We listen with fortitude to the dismal singing of the witches and their friends in mask and domino.  The music, we are told, is “LOCKE’S music.”  What is the proper key for LOCKE’S music, is a question which we have never attempted to solve, but we heartily wish that the key were lost forever, since by its aid the singers open vistas of musical dreariness which are disheartening to the last degree.  But we sustain our spirits with the thought of the bloody murder that is coming.  Talk as we ill, we all enjoy our murders, whether we read of them in the Sun and the Police Gazette, or witness them upon the stage.

When JANAUSCHEK comes upon “Macbeth” with his bloody hands, and explains to him that it is now too late to repent, either of murder or matrimony, she furnishes us with more instances of her unfamiliarity with the language.  Her night-dress is not at all the sort of thing which an English-speaking woman would be willing to sleep in.  We are confident upon this point, and we have on our side the testimony of a married man who has lived four years in Chicago, and has been annually married with great regularity.  If he doesn’t know what the average female regards as the proper thing in night-dresses, it would be difficult to find a man who does.  Then, too, her gross ignorance of English is shown in her back hair, which is a foot longer than the average hair of previous “Lady Macbeths,” and is as thick and massive as a lion’s mane.  Wicked and punnish persons go so far as to call it her mane attraction.  They are wrong, however.  JANAUSCHEK does not draw by the force of capillary attraction.  By the bye, did any one ever notice the fact that while a painter cannot be considered an artist unless he draws well, an actress may be the greatest of artists and not be able to draw a hundred people?  But this is wandering.

Owing to the imperfections of her English, JANAUSCHEK does not indulge in drinking from the gilded pasteboard goblets which grace the banquet scene.  She also shows her lingual weakness in the sleep-walking scene.  For instance, when, after having reigned queen of Scotland for several months, the happy thought of washing her hands strikes her, she commits the absurdity of scrubbing them with her hair.  On the other hand, she pronounces the words “damned spot” with a, perfection of accent that constrains us to believe that she must have taken at least a few lessons in pronunciation from some of the leading members of WALLACK’S company.  Still, her way of walking blindly into the table, and falling over casual chairs, ought to convince the most skeptical person that her English accent is not yet what it should be.  And in general, her walk and conversation in this scene demonstrate that even the most carefully simulated somnambulism may not resemble in all respects the most approved Oxford pronunciation.

But when we are freed from the depressing influences of the Academical Crypt, we forget all but our admiration of JANAUSCHEK’S superb acting, and the exceptional command which she has gained over a language so vexatious in its villanous consonants as our own.  And we express to every available listener the earnest hope that SKEBACH and FECHTER will profit by her success, and at once begin the study of English, with the view of devoting their efforts hereafter to the American stage.