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 Genetic and Chromosomal
Abnormalities 36
Dominant or Recessive Inheritance of
Defects 36
Sex-Linked Inheritance of Defects 38
Chromosomal Abnormalities 38
Genetic Counseling and Testing 39
WHAT DO YOU DO? Genetic Counselor 39
Studying the Influence of Heredity and
Environment 40
Measuring Heritability 40
How Heredity and Environment Work Together 41
Reaction Range and Canalization 41
Genotype–Environment Interaction 42
Genotype–Environment Correlation 42
What Makes Siblings So Different? 42

Characteristics Influenced by Heredity

and Environment 43
Physical and Physiological Traits 43
Intelligence 43
Temperament and Personality 44
Psychopathology 44
WHAT DO YOU DO? Nutritionist 55

3 PREGNANCY
CHAPTER

Malnutrition 55
Physical Activity and Strenuous Work 56

AND PRENATAL Maternal Illnesses 56

Maternal Anxiety and Stress 57
DEVELOPMENT 48 Maternal Age 57
WHAT DO YOU DO? Counselor 57
Stages of Prenatal Development 50 Outside Environmental Hazards 58
Principles of Growth 50 Drug Intake 58
The Germinal Stage 51 Medical Drugs 58
The Embryonic Stage 51 Alcohol 58
Nicotine 59
The Fetal Stage 53
Caffeine 59
Influences on Prenatal Marijuana, Cocaine, and Methamphetamine 60
Development 54 Paternal Factors 60
Maternal Factors 54 Monitoring Prenatal Development 60
Nutrition and Maternal Weight 54 WHAT DO YOU DO? Ultrasound Technician or
Sonographer 60
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Disparities in
Prenatal Care 61

4 BIRTH AND THE

CHAPTER

NEWBORN 64
How Childbirth Has Changed 66
The Birth Process 67
Stages of Childbirth 67
WHAT DO YOU DO? Labor and Delivery Nurse 67

Contents • vii
 5 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Labor and Delivery Options 68

CHAPTER
Electronic Fetal Monitoring 68
Vaginal versus Cesarean Delivery 68
Medicated versus Nonmedicated Delivery 69 AND HEALTH, 0 TO 3 84
WHAT DO YOU DO? Anesthesiologist 70
Early Growth and Physical
The Newborn Baby 70 Development 86
Size and Appearance 70 Principles of Early Growth and Physical
WHAT DO YOU DO? Doula 70 Development 86
Reflexes 71 Physical Growth 86
Body Systems 72 Nutrition 86
Medical and Behavioral Assessment 72 Breast-feeding 87
The Apgar Scale 72 Overweight in Infancy 88
The Brazelton Scale 73
Neonatal Screening for Medical Conditions 73 The Brain and Reflex Behavior 88
States of Arousal and Activity Levels 74 Building the Brain 88
Early Reflexes 89
Birth Complications and Their Brain Plasticity 89
Aftermath 75
Low Birth Weight 75 Early Sensory Capacities 91
Immediate Treatment and Outcomes 76 Touch and Pain 91
Long-Term Outcomes 77 Smell and Taste 91
Postmaturity 77 Hearing 91
Stillbirth 77 Sight 92
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Infant Care: WHAT DO YOU DO? Audiologist 92
A Cross-Cultural View 78 Motor Development 92
Newborns and Milestones 92
Parents 78 WHAT DO YOU DO? Occupational Therapist 93
Childbirth and Bonding 78 Head Control 93
The Mother-Infant Hand Control 93
Bond 79 Locomotion 94
The Father’s Role 79 WHAT DO YOU DO? Physical Therapist 94
How Parenthood Motor Development and Perception 94
Affects Marital Theories of Motor Development 95
Satisfaction 80 Ecological Theory of Perception 95
Dynamic Systems Theory 95

Health 96
Infant Mortality 96
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Infant Mortality 97
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome 97
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Sleep
Customs 98
Injuries 98
Immunizations 98
Child Maltreatment 99
Maltreatment in Infancy and Toddlerhood 100
Contributing Factors 100
Helping Families in Trouble 100
Long-Term Effects of
Maltreatment 101

viii • Contents
 6 COGNITIVE
CHAPTER
DEVELOPMENT, 0 TO 3 106
Behaviorist Approach: Basic Mechanics of
Learning 108
Classical Conditioning 108
Operant Conditioning 108
Psychometric
Approach:
Developmental
and Intelligence
Testing 108
Testing Infants and Toddlers 109
WHAT DO YOU DO? Early
Intervention Specialist 109
Assessing the Impact of the Home
Environment 109
Early Intervention 109
Piagetian Approach: The
Sensorimotor Stage 110
Sensorimotor Substages 111
Object Concept 112
Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor
Stage 112
Information-Processing Approach:
WHAT DO YOU DO? Speech Pathologist 120
Perceptions and Representations 113 First Sentences 120
Habituation 113 PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Inventing Sign
Visual Processing Abilities 113 Language 121
Information Processing as a Predictor of Characteristics of Early Speech 121
Intelligence 114 Influences on Language Development 121
Information Processing and the Development of Brain Development 121
Piagetian Abilities 114
Social Interaction: The Role of Parents and
Categorization 114 Caregivers 122
Causality 115 Use of Child-Directed Speech 123
Object Permanence 115 Preparing for Literacy 123
Number 116

7 PSYCHOSOCIAL
CHAPTER

Cognitive Neuroscience Approach: The

Brain’s Cognitive Structures 116
Social-Contextual Approach: Learning
DEVELOPMENT, 0 TO 3 128
from Caregivers 116 Emotions and Temperament 130
Language Development 117 Emotions 130
Sequence of Early Language Development 118 Early Emotional Responses 130
Crying 130
Early Vocalization 118
Smiling and Laughing 130
Perceiving Language Sounds and Structure 119
Self-Conscious Emotions 131
Gestures 119
Altruistic Helping and Empathy 131
First Words 120

Contents • ix
 Self-Conscious Emotions 131 Sleepwalking and Sleeptalking 151
Altruistic Helping and Empathy 131 Nightmares 151
Shared Intentionality and Collaborative Activity 132 Bed-Wetting 152
Temperament 132
Temperament Patterns 132
Motor Development 152
Stability of Temperament 133 Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills 152
Goodness of Fit 133
Handedness 153
Biological Basis of Temperament 134 Health and Safety 154
Attachment 134 Obesity 154
Developing Trust 134 Undernutrition 155
Developing Attachments 134 PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Surviving the First
Five Years of Life 155
Attachment Patterns 135
Food Allergies 156
How Attachment Is Established 136
Oral Health 156
The Role of Temperament in Attachment 136
WHAT DO YOU DO? Dentist 157
WHAT DO YOU DO? Social Worker 136
Accidental Injuries and Deaths 157
Stranger and Separation Anxiety 137
Environmental Influences on Health 158
Long-Term Effects of Attachment 137
Socioeconomic Status 158
Transmission of Attachment Patterns 137
Race/Ethnicity 159
Mutual Regulation 137
Homelessness 159
Measuring Mutual Regulation 138
Exposure to Smoking, Air Pollution, Pesticides, and
Social Referencing 138
Lead 160
The Developing Self 138
9 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER

The Emerging Sense of Self 138

Developing Autonomy 139
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Struggles with
Toddlers 140
IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
Socialization 140 164
Developing Self-Regulation 140
Developing Conscience 141 Piagetian Approach: The Preoperational
Factors in the Success of Socialization 141 Child 166
Gender 141 Advances of Preoperational Thought 166
Sex and Gender Differences in Infants and The Symbolic Function 166
Toddlers 141 Objects Space 166
How Parents Shape Gender Differences 142 Causality 166
Identities and Categorization 166
Relationships with Other Children 142 Number 166
Siblings 142 Preoperational Thought 167
WHAT DO YOU DO? Child Psychologist 143 Egocentrism 167
Peers 143 Conservation 168

8 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER

AND HEALTH IN EARLY

CHILDHOOD 148
Physical Growth 150
Height and Weight 150
The Brain 150
Sleep 150
Sleep Disturbances 151
Night Terrors 151

x • Contents
 10PSYCHOSOCIAL

CHAPTER
DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD 182
The Developing Self 184
The Self-Concept and Self-Definition 184
Changes in Self-Definition 184
Cultural Differences in Self-Definition 184
Self-Esteem 184
Developmental Changes in Self-Esteem 184
Contingent Self-Esteem 185
Theory of Mind 168 Understanding and Regulating Emotions 185
Knowledge about Thinking and Mental States 169 Understanding Conflicting Emotions 185
False Beliefs 169 Understanding the Social Emotions 186
Distinguishing between Fantasy and Reality 169
Influences on Individual Differences in Theory-of-Mind Gender 186
Development 170 Gender Differences 186
WHAT DO YOU DO? Pediatric Neurologist 170 Perspectives on Gender Development 187
Biological Approach 187
Information-Processing Approach: Evolutionary Developmental Approach 188
Memory Development 170 Psychoanalytic Approach 189
Basic Processes and Capacities 170 Cognitive Approaches 189
Childhood Memory 172 Kohlberg’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory 189
Gender-Schema Theory 189
Psychometric and Vygotskian Approaches: Social Learning Approach 190
Intelligence 172 Family Influences 191
Traditional Psychometric Measures 172 Peer Influences 191
Influences on Measured Intelligence 173 Cultural Influences. 191
Measurement and Teaching Based on Vygotsky’s Play 191
Theory 173
Cognitive Levels of Play 192
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Paths to
The Social Dimension of Play 192
Learning 174
WHAT DO YOU DO? Licensed Clinical Professional
Language Development 174 Counselor (LCPC) 193
Areas of Language Development 174 How Gender Influences Play 193
Vocabulary 174 How Culture Influences Play 193
Grammar and Syntax 174
Parenting 194
Pragmatics and Social Speech 175
Forms of Discipline 194
Delayed Language Development 175
Reinforcement and Punishment 194
Preparation for Literacy 176
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Cross-Cultural
Early Childhood Education 176 Differences in Corporal Punishment 195
Types of Preschools 176 Inductive Reasoning, Power Assertion, and Withdrawal
WHAT DO YOU DO? Preschool Teacher 177 of Love 195
Montessori and Reggio Emilia Methods 177 Parenting Styles 196
Project Head Start 177 Diana Baumrind and the Effectiveness of Authoritative
Universal Preschool 178 Parenting 196
Kindergarten 178 Support and Criticisms of Baumrind’s Model 197
Cultural Differences in Parenting Styles 197

Contents • xi
 Motor Development and Physical
Play 207
Recess 207
WHAT DO YOU DO? School Nurse 207
Organized Sports 207
Health and Safety 208
Overweight 208
Causes of Overweight 208
Impact of Overweight 209
Prevention and Treatment of Overweight 209
Chronic Medical Conditions 209
Asthma 209
Diabetes 210
Childhood Hypertension 210
Stuttering 210
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY How Cultural
Attitudes Affect Health Care 211
Factors in Children’s Health 211
WHAT DO YOU DO? Nurse Practitioner (NP) 211
Accidental Injuries 211
Mental Health 212
Disruptive Conduct Disorders 212
School Phobia and Other Anxiety Disorders 212
Childhood Depression 213
Treatment Techniques 214

12 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER

IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD 218

Piagetian Approach: The Concrete
Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior 197 Operational Child 220
Prosocial Behavior 197 Spatial Relationships 220
Aggressive Behavior 197 Categorization 220
Gender Differences in Aggression 198 Inductive and Deductive Reasoning 220
WHAT DO YOU DO? Behavioral Specialist 198 Conservation 221
Influences on Aggression 198 Number and Mathematics 221

11 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT Information-Processing Approach:

CHAPTER

Attention, Memory, and Planning 222

AND HEALTH IN MIDDLE Influences on the Development of Executive
Function 222
CHILDHOOD 202 Selective Attention 222
Working Memory 222
Physical Development 204 Metamemory 223
Height and Weight 204
Tooth Development and Dental Care 204
Psychometric Approach: Assessment
Brain Development 205 of Intelligence 223
Measuring Intelligence 223
Nutrition and Sleep 205 The IQ Controversy 223
Nutritional Needs 206
Sleep Patterns and Problems 206

xii • Contents
Is There More than One Intelligence? 224 Educating Children with Special Needs 231
Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences 224 Second-Language Learning 231
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence 224 Educating Children with Disabilities 231
Influences on Intelligence 225 Intellectual Disability 232
Genes and Brain Development 225 Overview of Learning Disabilities 232
Influences of Race/Ethnicity on IQ 225 Dyslexia 232
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Culture and IQ 226 WHAT DO YOU DO? Paraprofessional 232
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder 233
Language and Literacy 226 Gifted Children 234
Vocabulary, Grammar, and Syntax 226 Identifying Gifted Children 234
Pragmatics 227 Causes of Giftedness 234
Educating Gifted Children 234
Literacy 227
Defining and Measuring Creativity 234
Reading and Writing 227

13 PSYCHOSOCIAL

CHAPTER
The Child in School 228
Social and Home Influences on Academic
Achievement 228 DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE
Self-Efficacy Beliefs 228
Gender 228
CHILDHOOD 238
Parenting Practices 229 The Developing Self 240
Socioeconomic Status 229 Self-Concept Development: Representational
Peer Acceptance 229 Systems 240
WHAT DO YOU DO? Elementary Teacher 229 Self-Esteem 240
Classroom and School System Influences Emotional Growth 240
on Academic Achievement 229
Educational Reform 229 The Child in the Family 241
Class Size 230 Family Atmosphere 241
Alternative Educational Models 230 Parenting: Emerging Control of Behavior 242
Computer
p and Internet Use 231 Employed
p y Mothers 242

Contents
Con
C
Co
on
onte
te
ennttss • x
xiii
iiii
ii
iiii
 WHAT DO YOU DO? After-School Activity PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY The Globalization of
Director 243 Adolescence 258
Poverty and Economic Stress 243
Family Structure 244
Puberty 259
Divorced Parents 244 How Puberty Begins: Hormonal Changes 259
Adjusting to Divorce 244 Timing, Signs, and Sequence of Puberty and Sexual
Custody, Visitation, and Co-parenting 245 Maturity 260
WHAT DO YOU DO? Forensic Psychologist 245 Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics 260
Long-Term Effects of Divorce 245 Signs of Puberty 260
One-Parent Families 245 The Adolescent Growth Spurt 260
Cohabiting Families 246 Signs of Sexual Maturity 261
Stepfamilies 246 Influences on Timing of Puberty 261
Gay or Lesbian Parents 246 Implications of Early and Late Maturation 262
Adoptive Families 247
The Brain 262
Sibling Relationships 248
The Frontal Cortex 263
The Child in the Peer Group 248 Environmental Influences 263
Positive and Negative Effects of Peer Relations 248
Physical and Mental Health 263
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Grandparenting 249
Physical Activity 263
Gender Differences in Peer-Group Relationships 249
Sleep Needs and Problems 264
Popularity 249
WHAT DO YOU DO? Physical Education Teacher 264
Friendship 250
Nutrition and Eating Disorders 265
Aggression and Bullying 251
Obesity 265
Influence of Media on Aggression 252
Body Image and Eating Disorders 265
Bullies and Victims 252 Anorexia Nervosa 266

14 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER

Bulimia Nervosa 266

Treatment and Outcomes of Eating Disorders 266
Drug Use 266
AND HEALTH IN Trends in Drug Use 267
ADOLESCENCE 256 Alcohol 267
WHAT DO YOU DO? Alcohol and Drug
Adolescence 258 Counselor 267
Marijuana 268
Adolescence as a Social Construction 258
A Time of Opportunities and Risks 258 Tobacco 268
Onset of Drug Use 268
Depression 268
Death 269
Deaths from Motor Accidents 269
Firearm-Related Deaths 270
Suicide 270

15COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER

IN ADOLESCENCE 274
Cognitive Development 276
Piaget’s Stage of Formal Operations 276
Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning 276
PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Culture and
Cognition 277
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory 277
Immature Characteristics of Adolescent
Thought 278

xiv • Contents
 Language Development 279 Sexual Behavior 297
Changes in Information Processing in Early Sexual Activity and Risk-Taking 297
Adolescence 279 Non-Intercourse Sexual Behavior 297
Structural Change 279 Use of Contraceptives 298
Functional Change 280 Sex Education 298
Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) 298
Moral Development 280
Human Papiloma Virus (HPV) 299
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Reasoning 280
Chlamydia, Gonorreah, Genital Herpes, and
Kohlberg’s Levels and Stages 280 Trichomoniasis 299
Evaluating Kohlberg’s Theory 281 Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) 299
Gilligan’s Theory: An Ethic of Care 283 Teenage Pregnancy and Childbearing 299
Prosocial Behavior and Volunteer Activity 283
WHAT DO YOU DO? Youth Minister 283 Relationships with Family and Peers 300
Is Adolescent Rebellion a Myth? 300
Educational and Vocational Issues 283 PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Culture and
Influences on School Achievement 284 Discretionary Time 301
Student Motivation and Self-Efficacy 284 WHAT DO YOU DO? Art Therapist 301
Gender 284 Adolescents and Parents 301
Technology 285 Individuation and Family Conflict 301
Parenting Practices, Ethnicity, and Peer Influence 285 Parenting Styles 302
Importance of SES and Related Family Parental Monitoring and Adolescents’ Self-
Characteristics 286 Disclosure 302
The School 286 Family Structure and Family Atmosphere 302
Dropping Out of High School 287 Mothers’ Employment and Economic Stress 303
Preparing for Higher Education or Vocations 287 Adolescents and Siblings 303
Influences on Students’ Aspirations 287 Peers and Friends 303
WHAT DO YOU DO? College Counselor 288 Friendships 304
Guiding Students Not Bound for College 288 Social Consequences of Online Communication 304
Adolescents in the Workplace 288 Romantic Relationships 305

16 PSYCHOSOCIAL
Dating Violence 305
CHAPTER

Antisocial Behavior and Juvenile

DEVELOPMENT IN Delinquency 306
Biological Influences 306
ADOLESCENCE 292 WHAT DO YOU DO? Youth Correctional
Counselor 306
The Search for Identity Family Influences 306
Formation 294 Environmental Influences 307
Erikson: Identity versus Identity Preventing and Treating
Confusion 294 Delinquency 307
Marcia: Identity Status—Crisis and
Commitment 294 Emerging Adulthood 307
Gender Differences in Identity
Formation 295
Ethnic Factors in Identity
Formation 295
Sexuality 295
Sexual Orientation and
Identity 296
Origins of Sexual
Orientation 296
Homosexual and Bisexual Identity
Development 297

Contents • xv
 1
CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION TO
CHILD DEVELOP
 4 The Study of Child Development

4 Influences on Development

Issues in Development

WHAT’S TO COME
10

12 Theories of Child Development

20 Research Methods

In 1877, a young father sat gazing at his newborn son

and, pen in hand, took careful notes on his child’s behav-
iors. “During the first seven days various reflex actions,
namely sneezing, hiccupping, yawning, stretching, and of
course sucking and screaming, were well performed by
my infant,” the proud new father wrote. “On the seventh
day, I touched the naked sole of his foot with a bit of
paper, and he jerked it away, curling at the same time his
toes, like a much older child when tickled. The perfec-
tion of these reflex movements shows that the extreme
imperfection of the voluntary ones is not due to the
state of the muscles or of the coordinating centres, but
to that of the seat of the will.”
The young Charles Darwin who theorized about
his son’s motor capacities was one of the first members
of the field of child development. Although modern-day
researchers are more likely to use electrodes to view
the pattern of brain activation in a baby, show them
computerized scenarios of imaginary events, or analyze
microexpressions on a videotape, they share with Dar-
win an interest in the changes that emerge in childhood
with extraordinary speed and organization. In this chap-
ter, we outline the basics of the field of child develop-
ment. We discuss how development is conceptualized,
some major influences on development, and recurrent
issues in the field. Last, we address the major theoreti-
cal perspectives and touch on how scientific data are
collected.

MENT 3
 multiple perspectives. Just as a fly caught on one thread
The Study of Child of a web sends reverberations across the entire structure,
Development development in one area sends ripples through all other
areas. For example, a child with frequent ear infections
The field of child development focuses on the scientific may develop language more slowly than a child without
study of systematic processes of change and stability in this physical problem, and the failure to develop language
human children. Developmental scientists look at ways in may lead to feelings of frustration because of the difficulty
which children change from conception through adoles- in communicating with others. Thus, scholars of child
cence and at characteristics that remain fairly stable. The development draw collaboratively from a wide range of
study of child development is part of the broader study of disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, sociology,
human development, which covers the entire human life anthropology, biology, genetics, family science, educa-
span from conception to death, and is organized around tion, history, and medicine. CHILD includes findings from
periods and domains of development. research in all these fields.
child development The
scientific study of processes
of change and stability in PERIODS OF DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT
human children. DEVELOPMENT Developmental scientists study three broad domains, or
social construction Con- Division of the life span into areas, of the self—physical, cognitive, and psychosocial—
cept about the nature of
reality based on societally
periods of development is a in the different periods of development. Physical devel-
shared perceptions or social construction: a concept opment includes growth of the body and brain, sensory
assumptions. or practice that is an invention capacities, motor skills, and health. Cognitive develop-
physical development of a particular culture or soci- ment includes learning, attention, memory, language,
Growth of body and brain, ety. In CHILD, we follow a thinking, reasoning, and creativity. Psychosocial develop-
including biological and physi- sequence of five periods gener- ment includes emotions, personality, and social relation-
ological patterns of change ally accepted in Western indus- ships. How and what behaviors are studied may reflect a
in sensory capacities, motor
skills, and health.
trial societies. After examining researcher’s stand on basic issues in the field. CHILD is
the crucial changes that occur organized so each domain is considered within each period.
cognitive development
Pattern of change in mental
in the first period, before birth,
abilities, such as learning, we trace physical, cognitive,
and psychosocial develop-
attention, memory, language,
thinking, reasoning, and ment through infancy, toddler- Influences on Development
creativity. hood, early childhood, middle “I feel sure, from what I have seen with my own infants,
psychosocial development childhood, and adolescence that the period of development of the several faculties will
Pattern of change in emo- (Table 1.1). be found to differ considerably in different infants,” wrote
tions, personality, and social
relationships.
Child development is a Darwin. He was referring to what are now known as indi-
complex and tangled spider vidual differences—that is, differences among children
individual differences
Differences among children
web of multiple influences, and in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes.
in characteristics, influences, understanding these influences Children differ in a range of areas, from gender to body build
or developmental outcomes. requires looking at them from to energy level to personality. Heredity, environment, matu-
ration, the contexts of their lives, and norma-
tive and nonnormative influences can impact
how they develop. The timing of these vari-
W H AT D O Y O U DO? ables is also a factor in development.
Early Childhood Education Teacher
Early childhood education teachers support
children’s early development in the classroom,
HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT,
focusing on infancy and toddlerhood. These AND MATURATION
teachers plan classrooms that encourage exploration Scientists have found ways to measure the
and learning, lead developmentally appropriate activities, contributions of heredity, or nature, and
and guide their students. Early childhood education teachers environment, or nurture, to the develop-
may work in private or public schools. Often only an associate’s degree
ment of specific traits within a population.
is required to work in private settings, though lead teachers typically
have at least a bachelor’s degree. In public schools, early childhood
For example, even though heredity strongly
education teachers must meet the licensure requirements to teach affects intelligence, environmental factors
preschool through third grade of the particular state, which generally such as parental stimulation, education, and
include a bachelor’s degree, practicum or internship, and passage of peer influences also affect it. Contemporary
state exams. To learn more about what an early childhood teacher theorists and researchers are increasingly
does, visit www.naeyc.org. interested in explaining how nature and

4 • CHILD
 TABLE 1.1 Five Periods of Child Development
Psychosocial
Age Period Physical Developments Cognitive Developments Developments

Prenatal Period ■ Conception occurs by ■ Abilities to learn and ■ Fetus responds to mother’s
(conception to birth) normal fertilization or remember and to voice and develops a
other means. The genetic respond to sensory preference for it.
endowment interacts stimuli are developing.
with environmental
influences from the start.
■ Basic body structures
and organs form; brain
growth spurt begins.
Physical growth is the most
rapid in the life span.
■ Vulnerability to
environmental
influences is great.
Infancy and ■ All senses and body systems ■ Ability to learn and ability ■ Attachment to parents
Toddlerhoodd operate at birth to varying to remember are present, and others forms.
(birth to
age 3)
degrees. The brain grows in even in the early weeks. ■ Self-awareness develops.
complexity and influence. ■ Use of symbols and ability ■ Shift from dependence
■ Physical growth and to solve problems develop to autonomy begins.
development of motor by end of 2nd year.
■ Interest in other
skills are rapid. ■ Comprehension and use of children increases.
language develop rapidly.
■ Growth is steady; ■ Thinking is somewhat ■ Self-concept and
appearance becomes more egocentric, but understanding of emotions
slender and proportions understanding become more complex;
Early
more adultlike. of other people’s self-esteem is global.
Childhood
(ages 3 to 6) ■ Appetite diminishes, perspectives grows. ■ Independence, initiative,
and sleep problems ■ Cognitive immaturity and self-control increase.
are common. results in some illogical ■ Gender identity develops.
■ Handedness appears; fine ideas about the world.
■ Play becomes more
and gross motor skills ■ Memory and language imaginative, more elaborate,
and strength improve. improve. and usually more social.
■ Intelligence becomes ■ Altruism, aggression, and
more predictable. fearfulness are common.
■ Preschool experience is ■ Family is still the focus of
common, and kindergarten social life, but other children
experience is more so. become more important.
Middle ■ Growth slows. ■ Egocentrism diminishes. ■ Self-concept becomes
Childhood
(ages 6 to 11)
■ Strength and athletic Children begin to think more complex, affecting
skills improve. logically but concretely. self-esteem.
■ Respiratory illnesses are ■ Memory and language ■ Coregulation reflects
common, but health is skills increase. gradual shift in control
generally better than at ■ Cognitive gains permit from parents to child.
any other time in life span. children to benefit ■ Peers assume greater
from formal schooling. importance.
Some children show
special educational
needs and strengths.
• Physical growth and ■ Ability to think abstractly ■ Search for identity,
other changes are and use scientific including sexual identity,
rapid and profound. reasoning develops. becomes central.
Adolescence
(ages 11 to
• Reproductive ■ Immature thinking ■ Relationships with parents
maturity occurs. persists in some attitudes are generally good.
about 20)
• Major health risks arise and behaviors. ■ Peer group may
from behavioral issues, ■ Education focuses exert a positive or
such as eating disorders on preparation for negative influence.
and drug abuse. college or vocation.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Child Development • 5

maturation Unfolding of a nurture work together rather than in
universal natural sequence arguing about which factor is more
of physical and behavioral
important.
changes.
Many typical changes of infancy
nuclear family Two-
and early childhood, such as the
generational household unit
consisting of one or two emergence of the abilities to walk
parents and their biological and talk, are tied to maturation of
children, adopted children, or the body and brain—the unfolding
stepchildren. of a universal, natural sequence of
extended family Multigen- physical changes and behavior pat-
erational kinship network of terns. These maturational processes,
parents, children, and other
which are seen most clearly in the
relatives, sometimes living
together in an extended- early years, act in concert with the
family household. influences of heredity and environ-
ment. As children grow into adoles-
cents and adults, individual differences in innate personal
characteristics (heredity) and life experience (environment)
play an increasing role as they adapt to the internal and
external conditions.

CONTEXTS OF DEVELOPMENT
In Victorian England, fathers were generally remote figures
and did not typically take part in child care activities. How-
ever, Charles Darwin was different. By all accounts he was Charles Darwin with his oldest son, William, in 1842.
a loving and involved father. His daughter described him as
“the most delightful play-fellow, and the most perfect sym-
pathizer.” Modern-day fathers in the United States show a
wider range of involvement; some fathers are completely
absent from family life, some are closely involved with Family
care giving, and some even take on the role of a stay-at- What type of family did you grow up in? If you lived with
home parent. two parents, you were part of a nuclear family. The nuclear
For a child, the immediate context normally is the family is a household unit generally consisting of one or
family; the family in turn is subject to the wider and two parents and their children, whether biological, adopted,
ever-changing influences of neighborhood, community, or stepchildren. Historically, the two-parent nuclear family
and society. How might the family experiences of Dar- has been the most common family unit in the United States
win’s children have shaped them? And how would the and other Western societies. However, the modern family
wider societal norms interact with their immediate family structure is becoming increasingly diverse. We now see
environment? families of single or divorced parents, households that may
include a stepparent and stepsiblings or a parent’s live-in
partner, and an increasing number of unmarried parents and
gay and lesbian households with children (Pew Research
Center, 2010).
In Asia, Africa, and Latin America and among some
U.S. families that trace their lineage to those countries, the
extended family—a multigenerational kinship network
of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more distant
relatives—is the traditional family form (Johnson et al.,
2003). Today the extended-family household is becoming
slightly less typical in some developing countries due to
industrialization and migration to urban centers (Kin-
sella & Phillips, 2005). In the United States, how-
ever, economic pressures, housing shortages, and
out-of-wedlock childbearing have helped to fuel
a trend toward three- and even four-generational
family households. In 2008, more than 49 million
Americans lived in a multigenerational house-
hold, a number that has been steadily increasing

6 • CHILD
since the low reached in the early 1980s (Pew Research Ethnic and cultural patterns
culture A society’s or
Center, 2010). affect child development by their group’s total way of life,
influence on the composition of a including customs, traditions,
Culture, Ethnicity, and Race household, its economic and social beliefs, values, language,
Culture, ethnicity, and race can influence child develop- resources, the way its members act and physical products—all
ment. Culture refers to a society’s or group’s total way toward one another, the foods they learned behavior passed on
from adults to children.
of life, including customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, eat, the games children play, the
beliefs, values, language, and physical products, from tools way they learn, how well they do ethnic group A group
united by ancestry, race,
to artworks—all the behavior and attitudes that are learned, in school, the occupations adults religion, language, or national
shared, and transmitted among members of a social group. engage in, and the way family origin that contributes to a
Culture is constantly changing, often through contact with members think about and perceive sense of shared identity.
other cultures. Today, computers and telecommunications the world. In time, however, immi-
enhance cultural contact among adults and children alike; grants tend to learn the language, customs, and attitudes
e-mail and social networking sites offer almost immediate needed to get along in the dominant culture, although
communication across the globe. many preserve some of their unique cultural practices
An ethnic group consists of people united by a dis- and values (Johnson et al., 2003). Perspectives on Diver-
tinctive culture, ancestry, religion, language, or national sity explores characteristics of immigrant families in the
origin, all of which contribute to a sense of shared identity United States.
and shared attitudes, beliefs, and values. Within large soci- All humans belong to the same taxonomic
eties, ethnic groups may also be characterized by minority classification—Homo sapiens. However, there are impor-
status. Ethnic minorities are those ethnic groups that have tant differences in outward appearance of people from
national or cultural traditions different from the majority different geographical regions—note, for instance, the
of the population, and they are often affected by preju- different skin color of people from northern European
dice and discrimination. By 2050, due to rising immigra- countries and from Africa. These salient differences have
tion and high birthrates among immigrant families, ethnic led people to speak of individuals as being of different
minorities in the United States—roughly one-third of the races. However, there is no clear scientific consensus on
population in 2008—are expected to become the major- the definition of race, and it is impossible to measure reli-
ity (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008a; Figure 1.1a and 1.1b). ably (Bonham, Warshauer-Baker, & Collins, 2005; Stern-
Geographic dispersion and adaptation to local conditions berg, Grigorenko, &Kidd, 2005). Human genetic variation
together with a steady rise in interracial marriages—more occurs along a broad continuum, and 90 percent of such
than 5 percent of U.S. marriages in 2000 (Lee & Edmon- variation occurs within rather than among socially defined
ston, 2005)—have produced a wide variety of physical and races (Ossorio & Duster, 2005). In other words, the differ-
cultural characteristics within populations (Smedley & ent between two people on the opposite ends of a distribu-
Smedley, 2005). According to a 2007 estimate, 1.6 percent tion within one race are larger than the differences between
of the U.S. population is of two or more races (Central two people of different races. Nevertheless, race as a social
Intelligence Agency, 2008). category clearly remains a factor in research because it

United States Ethnic Minority Population Projections: 2008–2050

250
Ages 17 and under
Non-Hispanic white
200

Other
Millions

150
44%
100 62%
50

0
2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2008 2050
Year
(a) Population projections (b) Percent minority children

FIGURE 1.1 (a) According to Census Bureau projections, racial/ethnic minorities will reach 54 percent of the U.S. population, exceeding the proportion
of non-Hispanic white people, by 2050. (b) Also by 2050, “minority” children under age 18 are expected to make up 62 percent of the child population.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2008a.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Child Development • 7

 Perspectives
on Diversity
CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
The United States has always been a nation of immi- from Mexico (30 percent) than from any other
grants and ethnic groups, but the primary ethnic ori- country (www.census.gov). An estimated 5 million
gins of the immigrant population have shifted from Mexican-born children or children of Mexican-born
Europe and Canada to Latin America, the Carib- parents live in the United States. Nearly half of all
bean, Asia, and Africa. In 2009, about 80 percent children in immigrant families (47.9 percent) live in
of foreign-born families were from countries in Latin poverty (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2007);
America and Asia (Greico & Trevalyan, 2010). Nearly many do not have health insurance despite being
one-fourth (24 percent) of U.S. children lived in immi- eligible and despite the fact that most of the parents
grant families in 2007. Faster growing than any work hard to support their families.
other group of children in the country, children in As immigration fuels dramatic changes in the
immigrant families are the leading edge of the com- United States population, developmental issues
ing shift of racial and ethnic minorities to majority affecting children in immigrant families will become
status. Whereas earlier waves of immigrants were increasingly important areas of research.
almost entirely white and Christian, more than one-
third (37 percent) of children in immigrant families Source: Unless otherwise cited, the source for this box is
have nonwhite parents. More immigrants come Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney (2008).

makes a difference in “how individuals are treated, where Poverty is stressful and can damage children and fami-
they live, their employment opportunities, the quality of lies’ physical, cognitive, and psychosocial well-being. Poor
their health care, and whether [they] can fully participate” children are more likely than other children to go hungry;
in their society (Smedley & Smedley, 2005, p. 23). to have frequent illnesses; to lack access to health care; to
experience accidents, violence, and family conflict; and to
show emotional or behavioral problems. Their cognitive
Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood potential and school performance suffer as well (Children
A family’s socioeconomic status (SES) is based on fam- in North America Project, 2008; Children’s Defense Fund,
ily income, and the educational and occupational levels of 2008a; Wadsworth & Santiago, 2008). The harm poverty
the adults in the household. Throughout Child, we examine does is often indirect through its impact on parents’ emo-
many studies that relate SES to developmental processes, tional state and parenting practices and on the home envi-
such as mothers’ verbal interactions with their children, and ronment they create. Threats to well-being multiply if, as
to developmental outcomes, such as health and cognitive often happens, several risk factors, conditions that increase
performance. SES affects these processes and outcomes the likelihood of a negative outcome, are present.
indirectly through the kinds of homes and neighborhoods The composition of a neighborhood affects the way
people live in and the quality of nutrition, medical care, and children develop. Living in a neighborhood with large
schooling available to them. numbers of poor people has been shown to impact physi-
Child poverty in the United States has increased since cal health, well-being, and school readiness (Cushon, Vu,
the 1990s (Figure 1.2). In the United States, about 1 in 3 Janzen & Muhajarine, 2011). Positive development can
black children and more than 1 in 4 occur despite serious risk factors, however (Kim-Cohen,
socioeconomic status Latino children are poor, compared to Moffitt, Caspi, & Taylor, 2004). Consider television star
(SES) Combination of 1 in 10 white children. Children liv- Oprah Winfrey, singer/songwriter Shania Twain, musician/
economic and social factors, ing with single parents or stepparents producer Jay-Z, singer Justin Bieber, and former U.S. pres-
that describe an individual or
or with nonparental caregivers, such ident Bill Clinton, all of whom grew up in poverty.
family, including income,
education, and occupation. as grandparents, and those with less
educated parents are especially likely
risk factors Conditions
that increase the likelihood to be poor (Children’s Defense Fund, The Historical Context
of a negative developmental 2008a, 2008b; Children in North At one time developmental scientists paid little attention to
outcome. America Project, 2008). historical context—the time in which people live. Then, as

8 • CHILD
 30 NORMATIVE
AND NONNORMATIVE
25
Child Poverty Rates—United States: INFLUENCES
Percent poor 1959–2007 To understand similarities and differences
in development, we need to look at norma-
20 tive influences, biological or environmental
events that affect many or most people in
a society in similar ways, and at nonnor-
15 mative influences, events that touch only
certain individuals (Baltes & Smith, 2004).
Normative age-graded influences are
10 highly similar for people in a particular
1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2007
Year
age group. The timing of biological events
is fairly predictable within a normal range.
FIGURE 1.2 The child poverty rate dropped substantially in the 1960s, then For example, children do not experience
rose significantly in the early 1980s. Great strides were made in decreasing child puberty at age 3 or menopause at 12.
poverty in the late 1990s, owing in part to the strong economy. However, the child
poverty rate was higher in 2007 than at the beginning of the decade. Child poverty is
Normative history-graded influences
closely tied to the overall health of the economy, rising in periods of recession. are signifi cant events (such as the Hurricane
Source: Children’s Defense Fund, 2008b. Data from U.S. Census Bureau. Katrina or the Japan tsunami) that shape the
behavior and attitudes of a historical gener-
ation, a group of people who experience the
the early longitudinal studies of childhood extended into event at a formative time in their lives. For example, the gen-
the adult years, investigators began to focus on how certain erations that came of age during the Depression and World
experiences, tied to time and place, affect the course of peo- War II tend to show a strong sense of
ple’s lives. For example, because of the ongoing economic social interdependence and trust that normative Characteristic
recession, record numbers of families have moved in with has declined among more recent gen- of an event that occurs in a
relatives, leading to the largest increase in multigenerational erations (Rogler, 2002). similar way for most people
families in modern history (Pew Research Center, 2010). A historical generation is not in a group.
This shift in family structure affects the influences to which the same as an age cohort, a group nonnormative Charac-
children are exposed. Today, as we dis- of people born at about the same teristic of an unusual event
cuss in the next section, historical con- that happens to a particular
time who experience similar influ-
person or a typical event that
text is an important part of the study ences. A historical generation may happens at an unusual time
of child development. contain more than one cohort, but of life.
not all cohorts are part of histori- historical generation A
cal generations unless they experi- group of people strongly
ence major, shaping historical events influenced by a major
at a formative point in their lives historical event during their
formative period.
(Rogler, 2002).
Nonnormative influences are cohort A group of people
born at about the same time.
unusual events that have a major
impact on individual lives because
they disturb the expected sequence of the life cycle. They
are either typical events that happen at an atypical time of
life, such as the death of a parent when a child is young, or
atypical events, such as surviving a plane crash.
Taken together, the three types of influences—
normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and
nonnormative—contribute to the complexity of human
development as well as to the challenges people experience
in trying to build their lives.

TIMING OF INFLUENCES: CRITICAL

OR SENSITIVE PERIODS
Konrad Lorenz (1957), an Austrian zoologist, got newborn
ducklings to follow him as they would a mother duck. Lorenz
showed that newly hatched ducklings will instinctively

Chapter 1 Introduction to Child Development • 9

imprinting Instinctive form follow the first moving object they useful to think about sensitive periods, when a developing
of learning in which, during see. This phenomenon is called person is especially responsive to certain kinds of experi-
a critical period in early
development, a young animal
imprinting, and Lorenz believed ences (Bruer, 2001).
forms an attachment to the it is automatic and irreversible.
first moving object it sees, Usually, this instinctive bond is
usually the mother.
critical period Specific
with the mother; but if the natu-
ral course of events is disturbed,
Issues in Development
time when a given event or other attachments, like the one to What drives development? Is nature more important than
its absence has a profound Lorenz—or none at all—can form. nurture, or vice versa? Is development active or passive?
and specific impact on Continuous or discontinuous? Different explanations, or
development.
Imprinting, said Lorenz, is the result
of a predisposition toward learning, models, of development have emerged out of debates over
plasticity Modifiability of these issues.
performance.
the readiness of an organism’s ner-
vous system to acquire certain infor-
sensitive periods Times in
mation during a brief critical period
development when a given
in early life.
IS DEVELOPMENT BASED MORE
event or its absence usually
has a strong effect A critical period is a spe- ON NATURE OR NURTURE?
on development. cific time when a given event, or Some influences on development originate primarily with
heredity Inborn charac- its absence, has a specific impact heredity (nature), inborn traits or characteristics inherited
teristics inherited from the on development. If a necessary from a child’s biological parents. Other influences come
biological parents. event does not occur during a criti- largely from the inner and outer environment (nurture),
environment Totality cal period of maturation, normal the world outside the self, beginning in the womb, and
of nonhereditary, or development will not occur, and the the learning that comes from experience. Which of these
experiential, influences
on development.
resulting abnormal patterns are gen- factors—heredity or environment—has more impact on
erally irreversible (Kuhl, Conboy, development? Most researchers today agree that nature and
Padden, Nelson, & Pruitt, 2005). nurture always work together. For example, while tall par-
Do human children experience critical periods as duck- ents pass on “tall genes” to their children, and thus tend to
lings do? One example of a critical period occurs during have tall children, nutritional status in childhood also will
gestation. If a woman receives X-rays, takes certain drugs, affect eventual height.
or contracts certain diseases at certain times during preg-
nancy, the fetus may show specific ill effects, depending
on the nature of the shock and on its timing. For example, Did you know?
exposure to rubella (measles) when the heart is forming Calluses are the result of the environ-
will damage heart structure. However, this type of damage mental experience of repeated friction
cannot occur after the heart has already been formed. Many on skin—they offer protection against
environmental influences may affect development irrevers- irritation. Yet they would never develop
ibly after pregnancy as well. If a muscle problem interfer- if not for genes that instruct the body to
“develop a thick layer of skin when this
ing with the ability to focus both eyes on the same object happens.” So—are calluses a product of nature or
is not corrected within a critical period early in child- nurture? The answer is that they are both; they would
hood, depth perception probably will not develop normally not exist without both influences.
(Bushnell & Boudreau, 1993).
The concept of critical periods in humans is contro-
versial. Because many aspects of development, even in the
biological/neurological domain, have been found to show IS DEVELOPMENT ACTIVE OR PASSIVE?
plasticity, or modifiability of performance, it may be more Some models of development see it as passive. In this view,
people are like machines that react to environmental input
(Pepper, 1961). A machine is the sum of its parts. To under-
Did you know? stand it, we can break it down into its smallest components
and then reassemble it. Fill a car with gas, turn the igni-
The most critical time for a pregnancy is
tion key, press the accelerator, and the vehicle will move. In
the first trimester when the major struc-
tures of the body are forming. Therefore, this view, human behavior is much the same: It results from
any adverse substances encountered the operation of biological parts in response to external or
during this time can profoundly affect the internal stimuli. If we know enough about how the human
developing fetus. However, many women “machine” is put together and about the forces acting on it,
do not realize at first that they are pregnant.
we can predict what the person will do. Rather than being
Luckily, nature has provided us with a safety
net—the lack of a shared blood supply for active and internally driven, development is reactive and
approximately two weeks after conception dimin- externally driven.
ishes the likelihood of exposure. Other models see children as active, growing organ-
isms that set their own development in motion. They do not

10 • CHILD
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 'Escal. Slander to the state! Away with him to
prison."
As a play, Measure for Measure rests entirely on three scenes: the
one in which Angelo is tempted by Isabella's beauty; that in which
he makes the shameless, proposal that she shall give her honour in
exchange for her brother's life; and, thirdly, that most dramatic one
in which Claudio, after first hearing with fortitude and indignation
what his sister has to tell him of Angelo's baseness, breaks down,
and, like Kleist's Prince of Homburg two centuries later, begins
meanly to beg for his life. Round these principal scenes are grouped
the many excellent and vigorously realistic comic passages, treated
in a spirit which afterwards revived in Hogarth and Thackeray; and
other scenes designed solely to retard the dramatic wheel a little,
which, therefore, jar upon us as conventional. It is, for example, an
entirely unjustifiable experiment which the Duke tries on Isabella in
the fourth act, when he falsely assures her that her brothers head
has already been cut off and sent to Angelo. This is introduced solely
for the sake of an effect at the end.
In this very unequally elaborated play, it is evident that Shakespeare
cared only for the main point—the blow he was striking at hypocrisy.
And it is probable that he here ventured as far as he by any means
dared. It is a giant stride from the stingless satire on Puritanism in
the character of Malvolio to this representation of a Puritan like
Angelo. Probably for this very reason, Shakespeare has tried in every
way to shield himself. The subject is treated entirely as a comedy.
There is a threat of executing first Claudio, then the humorous
scoundrel Barnardine, whose head is to be delivered instead of
Claudio's; Barnardine is actually brought on the scene directly before
execution, and the spectators sit in suspense; but all ends well at
last, and the head of a man already dead is sent to Angelo. A noble
maiden is threatened with dishonour; but another woman, Mariana,
who was worthy of a better fate, keeps tryst with Angelo in her
stead, and this danger is over. Finally, threats of retribution close
round Angelo, the villain, himself; but after all he escapes
unpunished, being merely obliged to marry the amiable girl whom
he had at an earlier period deserted. In this way the play's terrible
impeachment of hypocrisy is most carefully glozed over, and along
with it the pessimism which animates the whole.
For it is remarkable how deeply pessimistic is the spirit of this play.
When the Duke is exhorting Claudio (iii. I) not to fear his inevitable
fate, he goes farther in his depreciation of human life than Hamlet
himself when his mood is blackest:—
"Reason thus with life:—
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That do this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn'st toward him still.
. . . . . . . . .
Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friends hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth, nor
age,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
 That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even."
Note with what art and care everything is here assembled that can
confound and abash the normal instinct that makes for life. Here for
the first time Shakespeare anticipates Schopenhauer.
It is clear that in this play the poet was earnestly bent on proving his
own standpoint to be the moral one. In hardly any other play do we
find such persistent emphasis laid, with small regard for consistency
of character, upon the general moral.
For example, could there be a more direct utterance than the Duke's
monologue at the end of Act iii.:—
"He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying,
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice, and let his grow!"
Similarly, and in a like spirit, the moral pointer comes into play
wherever there is an opportunity of showing how apt princes and
rulers are to be misjudged, and how recklessly they are disparaged
and slandered.
Thus the Duke says towards the close of Act iii.:—
"No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape: black-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?"
And later (iv. I), again:—
 "O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings."
It is quite remarkable how this dwelling on baseless criticism by
subjects is accompanied by a constant tendency to invoke the
protection of the sovereign, or, in other words, of James I., who had
just ascended the throne, and who, with his long-accumulated
bitterness against Scottish Presbyterianism, was already showing
himself hostile to English Puritanism. Hence the politic insistence, at
the close, upon a point quite irrelevant to the matter of the play: all
other sins being declared pardonable, save only slander or criticism
of the sovereign. Lucio alone, who, to the great entertainment of the
spectators, has told lies about the Duke, and, though only in jest,
has spoken ill of him, is to be mercilessly punished. To the last
moment it seems as if he were to be first whipped, then hanged.
And even after this sentence is commuted in order that the tone of
comedy may be preserved, and he is commanded instead to marry a
prostitute, it is expressly insisted that whipping and hanging ought
by rights to have been his punishment. "Slandering a prince
deserves it," says the Duke, at the beginning of the final speech.
This attitude of Shakespeare's presents an exact parallel to that of
Molière in the concluding scene of Tartuffe, sixty years later. The
prince, in accordance with James of Scotland's theories of princely
duty, appears as the universally vigilant guardian of his people; he
alone chastises the hypocrite, whose lust of power and audacity
distinguish him from the rest. The appeal to the prince in Measure
for Measure answers exactly to the great Deus-ex-machinâ speech in
Tartuffe, which relieves the leading characters from the nightmare
that has oppressed them:—
"Nous vivons sous un prince, ennemi de la fraude,
Un prince dont les yeux se font jour dans les cœurs
Et que ne peut tromper tout l'art des imposteurs."
In the seventeenth century kings were still the protectors of art and
artists against moral and religious fanaticism.

XXI

ACCESSION OF JAMES AND ANNE—RALEIGH'S FATE—

SHAKESPEARE'S COMPANY BECOME HIS MAJESTY'S
SERVANTS—SCOTCH INFLUENCE.

In Measure for Measure it is not only the monarchical tone of the

play, but some quite definite points, that mark it out as having been
produced at the time of James's accession to the throne in 1603. In
the very first scene there is an allusion to the new king's nervous
dislike of crowds. This peculiarity, which caused much surprise on
the occasion of his entrance into England, is here placed in a
flattering light. The Duke says:—
"I'll privily away: I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement,
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it."
It is also with unmistakable reference to James's antipathy for a
throng that Angelo, in Act ii. sc. 4, describes the crowding of the
people round a beloved sovereign as an inadmissible intrusion:—
"So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons,
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence."
Elizabeth had breathed her last on the 24th of March 1603. On her
deathbed, when she could no longer speak, she had made the shape
of a crown above her head with her hands, to signify that she chose
as her successor one who was already a king. Her ministers had long
been in secret negotiation with James VI. of Scotland, and had
promised him the succession, in spite of a provision in Henry VIII.'s
will which excluded his elder sister's Scottish descendants from the
throne. This had to be set aside; for there was not in the younger
line any personage of sufficient distinction to be at all eligible. There
was obvious advantage, too, in uniting the crowns of England and
Scotland on one head; too long had the neighbour kingdoms wasted
each other's energies in mutual feuds. All parties in the nation
agreed with the ministers in looking to James as Elizabeth's natural
successor. The Protestants felt confidence in him as a Protestant; the
Catholics looked for better treatment from the son of the Catholic
martyr-queen; the Puritans hoped that he, as a new and peace-
loving king, would sanction such alterations in the statutory form of
worship as should enable them to take part in it without injury to
their souls. Great expectations greeted him.
Hardly was the breath out of Queen Elizabeth's body when Sir
Robert Carey, a gentleman on whom she had conferred many
benefits, but who, in his anxiety to ensure the new King's favour,
had post-horses standing ready at every station, galloped off to be
the first to bring the news to James in Edinburgh. On the way he
was thrown from his horse, which kicked him on the head; but in
spite of this he reached Holyrood on the evening of the 26th of
March, just after the King had gone to bed. He was hurriedly
conducted into the bed-chamber, where he knelt and greeted James
by the title of King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland. "Hee
gave mee his hand to kisse," writes Carey, "and bade me welcome."
He also promised Carey a place as Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber,
and various other things, in reward for his zeal; but forgot all these
promises as soon as he stood on English ground.
In London all preparations had been carefully made. A proclamation
of James as King had been drawn up by Cecil during Elizabeth's
lifetime, and sent to Scotland for James's sanction. This the Prime
Minister read, a few hours after the Queen's death, to an assembly
of the Privy Council and chief nobility, and a great crowd, of the
people, amidst universal approbation. Three heralds with a
trumpeter repeated the proclamation in the Tower, "whereof as well
prysoners as others rejoyced, namely, the Earle of Southampton, in
whom all signes of great gladnesse appeared." Not without reason;
for almost the first order James gave was that a courier should
convey to Southampton the King's desire that he should at once join
him and accompany him on his progress through England to London,
where he was to receive the oath of allegiance and to be crowned.
On the 5th of April 1603, James I. of Great Britain left Edinburgh to
take possession of his new kingdom. His royal progress was a very
slow one, for every nobleman and gentleman whose house he
passed invited him to enter; he accepted all invitations, spent day
after day in festivities, and rewarded hospitality by distributing
knighthoods in unheard-of and excessive numbers. One of his
actions was unequivocally censured. At Newark "was taken a
cutpurse doing the deed," and James had him hanged without trial
or judgment. The displeasure shown made it plain to him that he
could not thus assume superiority to the laws of England. In
Scotland there had been a general demand for a strong monarchy,
which could hold the nobles and the clergy in check; in England the
day for this was over, and the new King's successors learned to their
cost the futility of trying to carry on the traditions of despotism on
English soil.
James himself was received with the naïve, disinterested joy with
which the mass of the people are apt to greet a new monarch, of
whose real qualities nothing is yet known, and with the less
disinterested flatteries by which every one who came into contact
with the King sought personal favour in his eyes.
There was nothing kingly or even winning in King James's exterior.
Strange that the handsome Henry Darnley and the beautiful Mary
Stuart should have had such an insignificant and ungainly son! He
was something over middle height, indeed, but his figure was
awkward, his head lumpish, and his eyes projecting. His language
was the broadest Scotch, and when he opened his mouth it was
rather to spit out the words than to speak; he hustled them out so
that they stumbled over each other. He talked, ate, and dressed like
a peasant, and, in spite of his apparently decorous life, was addicted
to the broadest improprieties of talk, even in the presence of ladies.
He walked like one who has no command over his limbs, and he
could never keep still, even in a room, but was always pacing up and
down with clumsy, sprawling movements. His muscles were
developed by riding and hunting, but his whole appearance was
wanting in dignity.
The shock inflicted on his mother during her pregnancy, by Rizzio's
assassination, probably accounts for his dread of the sight of drawn
steel. The terrorism in which he was brought up had increased his
natural timidity. While he was yet but a youth, the French
ambassador, Fontenay, summed up his description of him thus: "In
one word, he is an old young man."
Now, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was a learned personage,
full of prejudices, wanting neither in shrewdness nor in wit, but with
two absorbing passions—the one for conversation on theological and
ecclesiastical matters, and the other for hunting expeditions, to
which he sometimes gave up so much as six consecutive days. He
had not Elizabeth's political instinct; she had chosen her councillors
among men of the most different parties; he admitted to his council
none but those whose opinions agreed with his own. But his vanity
was quite equal to hers. He had the pedant's boastfulness; he was
fond of bragging, for instance, that he could do more work in one
hour than others in a day; and he was especially proud of his
learning. Some Shakespeare students have, as already observed,
seen in him the prototype of Hamlet. He was certainly no Hamlet,
but rather what Alfred Stern somewhere calls him—a Polonius on the
throne. We have a description by Sir John Harington of an audience
James gave him in 1604. The King "enquyrede muche of lernynge"
in such a way as to remind him of "his examiner at Cambridge
aforetyme," quoted scraps of Aristotle which he hardly understood
himself, and made Harington read aloud part of a canto of Ariosto.
Then he asked him what he "thoughte pure witte was made of," and
whom it best became, and thereupon inquired whether he did not
think a king ought to be "the beste clerke" in his country. Farther,
"His Majestie did much presse for my opinion touchinge the power of
Satane in matter of witchcraft, and ... why the Devil did worke more
with anciente women than others." This question Sir John boldly and
wittily answered by reminding him of the preference for "walking in
dry places" ascribed in Scripture to the Devil. James then told of the
apparition of "a bloodie heade dancinge in the aire," which had been
seen in Scotland before his mother's death, and concluded: "Now,
sir, you have seen my wisdome in some sorte, and I have pried into
yours. I praye you, do me justice in your reporte, and, in good
season, I will not fail to add to your understandinge, in suche
pointes as I may find you lacke amendmente." Perhaps only one
European sovereign since James has so plumed himself on his own
omniscience.
James's relations with England during Elizabeth's reign had not been
invariably friendly. Nourishing a lively ill-will to the Presbyterian
clergy, who were always trying to interfere in matters of state, he
had in 1584, at the age of eighteen, appealed to the Pope for
assistance for himself and his imprisoned mother. But the very next
year, in consideration of the payment of a pension of £4000 a year,
he concluded a treaty with Elizabeth. When this was ratified in 1586,
his mother disinherited him and nominated Philip II. her successor.
At the very time when the trial of Mary Stuart was going on, James
made application to have his title as heir to the throne of England
acknowledged. This unworthy, unchivalrous proceeding made it
impossible for him in any way to interfere with the carrying out of
whatever sentence the English Government chose to pronounce in
his mother's case. Nevertheless her execution naturally affected him
painfully, and it was his resentment that made him hasten on his
long-planned marriage with the Danish princess Anne, daughter of
Frederick II.—an alliance which he knew to be disagreeable to
Elizabeth. He gained a political advantage by it, Denmark waiving
her claim to the Orkney Islands.
His bride, born at Skanderborg towards the close of 1574, was at the
time of her marriage not fifteen years old—a pretty, fair-skinned,
golden-haired girl. Daughter of a Lutheran father and the Lutheran
Sophia of Mecklenburg, she had been brought up in Lutheran
orthodoxy. She had received some instruction in chemistry from
Tycho Brahe; but her education, on the whole, had been rather that
of a spoilt child. Great ideas had been instilled into her of what it
meant to belong to the royal house of Denmark, so that she agreed
with her future husband in a conviction of the importance of kingly
state. Other features of her character were good-humour, inborn wit,
and a superficial gaiety which sometimes went to unguarded
lengths. Her behaviour, only three years after her marriage, gave
rise to a scandal—public opinion (doubtless unjustly) making James
accessory to the assassination of the Earl of Murray, whom it was
supposed that he had good reasons for wishing out of the way.
The difficulties which beset Anne's voyage from Denmark to Scotland
in 1589 are well known. A storm, for raising which many Danish
"witches" and no fewer than two hundred luckless Scottish crones
had to suffer at the stake, drove the bride to Oslo in Norway. The
impatient bridegroom then undertook the one romantic adventure of
his life and set off in search of her. He found her at Oslo, was
married there, and spent the winter in Denmark.
As Queen of Scotland, Anne already showed herself possessed by
the same mania for building which characterised her brother,
Christian IV. As Queen of England she aroused dissatisfaction by her
constant coquetting with Roman Catholicism. By her own wish, the
Pope sent her gifts of all sorts of Catholic gimcracks; they were
taken from her, and the bearer was consigned to the Tower. She
showed a certain amiable independence in the sympathy and good-
will which she displayed towards Sir Walter Raleigh, whom her
husband imprisoned in the Tower; but on the whole she was an
insignificant woman, pleasure-loving and pomp-loving (consequently
a patroness of those poets who, like Ben Jonson, wrote masques for
court festivals), and, in contrast to the economical Elizabeth, so
extravagant that she was always in debt. Very soon after her arrival
in England, she owed enormous sums to jewellers and other
merchants.
The new King soon disappointed the hopes which Puritans and
Catholics had cherished as to his tolerance. Even during the course
of his journey from Edinburgh to London numerous petitions for the
better treatment of Dissenters had been handed to him, and he
seemed to give good promises to both parties. But as early as
January 1604, on the occasion of a conference he summoned at
Hampton Court, there was a rupture between him and the Puritans
—the very mention of the word "Presbyter" making him furious. The
formula, "No bishop, no king," though not invented by him,
expressed his principles. And when the House of Commons favoured
measures of a Puritan tendency, he retaliated by proroguing
Parliament, after rebuking the House in undignified and boastful
terms. He complained in this speech that whereas in Scotland he
had been regarded "not only as a king but as a counsellor," in
England, on the contrary, there was "nothing but curiosity from
morning to evening to find fault with his propositions." "There all
things warranted that came from me. Here all things suspected," &c.
&c. The Puritan clergy, who refused to accept the Anglican ritual,
were driven from their livings.
The Catholics fared still worse. James had at first intended to lighten
the heavy penalties to which they were subject, but the discovery of
Catholic conspiracies led him to change his mind. The Catholic
priests and the pupils of the Jesuit schools were banished. After the
discovery of Guy Fawkes's great Gunpowder Plot in 1605, the
position of the Catholics naturally became as bad as possible.
One of the most marked traits in James's political character was his
eagerness to bring about and preserve peace with Spain. While yet
on the way to London, he ordered a cessation of all hostilities, and
by 1604 he had concluded peace. One of the reasons for his at once
assuming a hostile attitude towards Raleigh was that he was well
acquainted with Raleigh's hatred of Spain and disinclination to peace
with that country; and Raleigh increased the King's displeasure
during the following months by constantly urging upon him a war
policy. But there were other and less impersonal reasons for the
King's hostility. Raleigh had been Elizabeth's favourite, and had in
1601 presented to her a state-paper drawn up by himself on "The
Dangers of a Spanish Faction in Scotland," the rumoured contents of
which had so alarmed James that he offered Elizabeth the assistance
of three thousand Scottish troops against Spain. Raleigh had been
an opponent of Essex, who had sought support from James and
attached himself to his fortunes. And what was worse, he had an
enemy, though he scarcely knew it, in the person of a man who had
opposed Essex much more strongly than he, but who had, even
before the Queen's death, assured James of his absolute devotion.
This was Robert Cecil, who feared Raleigh's ambition and ability.
Raleigh was in the West of England when the Queen died, and could
not at once join in the great rush northwards to meet King James,
which emptied London of all its nobility. By the time he started, with
a large retinue, to wait on the King, he had already received a kind
of command not to do so, in the shape of one of the orders
dispensing the recipient from attendance on the King, which James
had sent in blank to Cecil, to be filled in with the names of those
whom Cecil thought he should keep at a distance. James received
Raleigh ungraciously, and at once told him, with a bad pun on his
name, that he had been prejudiced against him: "On my soul, man,
I have heard but rawly of thee." A few weeks later he was deprived
(though not without compensation) of the office of Captain of the
Guard, which was given to a Scotchman, Sir Thomas Erskine; and
within the same month he was ordered immediately to give up to
the Bishop of Durham the town palace of that See, which he had
occupied, and on which he had spent great sums of money.
At last, one day in July 1603, as he was standing ready to ride out
with the King, he was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high
treason. This was the beginning of a long series of base proceedings
against this eminent man, who had deserved so well of his country.
He was a prisoner in the Tower for thirteen years, and the
persecution ended only with the judicial murder which was
committed when, in 1618, after making the most beautiful speech
ever heard from the scaffold, he laid his head on the block with
incomparable courage and calm dignity.
It is difficult for us to-day to understand how a man of Raleigh's
worth could at that time be the best-hated man in England. For us
he is simply, as Gardiner has expressed it, "the man who had more
genius than all the Privy Council put together;" or, as Gosse has
called him, "the figure which takes the same place in the field of
action which Shakespeare takes in that of imagination and Bacon in
that of thought." But that he was generally hated at the time of his
imprisonment is certain.
Many disliked him as the enemy of Essex. It was said that in Essex's
last hours Raleigh had jeered at him. Raleigh himself wrote in 1618:
—

"It is said I was a persecutor of my Lord of Essex; that I puffed

out tobacco in disdain when he was on the scaffold. But I take
God to witness I shed tears for him when he died. I confess I
was of a contrary faction, but I knew he was a noble
gentleman. Those that set me up against him [evidently Cecil]
did afterwards set themselves against me."

But what mattered the falseness of the accusation if it was believed?

And there were other, much less reasonable, grounds of hatred.
From one of Raleigh's letters, written in the last days of Queen
Elizabeth, we learn that the tavern-keepers throughout the country
held him responsible for a tax imposed on them, which was in fact
due solely to the Queen's rapacity. In this letter he prays Cecil to
prevail on Elizabeth to remit the tax, for, says he: "I cannot live, nor
show my face out of my doors, without it, nor dare ride through the
towns where these taverners dwell." It seems as if his very
greatness had marked him out for universal hatred; and, being
conscious of his worth, he would not stoop to a truckling policy.
There was much that was popularly winning about the tall, vigorous,
rather large-boned Raleigh, with his bright complexion and his open
expression; but, like a true son of the Renaissance, he challenged
dislike by his pride and magnificence. His dress was always splendid,
and he loved, like a Persian Shah or Indian Rajah of our day, to
cover himself, down to his shoes, with the most precious jewels.
When he was arrested in 1603, he had gems to the value of £4000
(about £20,000 in modern money) on his breast, and when he was
thrown into prison for the last time in 1618, his pockets were found
full of jewels and golden ornaments which he had hastily stripped off
his dress.
He was worshipped by those who had served under him; they
valued his qualities of heart as well as his energy and intellect. But
the crowd, whom he treated with disdain, and the courtiers and
statesmen with whom he had competed for Elizabeth's favour, saw
nothing in him but matchless effrontery and unscrupulousness. In
spite of the favour he enjoyed, his rivals prevented his ever attaining
any of the highest posts. On those naval expeditions in which he
most distinguished himself, his place was always second in
command. He was baulked even in the desire which he cherished
during Elizabeth's later years for a place in the Privy Council.
He was now over fifty, and aged before his time. His untrustworthy
friend, Lord Cobham, was suspected of complicity in Watson's
Catholic plot; and this suspicion extended to Raleigh, who was
thought to have been a party to intrigues for the dethronement of
James in favour of his kinswoman, Arabella Stuart. He was tried for
high treason; and as the law then stood in England, any man
accused of such a crime was as good as lost, however innocent he
might be. "A century later," says Mr. Gardiner, "Raleigh might well
have smiled at the evidence which was brought against him." Then
the law was as cruel as it was unjust. The accused was considered
guilty until he proved his innocence; no advocate was allowed to
plead his cause; unprepared, at a moment's notice, he had to refute
charges which had been carefully accumulated and marshalled
against him during a long period. That a man should be suspected of
such an enormity as desiring to bring Spanish armies on to the free
soil of England was enough to deprive him at once of all sympathy.
Little wonder that Raleigh, a few days after his indictment, tried to
commit suicide. His famous letter to his wife, written before the
attempt, gives consummate expression to a great man's despair in
face of a destiny which he does not fear, yet cannot master.
While this tragedy was being enacted in the Tower, London was
making magnificent preparations for the state entrance of King
James and Queen Anne into their new capital. Seven beautiful
triumphal arches were erected; "England's Cæsar," as Henry Petowe
in his coronation ode with some little exaggeration entitled James,
was exalted and glorified by the poets of the day with as great
enthusiasm as though his exploits had already rivalled those of
"mightiest Julius."
Henry Chettle wrote The Shepheard's Spring Song for the
Entertainment of King James, our most potent Sovereign; Samuel
Daniel, A Panegyrike Congratulatorie to the Kings Majestie; Michael
Drayton, To the Majestie of King James, a Gratulatorie Poem. The
actor Thomas Greene composed A Poet's Vision and a Prince's
Glorie. Dedicated to the high and mightie Prince James, King of
England, Scotland, France and Ireland; and scores of other poets
lifted up their voices in song. Daniel wrote a masque which was
acted at Hampton Court; Dekker, a description of the King's
"Triumphant Passage," with poetic dialogues; Ben Jonson, a similar
description; and Drayton, a Pæan Triumphall. Ben Jonson also
produced a masque called Penates, and another entitled The
Masque of Blackness; while a host of lesser lights wrote poems in
the same style. The unobtrusive, mildly flattering allusions to James,
which we have found and shall presently find in Shakespeare's plays
of this period, produce an exceedingly feeble, almost imperceptible
effect amid this storm of adulation. To have omitted them altogether,
or to have made them in the slightest degree less deferential, would
have been gratuitously and indefensibly churlish, in view of the
favour which James had made haste to extend to Shakespeare's
company.
It is most interesting to-day to read the programme of the royal
procession from the Tower to Whitehall in 1604, in which all the
dignitaries of the realm took part, and all the privileged classes,
court, nobility, clergy, royal guard, were fully represented.
In the middle of the enormous procession rides the King under a
canopy. Immediately before him, the dukes, marquises, eldest sons
of dukes, earls, &c. &c. Immediately behind him comes the Queen,
and after her all the first ladies of the kingdom—duchesses,
marchionesses, countesses, viscountesses, &c. Among the ladies
mentioned by name is Lady Rich, with the note, "by especiall
comandement." At the foot of the page, another note runs thus: "To
go as a daughter to Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex." James desired
to honour in her the memory of her ill-fated brother. Among the
lawyers in the procession Sir Francis Bacon has a place of honour;
he is described as "the King's Counsell at Lawe." Bacon's learning
and obsequious pliancy, James's pedantry and monarchical
arrogance, quickly brought these two together. But among "His
Majesty's Servants," at the very head of the procession, immediately
after the heralds and the Prince's and Queen's men-in-waiting,
William Shakespeare was no doubt to be seen, dressed in a suit of
red cloth, which the court accounts show to have been provided for
him.
James was a great lover of the play, but Scotland had neither drama
nor actors of her own. Not long before this, in 1599; he had
vigorously opposed the resolution of his Presbyterian Council to
forbid performances by English actors.
As early as May 17, 1603, he had granted the patent Pro Laurentio
Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare et aliis, which promoted the Lord
Chamberlain's company to be the King's own actors.
The fact that Lawrence Fletcher is named first gives us a clue to the
reasons for this proceeding on the part of the King. In the records of
the Town Council of Aberdeen for October 1601, there is an entry to
the effect that, by special recommendation of the King, a gratuity
was paid to a company of players for their performances in the
town, and that the freedom of the city was conferred on one of
these actors, Lawrence Fletcher. There can be hardly any doubt that
Charles Knight, in spite of Elze's objections in his Essays on
Shakespeare, is correct in his opinion that this Fletcher was an
Englishman, and that he was closely connected with Shakespeare;
for the actor Augustine Philipps, who, in 1605, bequeaths thirty
shillings in gold to his "fellowe" William Shakespeare, likewise
bequeaths twenty shillings to his "fellowe" Lawrence Fletcher.
James arrived in London on the 7th of May 1603, removed to
Greenwich on account of the plague on the 13th, and, as already
mentioned, dated the patent from there on the 17th. It can scarcely
be supposed that, in so short a space of time, the Lord
Chamberlain's men should not only have played before James, but
so powerfully impressed him that he at once advanced them to be
his own company. He must evidently have known them before;
perhaps he already, as King of Scotland, had some of them in his
service. This supposition is supported by the fact that, as we have
seen, some members of Shakespeare's company were in Aberdeen
in the autumn of 1601. It is even probable that Shakespeare himself
was in Scotland with his comrades. In Macbeth, he has altered the
meadow-land, which Holinshed represents as lying around
Inverness, into the heath which is really characteristic of the district;
and the whole play, with its numerous allusions to Scottish affairs,
bears the impress of having been conceived on Scottish soil. Possibly
Shakespeare's thoughts were hovering round the Scottish tragedy
while he passed along in the procession with the royal arms on his
red dress.[1]
[1] S. R. Gardiner: History of England, vol. i. Thomas Milner: The History of
England. Alfred Stern: Geschichte der Revolution in England. Gosse: Raleigh. J.
Nicols: The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the
First, vol. i. Disraeli: An Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character of James
the First. Dictionary of National Biography: James, Anne. Nathan Drake:
Shakespeare and his Times.

XXII

MACBETH—MACBETH AND HAMLET—DIFFICULTIES

ARISING FROM THE STATE OF THE TEXT

Dowden somewhere remarks that if Shakespeare had died at the

age of forty, posterity would have said that this was certainly a great
loss, but would have found comfort in the thought that Hamlet
marked the zenith of his productive power—he could hardly have
written another such masterpiece.
And now follow in rapid succession Macbeth, Othello, King Lear,
Antony and Cleopatra, and the rest. Hamlet was not the conclusion
of a career; Hamlet was the spring-board from which Shakespeare
leaped forth into a whole new world of mystery and awe. Dowden
has happily compared the tragic figures that glide one after the
other across his field of vision between 1604 and 1610 with the
bloody and threatening apparitions that pass before Macbeth in the
witches' cavern.
The natural tendency of his youth had been to see good
everywhere. He had even felt, with his King Henry, that "there is
some soul of goodness in things evil." Now, when the misery of life,
the problem of evil, presented itself to his inward eye, it was
especially the potency of wickedness that impressed him as strange
and terrible. We have seen him brooding over it in Hamlet and
Measure for Measure. He had of course recognized it before, and
represented it on the grandest scale; but in Richard III. the main
emphasis is still laid on outward history; Richard is the same man
from his first appearance to his last. What now fascinates
Shakespeare is to show how the man into whose veins evil has
injected some drops of its poison, becomes bloated, gangrened,
foredoomed to self-destruction or annihilation, like Macbeth, Othello,
Lear. Lady Macbeth's ambition, Iago's malice, the daughters'
ingratitude, lead, step by step, to irresistible, ever-increasing
calamity.
It is my conviction that Macbeth was the first of these subjects
which Shakespeare took in hand. All we know with certainty, indeed,
is that the play was acted at the Globe Theatre in 1610. Dr. Simon
Forman, in his Booke of Plaies and Notes thereon, gave a detailed
account of a performance of it at which he was present on the 20th
of April of this year. But in the comedy of The Puritan, dating from
1607, we find an unmistakable allusion to Banquo's ghost; and the
lines in the play itself (iv. I)—
"And some I see
That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry,"
—a reference to the union of England and Scotland, and their
conjunction with Ireland under James—would have had little effect
unless spoken from the stage shortly after the event. As James was
proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland on the 20th of October
1604, we may conclude that Macbeth was not produced later than
1604-1605.
At James's accession a breath of Scottish air blew over England; we
feel it in Macbeth. The scene of the tragedy is laid in the country
from which the new king came, and most true to nature is the
reproduction in this dark drama of Scotland's forests and heaths and
castles, her passions and her poetry.
There is much to indicate that an unbroken train of thought led
Shakespeare from Hamlet to Macbeth. The personality of Macbeth is
a sort of counterpart to that of Hamlet. The Danish prince's nature is
passionate, but refined and thoughtful. Before the deed of
vengeance which is imposed upon him he is restless, self-
reproachful, and self-tormenting; but he never betrays the slightest
remorse for a murder once committed, though he kills four persons
before he stabs the King. The Scottish thane is the rough, blunt
soldier, the man of action. He takes little time for deliberation before
he strikes; but immediately after the murder he is attacked by
hallucinations both of sight and hearing, and is hounded on, wild
and vacillating and frenzied, from crime to crime. He stifles his self-
reproaches and falls at last, after defending himself with the
hopeless fury of the "bear tied to the stake."
Hamlet says:—
"And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
Macbeth, on the contrary, declares (iv. I)—
"From this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand."
They stand at opposite poles—Hamlet, the dreamer; Macbeth, the
captain, "Bellona's bridegroom." Hamlet has a superabundance of
culture and of intellectual power. His strength is of the kind that
wears a mask; he is a master in the art of dissimulation. Macbeth is
unsophisticated to the point of clumsiness, betraying himself when
he tries to deceive. His wife has to beg him not to show a troubled
countenance, but to "sleek o'er his rugged looks."
Hamlet is the born aristocrat: very proud, keenly alive to his worth,
very self-critical—too self-critical to be ambitious in the common
acceptation of the word. To Macbeth, on the contrary, a sounding
title is honour, and a wreath on the head, a crown on the brow,
greatness. When the Witches on the heath, and another witch, his
wife in the castle, have held up before his eyes the glory of the
crown and the power of the sceptre, he has found his great goal—a
tangible prize in this life, for which he is willing to risk his welfare in
"the life to come." Whilst Hamlet, with his hereditary right, hardly
gives a thought to the throne of which he has been robbed, Macbeth
murders his king, his benefactor, his guest, that he may plunder him
and his sons of a chair with a purple canopy.
And yet there is a certain resemblance between Macbeth and
Hamlet. One feels that the two tragedies must have been written
close upon each other. In his first monologue (i. 7) Macbeth stands
hesitating with Hamlet-like misgivings:—
"If it were done, when't is done, then't were well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,—
We'd jump the life to come.—But in these cases
We still have judgment here."
Hamlet says: Were we sure that there is no future life, we should
seek death. Macbeth thinks: Did we not know that judgment would
come upon us here, we should care little about the life to come.
There is a kinship in these contradictory reflections. But Macbeth is
not hindered by his cogitations. He pricks the sides of his intent, as
he says, with the spur of ambition, well knowing that it will o'erleap
itself and fall. He cannot resist when he is goaded onward by a
being superior to himself, a woman.
Like Hamlet, he has imagination, but of a more timorous and
visionary cast. It is through no peculiar faculty in Hamlet that he
sees his father's ghost; others had seen it before him and see it with
him. Macbeth constantly sees apparitions that no one else sees, and
hears voices that are inaudible to others.
When he has resolved on the king's death he sees a dagger in the
air:—
"Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee:—
 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
Directly after the murder he has an illusion of hearing:—
"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep.'"
And, very significantly, Macbeth hears this same voice give him the
different titles which are his pride:—
"Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!'"
Yet another parallel shows the kinship between the Danish and the
Scottish tragedy. It is in these dramas alone that the dead leave
their graves and reappear on the scene of life; in them alone a
breath from the spirit-world reaches the atmosphere of the living.
There is no trace of the supernatural either in Othello or in King
Lear.
No more here than in Hamlet are we to understand by the
introduction of supernatural elements that an independently working
superhuman power actively interferes in human life; these elements
are transparent symbols. Nevertheless the supernatural beings that
make their appearance are not to be taken as mere illusions; they
are distinctly conceived as having a real existence outside the sphere
of hallucination. As in Hamlet, the Ghost is not seen by the prince
alone, so in Macbeth it is not only Macbeth himself who sees the
Witches; they even appear with their queen, Hecate, when there is
no one to see them except the spectators of the play.
It must not be forgotten that this whole spirit—and witchworld
meant something quite different to Shakespeare's contemporaries
from what it means to us. We cannot even be absolutely certain that
Shakespeare himself did not believe in the possible existence of such
beings. Great poets have seldom been consistent in their incredulity
—even Holberg believed that he had seen a ghost. But
Shakespeare's own attitude of mind matters less than that of the
public for whom he wrote.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century the English people still
believed in a great variety of evil spirits, who disturbed the order of
nature, produced storms by land and sea, foreboded calamities and
death, disseminated plague and famine. They were for the most part
pictured as old, wrinkled women, who brewed all kinds of frightful
enormities in hellish cauldrons; and when such beldams were
thought to have been detected, the law took vengeance on them
with fire and sword. In a sermon preached in 1588, Bishop Jewel
appealed to Elizabeth to take strong measures against wizards and
witches. Some years later, one Mrs. Dyer was accused of witchcraft
for no other reason than that toothache had for some nights
prevented the Queen from sleeping. In the small town of St. Osees
in Essex alone, seventy or eighty witches were burnt. In a book
called "The Discoverie of Witchcraft," published in 1584, Reginald
Scott refuted the doctrine of sorcery and magic with wonderful
clearness and liberal-mindedness; but his voice was lost in the
chorus of the superstitious. King James himself was one of the most
prominent champions of superstition. He was present in person at
the trial by torture of two hundred witches who were burnt for
occasioning the storm which prevented his bride's crossing to
Scotland. Many of them confessed to having ridden through the air
on broomsticks or invisible chariots drawn by snails, and admitted
that they were able to make themselves invisible—an art of which
they, strangely enough, did not avail themselves to escape the law.
In 1597 James himself produced in his Dæmonologie a kind of
handbook or textbook of witchcraft in all its developments, and in
1598 he caused no fewer than 600 old women to be burnt. In the
Parliament of 1604 a bill against sorcery was brought in by the
Government and passed.
Shakespeare produced wonderful effects in Hamlet by drawing on
this faith in spirits; the apparition on the castle platform is sublime in
its way, though the speech of the Ghost is far too long. Now, in
Macbeth, with the Witches' meeting, he strikes the keynote of the
drama at the very outset, as surely as with a tuning-fork; and
wherever the Witches reappear the same note recurs. But still more
admirable, both psychologically and scenically, is the scene in which
Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost sitting in his own seat at the banquet-
table. The words run thus:—
"Rosse. Please it your highness
To grace us with your royal company?
Macbeth. The table's full.
Lennox. Here is a place reserv'd,
sir.
Macb. Where?
Len. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your
highness?
Macb. Which of you have done this?
Lords. What, my good
lord?
Macb. Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me."
The grandeur, depth, and extraordinary dramatic and theatrical
effect of this passage are almost unequalled in the history of the
drama.
The same may be said of well-nigh the whole outline of this tragedy
—from a dramatic and theatrical point of view it is beyond all praise.
The Witches on the heath, the scene before the murder of Duncan,
the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth—so potent is the effect of these
and other episodes that they are burnt for ever on the spectator's
memory.
No wonder that Macbeth has become in later times Shakespeare's
most popular tragedy—his typical one, appreciated even by those
who, except in this instance, have not been able to value him as he
deserves. Not one of his other dramas is so simple in composition as
this, no other keeps like this to a single plane. There is no
desultoriness or halting in the action as in Hamlet, no double action
as in King Lear. All is quite simple and according to rule: the
snowball is set rolling and becomes the avalanche. And although
there are gaps in it on account of the defective text, and although
there may here and there be ambiguities—in the character of Lady
Macbeth, for instance—yet there is nothing enigmatic, there are no
riddles to perplex us. Nothing lies concealed between the lines; all is
grand and clear—grandeur and clearness itself.
And yet I confess that this play seems to me one of Shakespeare's
less interesting efforts; not from the artistic, but from the purely
human point of view. It is a rich, highly moral melodrama; but only
at occasional points in it do I feel the beating of Shakespeare's
heart.
My comparative coolness of feeling towards Macbeth may possibly
be due in a considerable degree to the shamefully mutilated form in
which this tragedy has been handed down to us. Who knows what it
may have been when it came from Shakespeare's own hand! The
text we possess, which was not printed till long after the poet's
death, is clipped, pruned, and compressed for acting purposes. We
can feel distinctly where the gaps occur, but that is of no avail.
The abnormal shortness of the play is in itself an indication of what
has happened. In spite of its wealth of incident, it is distinctly
Shakespeare's shortest work. There are 3924 lines in Hamlet, 3599
in Richard III., &c., &c., while in Macbeth there are only 1993.
It is plain, moreover, that the structure of the piece has been
tampered with. The dialogue between Malcolm and Macduff (iv. 3),
which, strictly speaking, must be called superfluous from the
dramatic point of view, is so long as to form about an eighth part of
the whole tragedy. It may be presumed that the other scenes
originally stood in some sort of proportion to this; for there is no
other instance in Shakespeare's work of a similar disproportion.
In certain places omissions are distinctly felt. Lady Macbeth (i. 5)
proposes to her husband that he shall murder Duncan. He gives no
answer to this. In the next scene the King arrives. In the next again,
Macbeth's deliberations as to whether or not he is to commit the
murder are all over, and he is only thinking how it can be done with
impunity. When he wavers, and says to his wife, "I dare do all that
may become a man; who dares do more is none," her answer shows
how much is wanting here:—
"When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both."
We spectators or readers know nothing of all this. There has not
even been time for the shortest conversation between husband and
wife.
Shakespeare took the material for his tragedy from the same source
on which he drew for all his English histories—Holinshed's Chronicle
to wit. In this case Holinshed, at no time a trustworthy historian,
simply reproduced a passage of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historiæ.
Macdonwald's rebellion and Sweno's Viking invasion are fables;
Banquo and Fleance, as founders of the race of Stuart, are
inventions of the chroniclers. There was a blood-feud between the
house of Duncan and the house of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, whose
real name was Gruoch, was the grand-daughter of a king who had
been killed by Malcolm II., Duncan's grandfather. Her first husband
had been burnt in his castle with fifty friends. Her only brother was
killed by Malcolm's order. Macbeth's father also, Finlegh or Finley,
had been killed in a contest with Malcolm. Therefore they both had
the right to a blood-revenge on Duncan. Nor did Macbeth sin against
the laws of hospitality in taking Duncan's life. He attacked and killed
him in the open field. It is further to be observed that by the
Scottish laws of succession he had a better right to the throne than
Duncan. After having seized the throne he ruled firmly and justly.
There is a quite adequate psychological basis for the real facts of the
year 1040, though it is much simpler than that underlying the
imaginary events of Holinshed's Chronicle, which form the subject of
the tragedy.
Shakespeare on the whole follows Holinshed with great exactitude,
but diverges from him in one or two particulars. According to the
Chronicle, Banquo was accessory to the murder of Duncan;
Shakespeare alters this in order to give King James a progenitor of
unblemished reputation. Instead of using the account of the murder
which is given in the Chronicle, Shakespeare takes and applies to
Duncan's case all the particulars of the murder of King Duffe, Lady
Macbeth's grandfather, as committed by the captain of the castle of
Forres, who "being the more kindled in wrath by the words of his
wife, determined to follow her advice in the execution of so heinous
an act." It is hardly necessary to remark that the finest parts of the
drama, such as the appearance of Banquo's ghost and Lady
Macbeth's sleep-walking scene, are due to Shakespeare alone.
Some sensation was made in the year 1778 by the discovery of the
manuscript of The Witch, a play by Shakespeare's contemporary
Middleton, containing in their entirety two songs which are only
indicated in Macbeth by the quotation of their first lines. These are
"Come away, come away" (iii. 5), and "Black spirits, &c." (iv. I). A
very idle dispute arose as to whether Shakespeare had here made
use of Middleton or Middleton of Shakespeare. The latter is certainly
the more probable assumption, if we must assume either to have
borrowed from the other. It is likely enough, however, that single
lines of the lesser poet have here and there been interpolated in the
witch scenes of Shakespeare's text as contained in the Folio edition.
Shakespeare has employed in the treatment of this subject a style
that suits it—vehement to violence, compressed to congestion—
figures treading upon each other's heels, while general philosophic
reflections occur but rarely. It is a style eminently fitted to express
and to awaken terror; its tone is not altered, but only softened, even
in the painfully touching conversation between Lady Macduff and her
little son. It is sustained throughout with only one break—the
excellent burlesque monologue of the Porter.
The play centres entirely round the two chief characters, Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth; in their minds the essential action takes place.
The other personages are only outlined.
The Witches' song, with which the tragedy opens, ends with that
admirable line, in which ugliness and beauty are confounded:—
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."
And it is significant that Macbeth, who has not heard this refrain,
recalls it in his very first speech:—
"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."
It seems as if these words were ringing in his ears; and this
foreshadows the mysterious bond between him and the Witches.
Many of these delicate consonances and contrasts may be noted in
the speeches of this tragedy.
After Lady Macbeth, who is introduced to the spectator already
perfected in wickedness, has said to herself (i. 5)—
"The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements,"
the next scene opens serenely with the charming pictures of the
following dialogue:—
"Duncan. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Banquo. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd
The air is delicate."
Then the poet immediately plunges anew into the study of this lean,
slight, hard woman, consumed by lust of power and splendor.
Though by no means the impassive murderess she fain would be,
she yet goads her husband, by the force of her far stronger will, to
commit the crime which she declares he has promised her:—
"I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from its boneless gums.
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this."
So coarsely callous is she! And yet she is less hardened than she
would make herself out to be; for when, just after this, she has laid
the daggers ready for her husband, she says:—
"Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't."
The absolutely masterly, thrilling scene between husband and wife
after the murder, is followed, in horrible, humoristic contrast, by the
fantastic interlude of the Porter. He conceives himself to be keeping
watch at hell-gate, and admitting, amongst others, an equivocating
Jesuit, with his casuistry and reservatio mentalis; and his soliloquy is
followed by a dialogue with Macduff on the influence of drink upon
erotic inclination and capacity. It is well known that Schiller, in
accordance with classical prejudices, omitted the monologue in his
translation, and replaced it by a pious morning-song. What seems
more remarkable is that an English poet like Coleridge should have
found its effect disturbing and considered it spurious. Without
exactly ranking with Shakespeare's best low-comedy interludes, it
affords a highly effective contrast to what goes before and what
follows, and is really an invaluable and indispensable ingredient in
the tragedy. A short break in the action was required at this point, to
give Macbeth and his wife time to dress themselves in their
nightclothes; and what interruption could be more effective than the
knocking at the castle gate, which makes them both thrill with terror,
and gives occasion to the Porter episode?
Another of the gems of the play is the scene (iv. 2) between Lady
Macduff and her wise little son, before the murderers come and kill
them both. All the witty child's sayings are interesting, and the
mother's bitterly pessimistic speeches are not only wonderfully
characteristic of her, but also of the poet's own present frame of
mind:—
"Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where, to do harm,
Is often laudable; to do good, sometime,
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas!
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say I have done no harm?"
Equally despairing is Macduff's ejaculation when he learns of the
slaughter in his home: "Did heaven look on, and would not take their
part?" The beginning of this lengthy scene (iv. 3), with its endless
dialogue between Malcolm and Macduff, which Shakespeare has
transcribed literally from his Holinshed, is weak and flagging. It
presents hardly any point of interest except the far-fetched account
of King Edward the Confessor's power of curing the king's evil,
evidently dragged in for the sake of paying King James a compliment
which the poet knew he would value, in the lines—
"'Tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction."
But the close of the scene is admirable, when Rosse breaks the news
to Macduff of the attack on his castle and the massacre of his family:
—
"Macd. My children too?
Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
 Macd. And I must be from thence!
My wife kill'd too?
Rosse I have said.
Mal. Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.
Macd. He has no children.—All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all?—O hell-kite!—All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?
Mai. Dispute it like a man.
Macd. I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.—Did Heaven look on,
And would not take their part?"
The voice of revolt makes itself heard in these words, the same
voice that sounds later through the despairing philosophy of King
Lear: "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods: They kill us for
their sport." But immediately afterwards Macduff falls back on the
traditional sentiment:—
"Sinful Macduff!
They are all struck for thee. Naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls."
Among these horror-stricken speeches there is one in particular that
gives matter for reflection—Macduff's cry, "He has no children." At
the close of the third part of Henry VI. there is a similar exclamation
of quite different import. There, when King Edward, Gloucester, and
Clarence have stabbed Margaret of Anjou's son before her eyes, she
says:—
"You have no children, butchers! if you had,
The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse."
Many interpreters have attributed the same sense to Macduff's cry of
agony; but their mistake is plain; for the context undeniably shows
that the one thought of the now childless father is the impossibility
of an adequate revenge.
But there is another noticeable point about this speech, "He has no
children," which is, that elsewhere we are led to believe that he has
children. Lady Macbeth says, "I have given suck, and know how
tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me;" and we have neither
learned that these children are dead nor that they were born of an
earlier marriage. Shakespeare never mentions the former marriage
of the historical Lady Macbeth. Furthermore, not only does she talk
of children, but Macbeth himself seems to allude to sons. He says
(iii. I):—
"Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind."
If he had no children of his own, the last line is meaningless. Had
Shakespeare forgotten these earlier speeches when he wrote that
ejaculation of Macduff's? It is improbable; and, in any case, they
must have been constantly brought to his mind again at rehearsals
and performances of the play. We have here one of the difficulties
which would be solved if we were in possession of a complete and
authentic text.
The crown which the Witches promised to Macbeth soon becomes
his fixed idea. He murders his king—and sleep. He slays, and sees
the slain for ever before him. All that stand between him and his
ambition are cut down, and afterwards raise their bloody heads as
bodeful visions on his path. He turns Scotland into one great
charnel-house. His mind is "full of scorpions;" he is sick with the
smell of all the blood he has shed. At last life and death become
indifferent to him. When, on the day of battle, the tidings of his
wife's death are brought to him, he speaks those profound words in
which Shakespeare has embodied a whole melancholy life-
philosophy:—
"She should have died hereafter:
There would have been a time for such a word.—
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
This is the final result arrived at by Macbeth, the man who staked all
to win power and glory. Without any underlining on the part of the
poet, a speech like this embodies an absolute moral lesson. We feel
its value all the more strongly, as Shakespeare's study of humanity in
other parts of this play does not seem to have been totally
unbiassed, but rather influenced by the moral impression which he
desired to produce on the audience. The drama is even a little
marred by the constant insistence on the fabula docet, the recurrent
insinuation that "such is the consequence of grasping at power by
the aid of crime." Macbeth, not by nature a bad man, might in the
drama, as in real life, have tried to reconcile the people to that
crime, which, after all, he had reluctantly committed, by making use
of his power to rule well. The moral purport of the play excludes this
possibility. The ice-cold, stony Lady Macbeth might be conceived as
taking the consequences of her counsel and action as calmly as the
high-born Locustas of the Renaissance, Catherine de' Medici, or the
Countess of Somerset. But in this case we should have missed the
moral lesson conveyed by her ruin, and, what would have been
worse, the incomparable sleep-walking scene, which—whether it be
perfectly motived or not—shows us in the most admirable manner
how the sting of an evil conscience, even though it may be blunted
by day, is sharpened again at night, and robs the guilty one of sleep
and health.
In dealing with the plays immediately preceding Macbeth, we
observed that Shakespeare at this period frequently gives a formal
exposition of the moral to be drawn from his scenes. Possibly there
is some connection between this tendency of his and the steadily-
growing animosity of public opinion to the stage. In the year 1606,
an edict was issued absolutely prohibiting the utterance of the name
of God on the profane boards of the theatre. Not even a harmless
oath was to be permitted. In view of the state of feeling which
produced such an Act of Parliament, it must have been of vital
importance to the tragic poet to prove as clearly as possible the
strictly moral character of his works.

XXIII

OTHELLO—THE CHARACTER AND SIGNIFICANCE OF IAGO

When we consider how Macbeth explains life's tragedy as the result

of a union of brutality and malignity, or rather of brutality
envenomed by malignity, we feel that the step from this to Othello is
not a long one. But in Macbeth the treatment of life's tragedy as a
whole, of wickedness as a factor in human affairs, lacks firmness,
and is not in the great style.
In a very much grander and firmer style do we find the same subject
treated in Othello.
Othello is, in the popular conception, simply the tragedy of jealousy,
as Macbeth is simply the tragedy of ambition. Naïve readers and
critics fancy in their innocence that Shakespeare, at a certain period
of his life, determined to study one or two interesting and dangerous
passions, and to put us on our guard against them. Following out
this intention, he wrote a play on ambition and its dangers, and