"A man is not a coward because he fears to be

unjust" is the sentiment of an old dramatic poet.

Macbeth's principle is honour; cruelty is natural to his wife; ambition is common to both; one passion favourable to her purpose has taken place in his heart; another still hangs about it, which, being adverse to her plot, is first to be expelled, before she can instil her cruelty into his nature. The sentiment above quoted had been firmly delivered, and was ushered in with an apostrophe suitable to its importance; she feels its weight; she perceives it is not to be turned aside with contempt, or laughed down by ridicule, as she had already done where weaker scruples had stood in the way: but, taking sophistry in aid, by a ready turn of argument she gives him credit for his sentiment, erects a more glittering though fallacious logic upon it, and by admitting his objection cunningly confutes it

What beast was't then

That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man,
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more than man.

Having thus parried his objection by a sophistry calculated to blind his reason and inflame his ambition, she breaks forth into such a vaunting display of hardened intrepidity as presents one of the most terrific pictures that was ever imagined

I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me;
I would, whilst it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from its boneless gums,
And dash'd its brains out, had I but so sworn
As you have done to this.

This is a note of horror, screwed to a pitch that bursts the very sinews of nature; she no longer combats with a human weapon, but, seizing the flash of the lightning, extinguishes her opponent with the stroke: here the controversy must end, for he must either adopt her spirit, or take her life; he sinks under the attack, and offering nothing in delay of execution but a feeble hesitation, founded on fear"If we should fail" - he concludes with an assumed ferocity, caught from her and not springing from himself

I am settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

The strong and sublime strokes of a master impressed upon this scene make it a model of dramatic composition, and I must in this place remind the reader of the observation I have before hinted at, that no reference whatever is had to the auguries of the witches: it would be injustice to suppose that this was other than a purposed omission by the poet; a weaker genius would have resorted back to these instruments. Shakspeare had used and laid them aside for a time; he had a stronger engine at work, and he could proudly exclaim

We defy auguries!-

Nature was sufficient for that work, and, to show the mastery he had over nature, he took his human agent from the weaker sex.

This having passed in the first act, the murder is perpetrated in the succeeding one. The introductory soliloquy of Macbeth, the chimera of the dagger, and the signal on the bell, are awful preludes to the deed. In this dreadful interim Lady Macbeth, the great superintending spirit, enters to support the dreadful work. It is done; and he returns appalled with sounds; he surveys his bloody hands with horror; he starts from her proposal of going back to besmear the guards of Duncan's chamber, and she snatches the reeking daggers from his trembling

hands to finish the imperfect work

She returns on the scene, the deed which he revolted from is performed, and with the same unshaken ferocity she vauntingly displays her bloody trophies and exclaims

My hands are of your colour, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.

Fancied noises, the throbbings of his own quailing heart, had shaken the constancy of Macbeth; real sounds, the certain signals of approaching visiters, to whom the situation of Duncan must be revealed, do not intimidate her: she is prepared for all trials, and coolly tells him

I hear a knocking

At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed.

How easy is it then!

The several incidents thrown together in this scene of the murder of Duncan are of so striking a sort as to need no elucidation: they are better felt than described, and my attempts point at passages of more obscurity, where the touches are thrown into shade, and the art of the author lies more out of sight.

Lady Macbeth being now retired from the scene, we may in this interval, as we did in the conclusion of the former paper, permit the genius of Æschylus to introduce a rival murderess on the stage.

Clytemnestra has received her husband Agamemnon, on his return from the capture of Troy, with studied rather than cordial congratulations. He opposes the pompous ceremonies she had devised for

VOL. II.

M

the display of his entry, with a magnanimous contempt of such adulation

Sooth me not with strains

Of adulation, as a girl; nor raise
As to some proud barbaric king, that loves
Loud acclamations echoed from the mouths
Of prostrate worshippers, a clamorous welcome:
Spread not the streets with tapestry; 'tis invidious:
These are the honours we should pay the gods;
For mortal men to tread on ornaments
Of rich embroidery-no; I dare not do it:
Respect me as a man, not as a god.

POTTER'S AÆSCHYLUS.

These are heroic sentiments, but in conclusion the persuasions of the wife overcome the modest scruples of the hero, and he enters his palace in the pomp of triumph; when soon his dying groans are echoed from the interior scene, and the adulteress comes forth besprinkled with the blood of her husband to avow the murder

I struck him twice, and twice

He groan'd; then died: a third time as he lay
I gored him with a wound; a grateful present
To the stern god, that in the realms below
Reigns o'er the dead: there let him take his seat.
He lay: and, spouting from his wounds a stream
Of blood, bedew'd me with these crimson drops.
I glory in them, like the genial earth,
When the warın showers of heaven descend, and wake
The flowrets to unfold their vermeil leaves.
Come then, ye reverend senators of Argos,

Joy with me, if your hearts be turn'd to joy,

And such I wish them.

POTTER.

No. LXXI.

Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

Ut magnus; et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.

HORAT.

RICHARD perpetrates several murders, but as the poet has not marked them with any distinguishing circumstances, they need not be enumerated on this occasion. Some of these he commits in his passage to power, others after he has seated himself on the throne. Ferociousness and hypocrisy are the prevailing features of his character; and, as he has no one honourable or humane principle to combat, there is no opening for the poet to develope those secret workings of conscience which he has so naturally done in the case of Macbeth.

The murder of Clarence, those of the queen's kinsmen, and of the young princes in the Tower, are all perpetrated in the same style of hardened cruelty. He takes the ordinary method of hiring ruffians to perform his bloody commissions, and there is nothing which particularly marks the scenes wherein he imparts his purposes and instructions to them; a very little management serves even for Tirrel, who is not a professional murderer, but is reported to be

-a discontented gentleman,

Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.

With such a spirit Richard does not hold it necessary to use much circumlocution, and seems more in dread of delay than disappointment or discovery