4

and left the result to the imagination of the reader. The first impulse of Macbeth's mind in saying, “Which of you have done this?" is, that his treachery has been discovered, and that the real body of Banquo, with its twenty gashes, has been placed in his presence in order to confront and confound him;—a course of proceeding perfectly reconcileable with the primitive and savage era of the history.—The next impression is, after his wife has sneeringly told him that, "when all's done, he is but looking on a stool!" that the spirit of his victim has come to taunt him; and he makes. that tremendous appeal to the apparition, "Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble:" &c. And lastly, upon her upbraiding him with his unmanliness, he gives her the most convincing excuse for it: "If I stand here, I saw him!" How artful, too, is the using of that relative pronoun, "him," upon the occasion, not naming the object of his thoughts—she knowing it. After all that may be said in of comment and eulogy, it is such minute points as this that confirm the true poetic genius.

the

way

The purlieus of a court have never been famed for breathing the pure air of homely and sincere speech-scarcely, mayhap, of sincere thought; but in the region of a usurper, and who is also tainted with violence and crime, men had need bear "charmed lives," if they are afflicted with incontinence of speech. Then the feeble-minded and the self-seeking become strengthened in duplicity; and the bolder resort to the equivocation of irony,-the only freedom triumphant, and which cannot be quenched under a tyranny. Even this subtlety has not escaped Shakespeare in drawing the characters subordinate to the hero in this tragedy. It is to be remarked, that whatever conversation arises among them relative to the murder of the king, he has contrived to impress the reader with the feeling that they all suspect the same man of the crime, and no one breathes a suspicion to his fellow.

Their dialogues are short, and conducted in dry sentences. The Earl of Rosse says to Macduff: "How goes the world, sir, now?" "Why, see you not?" is his brief reply. "Is't known," he resumes, "who did this more than bloody deed?”

"Macd. Those that Macbeth hath slain."

The man who makes the nearest approach to a plain attainder is Lennox; and his speech is ironical throughout. In conversation with another lord, he says:

"My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, Which can interpret farther: only, I say,

Things have been strangely borne; the gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late;

Whom you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father?-damned fact !
How it did grieve Macbeth!-did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done?-Ay, and wisely too?
For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,

He hath borne all things well: and I do think,

That had he Duncan's sons under his key,

(As, an't please Heaven, he shall not,) they should find What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.

But peace!"

Again, towards the close of the play, in the dialogue between the physician and Lady Macbeth's waiting-woman, an ordinary play-writer would have followed the usual recipe for concocting a lady's maid, by making her clack like a millwheel. Shakespeare knew that courtly serving-women hear, see, and say nothing; and in such a court as that of Mac

beth, an attendant would scarcely be over-confidential. The whole of this scene is a masterpiece of natural effect; the first two or three sentences of which will be sufficient to confirm my previous remark. The curiosity of the Doctor,-who is, moreover, a court-doctor, and characteristically inquisitive, -and the cool reserve of the waiting-woman, are, in their respective vocations and habits, both edifying. The Doctor

says:

"I have watched two nights with you, but can perceive no truth in your report.

"Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

"Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say?

"Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her."

"Doct. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should. "Gent. Neither to you, nor to any one, having no witness to confirm my speech."

Such points as these, interwoven with the tissue of the plots of his plays, produce that harmonious proportion mentioned in my introduction; and which we may vainly seek, in equal proportion, from any other dramatic writer.

Again,—and still referring to his consistency in maintaining the propriety as well as the harmony in his characters,— I may bring to recollection the grand manner in which he has made Macbeth and his wife severally to descant upon the indelible testimony of their crime-their bloody hands. He, the masculine and more robust being, uses the stronger and more magnificent image :—

'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,

Making the green, one red."

She, upon the same dreadful theme, with womanly feeling, personal feeling, and association, says, "Here's the smell of the blood still all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." The whole of the sleep-walking scene, with the doctor's ejaculation, "God! God! forgive us all;" and the simple beauty of the waiting-woman's protestation, “I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body," is one of the most solemnly affecting appeals ever penned.

I have spoken of the duplicity to which all are compelled, who by the force of circumstances draw their resources from the dispensations of a usurper and tyrant. The feebleminded and the pliable-conscienced sink their scruples fathoms below their interests. Such only remain about him; and such only we find to be the retainers of Macbeth. Macduff, his early friend, has retired from the court. In his character it is interesting to notice how the poet has preserved its consistency, and placed it in high relief with the other persons of the drama. Macduff is an honest, but impetuous man, and, therefore, no tactician. He acts from impulse; and when he does give utterance to his thoughts, he delivers himself in concise and blunt sentences. That he is a man of sudden movement, and no method, appears in his flight into England, leaving his family unprotected, and ignorant of his course. By no other apparent contrivance than the one adopted could the poet have judiciously disposed of Lady Macduff and her children; moreover, the barbarous massacre of the whole brood,-" all the pretty chickens and their dam,"-from its enormity and wantonness,

lashes the husband into revolt against, and extermination of the murderer.

The other feature in Macduff's character that has been noticed, his honesty of speech,-shines conspicuously in the conference between himself and Malcolm, to whom he has fled in England, for the purpose of assisting him in his design to regain the crown of his inheritance. The whole management of this dialogue is eminent for the subtlety with. which the dispositions of the two men are sustained. Malcolm is wary, and suspicious of his new adherent; and, in the sequel, gives good reason for being so. He says:

"What you have spoke, it may be so perchance;
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest; you have lov'd him well;
He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but some-
thing

You may discern of him through me; and wisdom
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb

To appease an angry god."

Macduff bluffly answers :

"I am not treacherous.
"Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge. But, crave your pardon,
That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell;
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so."

Not only is Shakespeare the closest of all reasoners, but the web of his argument is always of a golden tissue.

The Prince next upbraids him with deserting his wife and child-" those precious motives, those strong knots of love" --without leave-taking; and he adds—