character, the terrible fight between good and evil, waged in the depths of his nature. He longs for what he aims at but shrinks from the means through which it must be attained We see at once how far his criminal intentions have already gone, for Malcolm, the heir to the throne, can only stand in his way when Duncan, the actual possessor, is removed. On the other hand, Macbeth dares not look in the face the terrible deed he plans. A far-reaching weakness shows itself side by side with the intention to commit the crime. His wife knows this weakness, and with wonderful clearness of vision she judges him. He fears to let the sun see his wished-for crime-nay, would not have his eye see his hand which will carry out his wishes. He wishes it done, but shrinks from the sight. Quite otherwise was Lady Macbeth's behaviour. The poet shows her in her castle, reading the letter in which her husband narrates all that has happened, pronouncing her clear-sighted judgment on the meeting with the witches, and their prophecy already in some degree fulfilled.I must here call attention to the very intimate union which exists between Macbeth and his wife. The tone in which he writes to her of the meeting with the witches and their predictions shows deep love and perfect trust. "This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou might'st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell." This intimate relation between the pair continues through the whole tragedy, and always arouses our lively sympathy, even at the moments in which their common crimes fill us with horror. Their faithful constancy in spite of their crimes, throws a softening veil, as it were, over the whole terrible story, and make us judge this pair more mildly, as not ignoble by nature, but drawn into evil paths through unbridled ambition. The manner in which Lady Macbeth receives the wonderful announcement made by her husband discloses two sides of her nature. Her sharp

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judgment strikes us first. She knows her husband, with all his good and bad qualities, perfectly well; she fears his heart, which is "too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" to the wished-for end. She is, she says, not without ambition, but without the "illness should attend it." He would like to win his evil end, "holily," "would not play false, and yet would wrongly win." On the other hand, she shows herself to be entirely free from any such reflections, which she calls weaknesses, and she relies upon her eloquence to inspire him with her own resolution to remove from his way all that divides him from the throne fortune intends for him. A certain spice of womanliness is not wanting. She desires the throne, not for herself, but for her husband. She does not speak of herself, only of him, and his future greatness. She does not yet know that so favourable an opportunity for carrying out her terrible intention will soon be offered. The news

brought by the messenger, that Duncan will arrive that evening at the castle to spend the night, appears at first incredible. As she becomes convinced of the truth, she shows herself in her whole fearful nature, in the full power of her evil will:

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood ;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife sce not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold !'—Macbeth, act i. scene 5.

The last lines make it quite clear that the awful woman is ready to commit the crime herself should Macbeth hesitate. She denies her humanity; with outrageous pride she will stop the way of remorse. She is destined to be flung helpless against the everlasting laws, the undying laws of right and humanity, which call down on her the fearful sentence which she, denying her womanhood, thinks to defy. In the following scene with her husband she develops a proud and glowing eloquence, a skilful sophistry which beats down all his arguments, a strength of nerve that is almost supernatural, filling us with a strange awe, compounded of wonder and repulsion. Macbeth evidently has not yet found courage to do the decisive deed. She asks him, after he tells her of the king's immediate coming, with a terrible meaning he quite understands, "And when goes he hence?" He answers irresolutely, not daring to look his determined wife in the face, "To-morrow, as he purposes." Then the demoniacal counsellor breaks out:

Shall sun that morrow see!

O, never

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't. He that's coming
Must be provided for ; and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch ;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macbeth, act i. scene 5.

Immense is the effect of the contrast of this serious scene, in which the evil pair arrange their crime, with the quiet entrance of Duncan, the grey-haired king, who, in complete confidence, enters the house of his vassal and kinsman, upon whom he has conferred favours. Next is the effect on the spectator of the lovely lines about the swallow, for he knows that this house, about which the friendly little creatures build, is a den of murder:

This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle :
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.-Macbeth, act i. scene 6.

While the death-doomed king sits gaily at supper, desire and conscience fight a terrible battle in Macbeth's heart. The latter seems to have gained the victory, for he says to his wife, who, suspecting this, reproves him for leaving the supper-room, "We will proceed no further in this business." But this is not the fixed determination of the man, who, set upon the end, turns his back on the means; it is far rather the weakness of the ambitious climber who wishes to be persuaded to do the deed he knows must be accomplished. Lady Macbeth is unacquainted with hesitation, with weakness:

To be the same in thine own act and valour

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'

Like the poor cat i' the adage ?—Macbeth, act i. scene 7.

After she has tried, with such bitter biting irony, to goad Macbeth out of his weakness and irresolution, she answers him, saying that "he can do all that may become a man," in words, which in their frightful power and grandeur, belong to the most magnificent ever written by any poet, ancient or modern:

What beast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?
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 :
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. 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 his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.-Macbeth, act i. scene 7.

When he mentions the possibility of failure, she changes her tone with diabolical skill. In the place of excited passion, comes the careful enumeration of the means by which such failure may be averted, all the reasonable precautions to be observed, in order that the deed may be accomplished without casting suspicion upon the real perpetrators. I call to witness all those who have ever beheld a really artistic and intelligent performance of the scene, to confirm my statement that the impression made upon the spectator is one of the most terrible and powerful which can be produced by a dramatic work. Night hangs over the castle. All its inhabitants, even the unsuspicious grey-haired king, lie wrapped in quiet slumber. Only the murderous pair are alert. In unhallowed, but different moods, they steal through the halls, wrapped in death-like stillness. Macbeth, although determined to do the deed that is to "murder sleep," is still in a state of inward perturbation. He experiences strange spectral illusions. The dagger with which he is to slay the unarmed slumbering old man floats before his excited vision; he thinks he sees blood drop from it. Lady Macbeth makes preparations for the murder with unmoved calm. She intoxicates the men who are to sleep in Duncan's chamber; nay, woman though she be, she would have done the deed from which her husband shrinks, "had he not resembled her father as he slept." This recollection reminds us that there survives even in this determined criminal a spot not yet quite hardened, that a bond still remains linking her to