With a keen, inexorable eye Macbeth examines the reasons that condemn his crime for ever: fealty to his liege, to his kinsman, the sanctity of his guest, the meekness of the gracious Duncan.

He does not, like Iago, provide himself with a philosophy of egotism. He does not persuade himself to despise the virtuous man whom he purposes to destroy. And later, amid all the horrors of his bloody career, he keeps wholly clear from that peculiarly Lucifer's sin, from the diseased, greedy endeavor to lighten the consciousness of his own worthlessness by increasing the guilt of his confederates. His wife's deliberate, seductive influence has poisoned his life for ever. He feels the torments of a guilty conscience as acutely as man ever did, and it will be seen how it was this consuming fire of suffering that supplied him with the force needed for the full developement of his character. But his tongue utters no word of reproach to his accomplice, the originator of his crime and of his misery. The man, in his strength, even deems it unseemly to allow his wife to share the terrible consequences of his first fatal act: Be innocent of the knowledge,' &c. . . .

We have before us no barbarian, still less, a callous adept in crime. He feels the enormity of his guilt with the pain and horror only to be found in natures still _unweakened and uncorrupted. But his morality is, from the beginning, more the result of habit and feeling than of thought or will.

Whenever he rises out of the whirl of emotion and the fitful horror of crime to a calmer contemplation of things, we find him busied in weighing, not his own moral scruples, but the expediency of his violent deeds. His instincts as a man of honor, more than his sense of right, shrink from the deed. He would fain wear in their newest gloss the golden opinions which he has bought before he exposes it to the hazard...

But it is as a public robber, and not as a perjured traitor, that he appears before the judgement-seat of his conscience. He is the finest type that we possess of the old Northern barbarian. The ages of Teutonic progress produced whole races of chieftains whose careers and fates were determined by the same unscrupulous craving for power and possession. The impression these annals make upon us is the same as that produced by reading a chapter of Thierry's Merovingian Kings, which, with its correct impress of every feature, forms so great a contrast to the sentimental caricatures that, in the costume of the Northmen of the Middle Ages, play their parts in the poetry of modern romance. Equally imposing, but far more enigmatical, alas! is the character of his wife at his side. We hazard the contradiction, which this alas' raises, of the established traditional admiration of this character, not indeed that we consider the fearful deformity and demoniac hardness of this woman to be unnatural and irreconcilable with the fundamental laws of psychological truth. We do not at all believe that narrower bounds are set to moral delinquency in the weaker sex than in the stronger. We do not undertake to put out of sight the fact that the very tenderness of woman's organization, when once in the power of evil, degenerates more rapidly and more completely than a coarser but stronger nature. We are prepared to allow the poet full exercise of his right to draw all that is extreme and most violent in good, and also in evil, into the magic circle of his plastic genius,-but we feel the necessity of recognising the rule in the exception. The more complete the corruption, the more important to us is the knowledge of the process producing such an effect; and in Lady Macbeth we seem to miss the dramatic intuition of this process. In a word, the wife of the thane of Glamis comes before us, from the first, as an accomplished adept in crime, a being.

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compared with whom, the soldier, unscrupulous in his ambition, but not yet entirely hardened, shows almost like sentimental innocence. A careless hint of Macbeth's hopes suffices for her to seize the whole idea of the murder without a trace of scruple or inward conflict. The easy good-nature, the 'milk of human kindness' in her husband, is her only concern; and immediately, when the opportunity comes unexpectedly, the image of the crime rises out of the chaos of undefined wishes, filling her, it is true, with the horror which seizes even the strongest in 'he actual presence of whatever is monstrous in imagination, but with none of tl e natural abhorrence of conscience at the approach of inexpiable guilt. . .

...

And we are to accept all this horrible speech (I have given suck,' &c.) as a complete, accomplished fact, as something which is as natural as womanly pity and womanly love. We do not see the trace of a struggle preceding this fiendish resolution. We can hardly reckon as such the fact that the heroic lady nerves herself to the task by means of a powerful draught, or that other fact that she would have struck the sleeping king but for his likeness to her father; rather should we ascribe both incidents to physical weakness than to any prompting of pity. And after the deed she maintains her full self-possession. Her nerves flinch not before the terrible fact at which the obdurate soldier starts back. Calmly she re-enters the chamber of horror to secure to her husband-and to herself-the fruit of the king's death through the judicial execution of the grooms. Her appearance has the repose, the assurance, and firmness of natural feeling, while she appears to us and to herself the personation of the most daring rebellion against every principle of society and of nature. . . .

Macbeth murders Banquo from a belief in that very oracle which made it evident that the murder would be futile. This is again apparent when the ghostly apparition warns him against Macduff, although the very next prophecy appears to deprive the warning of all point. The old logic of passion, and an evil conscience! It is also remarkable how Macbeth's heroic nature, as soon as the weakness of his first terrible excitement is over, occupies itself, with ever-increasing power, in the new and fatal course upon which he has entered, while the unnatural over-estimate of her powers breaks down his masculine wife before the disappointment of her hopes. . . . Even the worst disenchantment of all, the discovery of the malignant cunning of the last oracle, does not wrest the sword from his hand. He pays, as a man, his fearful penalty, and we have to confess that long before Macduff's sword reaches him he has tasted the bitterest punishment, and that the worst dissonances are at an end. The sharp, bloody remedy of the terrible soul-sickness reconciles our æsthetic, as well as edifies our moral, nature. To express in few words our judgement on the tragedy of Macbeth, we find it penetrates less deeply than Lear, Othello and Hamlet into the mysterious region where thought decides both deed and destiny. Its central life rests less in the moral and spiritual consciousness, and its logical developement, than upon the unalloyed strength of that feeling which binds the individual, though he be the strongest, to the laws that govern our race. But the conflict between this feeling and the overpowering, selfish impulse, its defeat and its inexorable, all-destroying revenge, is pictured in this poem with unequalled power. And, as feeling and action are more under the control of the art of the poet than the mysterious working of the thought that mediates beween the two, so this wonderful drama surpasses every other creation of old or modern times, by the enthralling splendor of its poeti cal coloring, and by the irresistible force of its dramatic and scenic effect.

FLATHE.

J. L. F. FLATHE (Shakespeare in seiner Wirklichkeit, vol. ii, pp. 9–167, 1864). Shakespeare's Macbeth at the moment when he first appears in the tragedy thinks of murder and of nothing but murder. . . .

...

The devil visits those only who invite him in. A fall from grace is the result of man's alienating his heart from the Being to whom his love should belong. Only when man has driven forth from his heart its inborn purity, and wilfully opened the door of his inner world to demons, does evil acquire vitality within him, and find expression in action. These are the actual, oft-repeated thoughts of Shakespeare. He never entertains the idea that the devil can be the lord and master of our existence. On the contrary, it is said in Macbeth, as we shall hereafter show, that all the power of hell has been crippled.

Schlegel, with great coolness and self-complacency, has copied what he found in Steevens concerning Banquo. Consequently he declares that Banquo preserves all his purity and honesty of purpose, unaffected by the infernal suggestions to which poor, gallant Macbeth succumbs.

But we are constrained to ask, what devil gives the devil such power over this poor devil of a Macbeth, that he is so immediately led astray, while we see, in the case of Banquo, that any man who chooses can easily withstand the devil? ...

In common with all human-kind, Macbeth was at the first, if not honest, at least not dishonest, for good not evil is original and innate in us. It is true it must be elevated and ennobled by that free will, without which no conflict with evil is possible. Macbeth's position in life was an exalted one. Sordid want and poverty could not so nearly approach him as to lure him from the path of duty and virtue. Power and honor, on the contrary, attracted him to remain true to the Right. Their increase, with promise of calm enjoyment, would be the result of that adherence to it, to which he was still more constrained by his rich and varied mental endowments.

But in spite of every incitement to good, Macbeth gradually pursued the path of evil. He turned aside from the wisdom which is love of the Divine, renounced the morality which consists in a life of intellectual activity, and even abjured conscience in its prime and essential significance, the peculiarly human attribute of humanity. Thus he rendered all his knowledge not only empty and unproductive, but it was a positive torture to him. Macbeth was disposed to sensuality and sensual delights. They did not seek him, they did not thrust themselves upon him, he summoned them to him. He followed a path that we have seen trodden by millions upon millions of our race. For ever and aye, through centuries, through cycles of history, man has fallen into the same error of supposing that the life of our life is to be found in the miserable gratifications of sense, of believing that sin, frivolity and wine must be aids in attaining and holding fast sensual delights.

At first, Macbeth contented himself with the lesser pleasures that the world of sense can afford. His joy lay [IV, iii, 57, 58] in luxury, wealth and women, often most miserably won. In addition, aware that evil often attains its ends more speedily in virtue's mask, he made hypocrisy his constant study. The tragedy shows him to be an adept in it. With murder in his heart, he addresses the fairest words to him whose death is the aim of all his energies. He can give utterance to a lament that sounds almost genuine, over the corpse of his victim, and comfort himself as if this

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death had wrung his very soul. The tragedy shows us Macbeth from the first as a crafty and practised hypocrite, and although German æsthetic criticism in particular declares that the poet here portrays a noble, heroic nature, degraded by crime, there is not the faintest trace of any such to be discovered in the piece itself, although searched for with the aid of a hundred thousand spectacles. .

Thus Shakespeare, who always clings firmly to the realities of existence, carries out his poetic fable of Macbeth. Unsatisfied by the smaller honors that he has attained, Macbeth casts his eyes upon the highest of which he knows, a royal crown. This only, he believes, can content him. It rests upon the head of a reverend old man, and Macbeth has not the shadow of foundation to a claim upon it. But trained by previous crime, his feelings already blunted, his heart already hardened, he resolves immediately to attain it by murder. He takes an oath to commit it as soon as time and opportunity, which can readily be arranged, should prove favourable. The tragedy repeatedly refers to this oath, which dates from a time previous to its

commencement.

But the murder of a king, particularly if it has for its object the attainment of a crown, is no small matter. The scaffold and the sword of the executioner might well be the answer to a demand for earthly dominion made after such a fashion. Macbeth, therefore, is a prey to anxiety, and looks about for aid and support. Then he encounters the witches upon his path; and they are to appear to him again at a later period. Macbeth does not deceive himself with regard to them; he knows that they are infernal spirits, but he makes friends with them because through them he hopes to steady the ground beneath him, if only during his earthly existence. And thus the evil that was within him strides on to the limits ordained for it, and the sense and significance of the poetic fable and tragedy are first revealed to us. A gigantic presentment of human sin is unfolded. For the sake of the miserable delights of this world men will cast their humanity into the dust-rebel against their true selves, outrage divinity, nay, if they could, sell themselves to the devil.* In Macbeth is manifest in especial that characteristic of human nature that is always, although perhaps not to the degree shown in this instance, conscious of wandering in paths of error that can only lead to destruction.

Macbeth had probably long revolved in his own breast thoughts of murder and the ambitious hopes connected with them. But man is a social and sympathetic being. Macbeth needs a human breast in which to confide, that can revel with him in his dreams of future grandeur and magnificence. And to whom could he more prudently turn than to his wedded wife, who was to share with him the crown he hoped to win? And yet such a confidence even to a wife is a serious, if not a dangerous affair. Macbeth can only have brought himself to reveal his murderous design to his spouse in the certainty that it would find welcome lodgement with her.

Thus Lady Macbeth makes her appearance as the second tragic figure in the poetic fable. German æsthetic criticism, following the lead given it in England, will have it tha Lady Macbeth seduced poor, gallant Macbeth to commit the murder, because she was an evil woman, familiar with crime, in fact more a tiger than a human being. Now, since no human being comes into the world a tiger, certainly German criticism, especially since it lays claim to such immense erudition, ought to declare by whom the Lady has been led astray and transformed to a tiger. But it eludes the trouble of such a revelation, and insists that its assertion that the Lady was

*They go in the way of Cain and run greedily after error for the sake of worldly enjoyment, and perish in confusion.

a tiger shall be satisfactory. The tragedy itself proves as clearly as daylight that Shakespeare, if he thought of seduction at all, did not dream of it as practised upon Macbeth by his wife. If there were any hint of such arts, born as they are of the slough of pseudo-rationalism, it might far sooner be shown that the lady was seduced by her husband; at least some apparent proofs in support of such an idea might be gleamed from the drama.

Like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is self-corrupted. And once corrupt she is worse than her husband. Nothing is more natural than this. A degenerating woman always falls lower than a man, because greater force of evil intent is necessary to overpower a more exquisite innate purity. Lady Macbeth has already committed a number of minor crimes when Macbeth imparts to her his regicidal schemes. She exults in them as he had anticipated, and the pair are henceforth linked firmly together by the bond that so often unites criminals for mutual advantage.

Because, as a woman, Lady Macbeth falls lower than a man, she is more intent on murder than murderous Macbeth himself. She affronts the deed more boldly, setting at naught minor considerations that present themselves to him. The relations presented by the tragedy are thus perfectly clear. . . .

T It is true, Banquo has not attained the colossal greatness and firmness in evil that belong to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but he is morally well prepared for deeds of darkness. He will not seek out sin in its lair, and bind himself by an oath to create an opportunity for crime, but should such an opportunity with fair promise of reward present itself, he is not the man to refuse to take advantage of it. Banquo is not aware of Macbeth's murderous intent towards the king, but he knows his comrade in arms, and feels that he would not shrink from a bloody deed if any great advancement were to be attained by it. . . .

[After witnessing Macbeth's emotion at the salutations of the witches, and clearly discerning his intentions of making them good, an] honest man would have made it his task from that moment to prevent the commission of a great crime. A virtuous, nay, even a tolerably upright Banquo would have espoused a double duty. On one side, King Duncan should have been, at first gently, and then as danger threatened firmly and decidedly, warned against an easy security, an unconditional confidence. On the other side, there was Macbeth to be gravely, perhaps menacingly, advised. And how easy a task would this last, at least, have proved for Banquo! Could he not say to Macbeth: 'I have heard the witches promise you a royal crown, I see the tumult of agitation excited within you-guard against any thoughts of verifying the prophecy by violence, above all take heed not to meditate evil towards our reverend King. I hold you responsible for his safety: should he die and I suspect you as the cause of his death, stand in awe of my unflinching testimony, my avenging sword.' But Banquo in neither case does what, as matters stand, the merest sense of duty, of honor, and of virtue requires of him. On the contrary, he comports himself precisely as the witches, as evil spirits, would have him, since he neglects everything that could delay Macbeth in his criminal career. The witches desire that Macbeth should be free to act, to murder-they desire that Banquo should place no obstacle in the way of his murderous intent; and their desire in both cases is fulfilled.

If Shakespeare had any idea of a seduction from the path of virtue, surely it must be maintained that both Macbeth and Banquo were the victims of the witches. It is ridiculous for German æsthetic criticism to talk so much of an uncorrupted Banquo.