While allowing due praise to the accomplishments and sagacity of our dramatic critics, I confess to looking with some distrust and alarm at a sort of “new criticism” which, like the so-called “new humour,” has developed in these latter days. This amounts to the assumption of an aggressive personality—there is a constant manifestation, not of the play or performers criticised, but of the writer’s own thoughts and opinions. It seems to be the fashion for a critic to devote his article to Mr. ——, an opposing critic, as though the public attached any importance to the opinions these gentlemen held of each other. The vanity thus unconsciously displayed is often ludicrous enough. The instances, however, are fortunately rare. Produced on December 29, the play caused considerable excitement among Shakespearian students and “constant readers”; and Miss Terry’s reading—or rather the appearance of Miss Terry in the part—produced much vehement controversy. We had “The Real Macbeth” in the _Daily Telegraph_, with the usual “old playgoers” who had seen Mrs. Charles Kean. I fancy there were but three or four persons who were able to compare the performance of Miss Terry with that of Mrs. Siddons—about sixty years before.[48] Banquo’s ghost has always been a difficulty in every presentation of the play; all the modern apparitions and phantasmagorian effects neutralize or destroy themselves. The powerful light behind exhibits the figure through the gauzes, but to procure this effect the lights in front must be lowered or darkened. This gives notice in clumsy fashion of what is coming, and prepares us for the ghost. “New and original” readings rarely seem acceptable, and, indeed, are scarcely ever welcomed by the public, who have their old favourite lines to which they are well accustomed. We never hear one of these novelties without an effect being left as of something “purely fantastical,” as Elia has it, and invariably they seem unacceptable and forced, producing surprise rather than pleasure. Irving rarely introduces these changes. A curious one in ‘Macbeth’ was the alteration of a line— “She should have died hereafter,” into “She would have died hereafter.” That is a sort of careless dismissal of his wife’s death, as something that must have occurred, according to the common lot.