Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/270

260 reputable, that is certain, which may explain the reason why early risers always consider themselves persons of superior virtue, and bully everybody who does not choose to get up when they do. All policemen and custodians of propriety deem it their duty not to let any mortal sleep in public on pain of being rudely and indignantly aroused. "You mustn't sleep here!" we have heard threateningly and violently uttered to quiet gentlemen at hotels, in theatres and the parks, as if they had actually committed not only a breach of the peace, but violated all the articles of the Decalogue. And if the poor fellows drop off again they are treated as culprits to whom reform is impossible. This idiosyncrasy on the part of the preservers of morals and manners we have never quite fathomed. But we opine that our unwillingness to be found asleep lies in the fact that then we are off our guard, and in the power of the wakeful, and resent the imputation of doing what is likely to render us ridiculous by difference for the time being from our immediate cotemporaries.

great literary question of the day is, Who wrote "Rock me to sleep, mother?" upon which momentous subject a Mr. A. M. W. Ball has loaded himself into a book and fired himself off upon an unresisting public; and, not content with this cruelty, has rammed himself down very hard in the "Tribune," and let himself off again, with the same purpose and with equal effect. Well, we have read Mr. Ball's defence of his claim to the authorship of "Rock me to sleep, mother"—of which amazing performance we had scarcely heard until we received this Ball in our brain, and which is a very nice little poem in the sentimental style—and without any knowledge of either himself or Mrs. Akers, or of the dispute as to the authorship in question, except Mr. Ball's own statement and the testimony which he brings in to support his claim, upon that we decide without hesitation that, whoever may have written "Rock me to sleep, mother," Mr. Ball did not. Moreover, if he were the man to have written it, he would not be the man to make such a fuss about it. It is right that Mr. Ball should be told that he has in this matter behaved very foolishly.

is not generally known, we believe, that the story or history on which Shakespeare founded Macbeth, mentions Lady Macbeth as the wife of Duncan. The Thane of Cawdor was a frequent visitor to the castle of Duncan; and, as he was a brave soldier and a gallant and interesting gentleman for that time, she fell in love with him. After a long intrigue she planned the murder of her lord, whom she had grown to hate; inspired Macbeth with her idea by appealing to his ambition and passion, and so urged him to the bloody deed, in which she assisted. Such a plot, however, would have been too much like Hamlet, already written and produced on the stage; and Shakespeare, therefore, who was more an artist than has ever been shown, altered the original story for the sake of variety and to suit his own purpose.