His constant struggle is to free himself from the grasp it has fixed upon him, whilst it ceaselessly hurries him on its blind and furious course. "Now am I bent to know By the worst means, the worst." "For mine own good, All causes shall give way." Such is the incitement by which he acts. He strikes, almost indiscriminately, at women, at children, at whatever by its motion catches his fearful eye; his own terror and distraction augmenting at every blow. Audacious only upon equivocating prophesies which never sustain his audacity, with the boastings of indomitable daring upon his tongue, the mere token of danger counsels him to fear: "The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Shall never sag with doubt, nor shake with fear." "Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine, Are counsellors to fear." A moral apprehension that his committal of evil against others will assuredly bring evil upon himself, overtops all the physical boldness of his nature; and, conscious that all interests are provoked to enmity against him, the satisfied courage which had borne him steadily forward in rightful fight has changed into irresolution and despair: "There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here. I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, And wish th' estate o' th' world were now undone." He thus resolves into a single sentence the material of his terror-blasted life: "It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." With admirable art, the character of Lady Macbeth is contrasted with that of her confederate in guilt; the opposite qualities of each being developed and made more apparent by their contact. For her imperturbable hardihood is tested to the utmost by the perpetual ill-boding suggestions of his apprehensions; and all the exertions of her resolution are powerless to repress the vaccillations of his unstable and fear stricken mind. Both are cast into irremediable misery, under the baleful influence of crime; but the different dispositions of each are distinguished during the dissolution of their greatness, by the silent breaking of the one, and by the noisy strivings of the other to exclude the resistless intrusion of ever-augmenting despair. The thoughts and actions of the various personages who fill, with Macbeth, the scene, circulate unceasingly around him. He is at once the cause and object of them all. Men are scattered in seeking safety from his blow; they come together again, to prevent the renewal of it. They step backward, as it were, from the first sweep of his sword, because its stroke is sudden and unexpected; and their next movement is a forward one, upon his life. Distance does not operate with the effect of space, so to separate the agents of the plot, as to put them out of sight; it merely places them beyond the fingers' ends,-only sufficiently removes them from the murderous grasp of Macbeth, whilst he continues to stand the visible centre of their action. Their removal serves only to shew truly his natural position. Nothing could be more skilfully or artistically arranged, to place the whole conception of the author at once within the sphere of common capacity, or to maintain the continuity of its incidents undisturbed by far-divided localities, or by gaps and incongruities of time. Nothing intervenes to sever the thread of the narration, or to interrupt the impression the story was constructed to convey. The earliest record of the appearance of this play, is derived from Dr. Samuel Forman's Diary, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum; he having, as it is there stated, witnessed its performance at the Globe Theatre on the 20th of April, 1610. But its first representation was probably earlier; and Malone conjectured, after considerable examination, that it was about 1606. To avoid the perpetual intersection of the text, by letters or figures of reference, the lines of the play have been numbered on the margin of the page; and the reader who seeks explanation of an obscure or doubtful passage, must refer to the foot-notes, by the number of the line containing it. D and that before the close of the passing day; and favoured by the desolation of the blasted heath, will there meet with Macbeth, an apt and powerful instrument of harm. Thus brought to the height of ecstacy, they exultingly proclaim themselves, in their parting exclamation, such as take good for evil, and evil for good, for the phrase, " Fair is foul," &c., includes this moral sense, in addition to its literal reference to the tempestuous weather, as being propitious (for such was the belief of the time) to works of witchcraft. Their announcement, also, that a battle is in progress affecting the story of the play, and their mysterious mention of Macbeth, carry with them a thrilling interest which is the product of consummate dramatic skill. 7. 1. When shall we three meet again, &c.] The play commences with singular spirit, by fully disclosing, in a few lines, that malignant disposition which is the principal characteristic of the witches. They encounter each other as they are hurrying to contemplate the effects of elemental fury and human violence; for it is apparent, in the style of their questions and replies, that the several events of which they speak are, from the first, known to all of them. Their brief dialogue is a series of congratulatory ejaculations, because they are thus auspiciously come together beneath a sky, favourable to themselves, as it is threatening and hostile to others; because they will yet again meet amidst the still more congenial consequences of storm and strife, GRAYMALKIN is a cat, and PADDOCK a toad; both formerly supposed to be familiars of the witches, who here reply to the cry of the one and to the croaking of the other; and these various concomitants of the scene, added to the corresponding wildness of the chant in which the dialogue is conducted, enhance to the utmost the mystic sensation that the whole was devised to produce. The last line but one, where the exclamation becomes general, is designedly made of great length; indicating that it is spoken with breathless rapidity, significative of the bustling delirium of triumph into which the speakers are wrought by the sounds that have summoned them, and by the expectancy awakened by the course and character of their colloquy; whilst the last line is brought into unison with it by an exultant prolongation of the concluding word air, (as far as the exhalation of a full-drawn breath will permit) to suit the motion of ascending into it. And the modern division of the one line into two, tames down the conception of the author, by enfeebling the expression of this natural increase of wicked excitement. 7. 12. What bloody man is that?] The action. of the piece is here carefully united with the preceding scene. The witches have there told that a battle is in act, in which they are interested, and have hinted at the importance of Macbeth in the unfolding story; and the first natural agents who appear upon the stage are engrossed in the result of the contest, and tell that the hero of it is Macbeth. The strained expectancy of Duncan, that makes him view the sudden apparition of the "bloody man," only as a source of information concerning the fight on which his kingdom's fate is suspended; Malcolm's grateful and eager recognition of the sergeant whose saving assistance had rescued him from the clutches of his foes; the strong excitement which enables the wounded soldier |