Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with Drum and Colors, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, ROSSE, LENOX, ANGUS, CATHNESS, MENTETH, and Soldiers.

Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

Siw. Some must go off;* and yet, by these I see,

So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt;

He only lived but till he was a man:

The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.

Rosse. Aye, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow Must not be measured by his worth, for then

They say, he parted well, and paid his score:

So, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's Head on a Pole. Macd. Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold, where stands The usurper's cursed head: the time is free.

I see thee compassed with thy kingdom's pearl,

That speak my salutation in their minds;

Whose voices I desire aloud with mine.

Hail, King of Scotland!

Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time,

Before we reckon with your several loves,

And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be Earls,the first that ever Scotland

[Flourish.

* Some must go off, some must be slain.-Fairer death. This incident is related in Camden's Remaines.-Pearl. A collective noun, meaning a string of pearls. Spoken of the heroes that encircled Malcolm.-Henceforth be Earls. Holinshed gives the same explanation of this change of name.

I would, the friends we miss, etc. This dialogue is quite rapid.

Then he is dead? etc. The old Spartan must have spoken this with deep sorrow; from which, however, he instantly recovers.

Hail, king, etc. Great joy. Very loud; quick; median.

We shall not spend, etc. Joy; gratitude'; business. Rather loud; rather quick; median; rather large volume.

Which would be planted newly with the time, -
As calling home our exiled friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher, and his fiendlike queen;
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place.
So thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.*

[Flourish. Exeunt.

* Scone. See note on Scone, Act II., sc. 2., p. 137. What's more to do, etc. Business tone with something of joy. Radical; rather loud; moderate in time, pitch, and volume.

Write a sketch of the life of Shakespeare; an account of his writings. Write an essay upon his moral character; one upon his genius; one upon the theatre. Sketch the life of Macbeth as it appears in history; the character of Macbeth as it appears in this play; of Lady Macbeth; of Duncan; of each of the other prominent personages. Write your views of the propriety or impropriety for dramatic effect, of the sequence of scenes in this play. Relate the story as developed in each act. Write out the moral or lessons conveyed by this play, and give your reasons for your conclusions on that subject. Write an essay upon alliteration; one upon English heroic verse; one upon Shakespeare's vocabulary, and what is proved by its fullness and accuracy. Argue the rightfulness or wrongfulness of Shakespeare's course in ignoring the practical questions of his age. Explain the fact that the great men of Shakespeare's time did not appreciate him. Give your views of Shakespeare's sympathies, as regards Puritanism, democracy, progress. Is the world likely to see another Shakespeare? Why? The instructor should give out other themes, the investigation of which will throw light upon the literature of Shakespeare and of the Elizabethan age. No exercise will be found more profitable than brief compositions at regular intervals on topics suggested by the reading of the author. These should be read in the hearing of the class, and the teacher should comment upon them.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS.*

Among the elements of vocal expression revealed by the simplest analysis, are the following:

1. Force; the degree of loudness or softness.

2. Time; the movement, or rate of utterance, whether fast or slow.

3. Pitch; the key-note, or musical tone, whether low or high.

4. Slides; changes in pitch, during the utterance of a single vowel or syllable. The change may be very slight, passing through about a semi-tone, or it may sweep through a whole octave or more.

5. Stress; change in force, during the utterance of a single vowel or syllable.

6. Quality; purity or impurity in tone.

7. Volume; the size, so to speak, of the voice. Thus we hear of a "thin voice," and Shakespeare tells us of a "big, manly voice," which elocutionists call "orotund."

In the employment of these elements, as we have already to some extent seen,† there is a principle of imitation and of analogy. "The sound should seem an echo to the sense," says Pope. This principle has a multitude of applications.

1. A loud utterance naturally characterizes descriptions of loud sounds. Thus:

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep
With such a horrid clang as on Mount Sinai rang,

When the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake.-MILTON.

A soft voice belongs to descriptions of what is soft, gentle, or quiet. Thus:

Oft in the stilly night, ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears, of boyhood's years;

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone;

The cheerful hearts now broken.-MOORE.

2. Slowness of motion should generally be expressed by slowness of speech. Thus:

* See the foot-notes to MACBETH, passim.

+ Thus, in reading the dialogue between Lady Macduff and her son, the voice may be modified in a slight degree to suit those characters.

There are two mechanical methods of securing slowness in speech. One is by long pauses between sounds, syllables, words, and sentences. The other is by prolonging the phonetic elements. In the slowest passages, the two methods are combined.

Rapid motion is expressed by quick utterance.

Thus:

Hurrah! the foes are moving! Hark to the mingled din
Of fife and steed and trump and drum and roaring culverin!
The fiery duke is pricking fast across St. André's plain
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now, by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies! Upon them with the lance!-

A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,

A thousand knights are pressing fast behind the snow-white crest!

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre !—MACAULAY.

The impression of distance is given by prolonging the sound. For example, notice the effect of protracting the word far in the following line: * So seemed, far off, the flying fiend.-MILTON.

3. In pitch, the voice naturally glides into the low (not necessarily soft) notes in speaking of deep, grave tones. Thus:

Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous !

Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;

The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,

That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced

The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.-SHAKESPEARE.

But in describing the fine, high-pitched note of the musquito, we involuntarily change to a higher key, as, forgetting ourselves, we think of the penetrating musical sound. The voice of a child, as we saw in Macbeth, Act IV., Scene 2, is high (not necessarily loud) in pitch. Thus:

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad new year;
Of all the glad new year, mother, the maddest, merriest day!

For I'm to be queen of the May, mother, I'm to be queen of the May!-TENNYSON. 4. In respect to quality, we may observe that purity, sweetness, and smoothness in objects, require corresponding vocal qualities: i. e., there is no prominence of consonant sounds, and there is an absence of husky, hoarse, nasal, or guttural tones. Thus:

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

Bridal of earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou, alas, must die !

"Sweet rose, in air whose odors wave,

And color charms the eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,
Thou too, alas, must die!

* Another case in which great slowness of speech is required, is where the thought is very much condensed, and the mind needs considerable time to appreciate the full meaning, as was remarked of the passage where Lady Macbeth enters reading the letter. Thus, "Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!"-Rom. xi. 12. On the contrary, where the writer does not plough deep, there the voice is nimble, and gets over the ground fast. Thus: "Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from the Jew, my master. The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me, saying to me, 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot, or good Gobbo, or good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My conscience says, 'No, take heed, honest Launcelot'; take heed, honest Gobbo; or, as aforesaid, honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not run; scorn running with thy heels, etc."-SHAKESPEARE.

"Sweet spring, of days and roses made,

Whose charms in beauty vie;

Thy days depart, thy roses fade;

Thou, too, alas, must die!

"Only a pure and holy soul

Hath charms that never fly!

While days depart and seasons roll,

This lives, and cannot die!"

What is impure, noisy, or rough, is best described with corresponding impurity or harshness of voice, the consonant sounds being given forcibly, and, sometimes, with a loud hissing, wheezing, snarling, whining, or growling, or as if the utterance were choked with emotion. For instance, Lear, in the howling of the storm, exclaims:

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the cocks !

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world!

5. In stress, the voice sometimes swells and sinks in unison with the sound described. Thus in Webster:

It was the last swelling peal of yonder organ, 'Their bodies rest in peace, but their name liveth evermore.' I catch the solemn sound; I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, 'Their name liveth evermore." "

Here on each long sound the voice makes a sort of crescendo and diminuendo, styled by elocutionists median stress.

In Campbell we have,

But when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er.

Here an explosive tone marks the word gun; a burst of sound instantly waning. So on the word flash. This is termed initial or radical stress. "And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake."

Here on the diphthong in the word louder, the last part of the sound may be the most forcible, constituting the final or vanishing stress.

6. As to volume, vast objects should have full volume; i. e., large, not always loud, voice. Thus:

The Bunker Hill monument is completed. Here it stands. Fortunate in the natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, infinitely higher in its objects and purposes, it rises over the land and over the sea; and, visible, at their homes, to three hundred thousand citizens of Massachusetts, it stands, a memorial of the past, and a monitor to the present and all succeeding generations.-WEBSTER.

Contrast with this, Shakespeare's description of Queen Mab:

Oh, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you!

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone,