; that there had been considerable pillaging, but the greater portion of the stolen property had been recovered; that the Christians had evidently been the most active in pillaging, as the greater part of the lost property was found in their possession ; that the fire had destroyed about 500 shops and stores, about half belonging to the Mussulmans, who were as great sufferers as the Christians.

The consul at once contradicted every detail of the report of Nazim Bey from information received from disinterested persons who had personally taken evidence, and had visited the scene of the conflagration;' and he remarked: 'If Nazim Bey considered the duty laid

light that a mere glance was sufficient for him to come to

a

a

on him