during the banquet scene, she appears omnipotent: but when the guests are gone, we behold the sudden reaction: --she sinks down into the utterly dispirited being, and utters but a few languid sentences in reply to her husband's words. It is, indeed, a striking lesson to behold Lady Macbeth as she is now, and to recall what she was. Her vigour, her animation, her fiery eloquence, when the object of her ambition was in view, and as yet unattained; her broken spirit, her depression, alternated with spasmodic efforts in her husband's behalf, her saddened days, her awful nights, her premature death, as we find them when her ambitious desires are crowned. When we desire to realise the intense bliss of rectitude and innocence, we have but to analyse the motives, the actions, and the consequences of a blood-guilty ambition, as thus depicted by Shakespeare. In scrutinising the career of such people as Macbeth and his wife,—and especially of Macbeth, who was an impressible and imaginative man,-who does not sympathise with-who does not pity him? and, in the comparison of suffering, who does not even envy the victim of his ambition?

And now, to proceed to the minor agents in this illustrious drama, and to notice their no less individuality and truth to nature, with their uniform current of action, carrying us on to its grand catastrophe.

Thus we have the first victim of Macbeth's ambition, "the good king Duncan," described as a man formed in the very mould of unoffending gentleness; even his murderer is constrained to testify that he

"Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off."

And so beautifully do these qualities in his nature shine

forth, that they have nearly pushed the traitor from his purpose. And when the deed has been perpetrated, with what appropriate and poetical licence has the poet heightened its circumstances, calling in the elements to

"blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind."

With what a simple and, consequently, forcible effect has he introduced that conversation between the Earl of Rosse and an "old man," without the walls of the castle, the morning after the murder, the circumstance of their wonder and amazement harmonising so finely with the romantic and preternatural character of the whole story!

"Old M. Threescore years and ten I can remember well; Within the volume of which time I have seen

Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

"Rosse.

Ah! good father!

Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
Is 't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?

"Old M.

'Tis unnatural,

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,

A falcon, towering in her pride of place,

Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd."

[Note the felicity of that image, the courtly falcon, the

familiar of the royal fist, struck to death by a night-bird of prey—a "mousing owl." How apt, too, the epithet!]

"Rosse. And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange and certain,)

Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,

Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would

Make war with mankind.

"Old M.

'Tis said they ate each other. "Rosse. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes, That look'd upon it."

The next victim to the ambition of the usurper is Banquo, whose offence, in the eyes of his murderer, is traceable to the prime movers of the whole tragedy-the weird sisters. They prophesied that he should be "lesser than Macbeth, and greater;" that he should "beget kings, though he be none." It is interesting to notice, in the career of Banquo, how skilfully the poet has avoided a dramatic tautology (if I may so use the term) in bringing about the death of two worthy men immediately upon the heels of each other. Banquo was endowed with those qualities which Lady Macbeth attributes to her husband. Banquo, also, is too "full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way to advancement." He too "would be great; is not without ambition, but without the illness which should attend it. What he would highly, that would he holily." And these qualities stand all apparent in the course of his brief career. For instance, the prophecy of the witches having been verified in the point of Macbeth's being created "Thane of Cawdor," the recollection that "the greatest was yet behind," and to be fulfilled, acted like a spark upon the dormant tinder of Banquo's ambition; but the singleness of his nature restrained him even from an unjust aspiration. Thus, at the close of the banquet with King Duncan in Macbeth's castle, when he is retiring to rest, and is evidently brooding over his destiny, he says, in soliloquy

་

"A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers!

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."

And immediately after, in conversation with Macbeth, still ruminating upon their scene with the witches, he says:

“I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters ;

To you they have show'd some truth."

Macbeth, knowing that he is at that moment preparing to murder the king, indifferently replies

"I think not of them;

Yet when we can entreat an hour to serve,

We would spend it in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.

"Bang.

At your kindest leisure."

Then upon Macbeth's sounding the disposition of his brother soldier, and saying

66 'If

you shall cleave to my consent when 'tis,

It shall make honour for you"

Banquo's answer to the insinuation strictly harmonises with his straightforward disposition. He says

"So I lose none-[that is, no 'honour']

In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchis'd and allegiance clear;
I shall be counsell'd."

The next time we meet with Banquo is in the courtyard, when the household are summoned upon the discovery of Duncan's assassination, an hour or so after the conference just quoted; and still the transparent frankness of his nature reveals itself. In a spasm of horror at the deed, he exclaims

"When we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it farther. Fears and scruples shake us.
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice."

Again-the poet brings him to brood over his future fortune, as connected with the fulfilment of the witches' prophecy in that of Macbeth. He has just witnessed his coronation at Scone.

"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the weird women promised;—and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for it :—yet it was said,
It should not stand in thy posterity:

But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them,
(As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,)
Why, by the verities in thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,

And set me up in hope?-But, hush ;- -no more."

This is one out of multitudes of examples, showing the undeviating watchfulness of Shakespeare in preserving the proportion and harmony of his characters :-this last speech of Banquo is strictly in keeping with his first: he closes his mind against every prompting of a sinister ambition. His whole course of action is a running comment upon his first ejaculation :

"Merciful powers!

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."

He really is, as the witches said,

"Not so great as Macbeth, yet much greater:"