If we go to see her play “Lady Macbeth,” we meet evidences at every step of her want of familiarity with English, or at all events with American customs.  We find her playing at the Academy, and we at once remark that no one but an unnecessarily foreign actress would dare to awaken the sepulchral echoes of that dismal tomb.  We find, too, that at the very threshold of the house she defies the one of the most time-honored institutions of our stage, by employing a pleasant and courteous door-keeper—­instead of the snarling Cerberus who lies in wait at the doors of other theatres.  We find again that she outrages the public by the presence of decent and civil ushers, who neither insult the male spectators by their surly impudence, nor annoy the lady visitor by coloring her train with tobacco juice.  So that before the curtain rises we are prepared to lament over her unfamiliarity with American customs, and to predict her ignorance of the American, as well as the English language.

Divers well-meaning persons repeat the dialogue of the earlier scenes of the play.  There is a good deal of dramatic force in the legs of Mr. Montgomery, who plays “Macbeth,” much animation in the feathers which Mr. STUDLEY’S “Macduff” wears in his hat, and a foreshadowing of ghostly peculiarities in the solemn stride of Mr. De VERE’S “Banquo.”  We listen to these gentlemen with polite patience, waiting for the appearance of “Lady Macbeth.”  When at length that strong-minded female strides across the stage, we hail her with rapturous applause, and listen for the strident voice with which the average “Lady Macbeth” reads her husband’s letter.

We don’t hear it, however, for JANAUSCHEK reads in a tone as low as that which a sensible woman who was plotting treason and murder would be apt to use.  Why “Lady Macbeth” should proclaim her deadly purpose at the top of her lungs is quite incomprehensible, except upon the theory that stage traditions have confounded the Scotch with the Irish, and that the “Macbeths” husband and wife—­being the typical Fenians of the period, were accustomed to roar their secrets to the listening world.

Be that as it may, we are constrained to note the actress’s unfamiliarity with the language, as evinced in the tone in which she reads the letter, and also in the way in which she urges her husband onward in the path of crime.  The usual “Lady Macbeth” “goes for” her weakminded spouse, and drives him by threats and strong-language to consent to her little game.  JANAUSCHEK, on the contrary, does not raise a broom-stick, or even her voice, at “Macbeth,” but actually coaxes him to be so good as to kill the king, so that she can bring all her relations to court, and appoint them surveyors, and internal revenue collectors, and foreign ministers.  This is not the tone of other actresses in the same part, and we therefore at once charge her departure from the common standard to her ignorance of English.