once satisfied as to the grounds for action, he is decisive and prompt, as is clearly shown in the manner in which he disposes of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz on board the vessel, and in the instant slaying of the king himself, when the evidence of his infamy is clear. But while he is yet undecided and struggling with himself to solve this sad problem of the king's guilt, he rejects all ideas of love as futile and impertinent, and, more than that, doubts whether Ophelia herself is not, unconsciously to herself, made a tool of by the king and queen. Lear, again, is "heart-struck." His madness comes from wounded pride and affection. The ingratitude and cruelty of his daughters shake his mind, and to his excited spirit the very elements become his "pernicious daughters: never gave you kingdoms, called you children.” In all except Macbeth, the nature thus driven to madness is noble in itself, moral in its character, and warm in its affections. The aberrations of Macbeth are superstitious, and have nothing to do with the morals or the affections.

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Macbeth's imagination is, however, a ruling characteristic of his nature. His brain is always active; and when it does not evoke phantoms, it indulges in fanciful and poetic images. He is a poet, and turns everything into poetry. His utterance is generally excited and high-flown, rarely simple and real, and almost never expresses his true feelings and thoughts. His heart remains Icold while his head is on fire. On all occasions

his first impulse is to poetize a little; and having done this, he goes about his work without regard to what he has said. His sayings are one thing; his doings are quite another. Shakespeare makes him rant intentionally, as if to show that in such a character the imagination can and does work entirely independently of real feelings and passions. There is no serious character in all Shakespeare's plays who constantly rants and swells in his speech like Macbeth; and this is plainly to show the complete unreality of all his imaginative bursts. In this he differs from every other person in this play. Yet when he is really in earnest, and has some plain business in hand, he can be direct enough in his speech, as throughout the second interview with the weird sisters, and in the scene with the two murderers whom he sends to kill Banquo and Fleance; or when, enraged at the escape of Fleance, he forgets to be a hypocrite, and his real nature clearly expresses itself in direct words, full of savage resolve. But on all other occasions, when he is not in earnest and intends to deceive, or when his brain is excited, he indulges in sentimental speeches, violent figures of speech, extravagant personifications, and artificial tropes and conceits. Even in the phantom-voices he imagines crying to him over Duncan's body, he cannot help this peculiarity. He curiously hunts out conceits to express sleep. He "murders sleep, the innocent sleep; sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, the death of each day's life,

sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast." No wonder that Lady Macbeth, amazed, cries out, "What do you mean?" But he cannot help going on like a mad poet. His language is full of alliteration, fanciful juxtaposition of words, assonance, and jingle. At times, so strong is this habit, he makes poems to himself, and for the moment half believes in them. Only compare, in this connection, the natural, simple pathos of the scene where Macduff hears of the barbarous murder of his wife and children, with the language of Macbeth, when the death of Lady Macbeth is announced to him. Macduff "pulls his hat upon his brows," and gives vent to his agony in the simplest and most direct words. Here the feeling is deep and sincere :

"All my pretty ones?

Did you say, all? - O hell-kite! — All ?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?

Mal.

Dispute it like a man.

Macd.

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it like a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

And were most precious to me. - Did heaven look on,

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

O, I could play the woman with my eyes."

But when Macbeth is told of the death of his

wife, he makes a little poem, full of alliterations

and conceits. It is an answer to the question, What is life like? What can we say about it now?

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly."

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Has this any relation to true feeling? Do men of any feeling, whose hearts are touched, fall to improvising poems like this, filled with fanciful images, when great sorrows come upon them? This speech is full of "sound and fury, signifying nothing." There is no accent from the heart in it. It is elaborate, poetic, cold-blooded. "Life is a candle," "a poor player," "a walking shadow," "a tale told by an idiot." We have his customary alliterations: "petty pace," "dusty death," "day to day;" his love of repeating the same word, "to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," just as we have "If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well it were done quickly;" and his " Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep, sleep, that knits up," etc.; "Sleep no more! Glamis hath murdered sleep; and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more." He cannot

forget himself enough to cease to be ingenious in his phrases. As a poem this speech is striking; as an expression of feeling it is perfectly empty. At the end of it he has quite forgotten the death of his wife; he is only employed in piling up figure after figure to personify life. What renders the unreality of this still more striking is the sudden change which comes over him upon the entrance of the messenger. In an instant he stops short in his poem, and his tone becomes at once decided and harsh; his wife's death has passed utterly out of his mind. When the messenger tells him that Birnam Wood is beginning to move, with a sudden burst of rage he turns upon him, calls him liar and slave, and threatens to hang him alive till famine cling him, if his report prove to be incorrect. This is the real Macbeth. From this time forward he never alludes to Lady Macbeth; but, in a strange condition of superstitious fear and soldierly courage, he calls his men to arms, and goes out crying,

"Blow, wind! come, wrack!

At least we 'll die with harness on our back."

And this throughout is the character of Macbeth's utterances. He is not like Tartuffe, a religious hypocrite; he is a poetical and sentimental hypocrite. His phrases and figures of speech have no root in his real life; they are only veneered upon them. "His words fly up, his thoughts remain below.” When he is poetical he is never in earnest. Sometimes his speeches are merely oratorical, and made