usurper into further crime. Neither of them knew themselves. They thought the murder of Duncan was merely a bridge to carry them across from nobility to royalty. But the assassination could not 'trammel up the consequence;' it was, on the very contrary, a living seed which produced fruit of misery an hundredfold. Before Macbeth dies, his life has become utterly hollow and objectless; it has become 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,' but completely empty of significance. 'A huge ennui pursues crime,' says Mr Dowden.

6. The true reason for the first appearance of the witches,' says Coleridge, 'is to strike the key-note of the character of the whole drama. That key-note is that evil, for the time, has obtained the mastery; and that it, like disease in the physical body, must work itself out in the social body. 'Fair is foul' to the witches, and 'foul is fair;' and these weird sisters represent those powers of evil which have a real existence in society, and which are frequently powerful enough to subdue the individual will. 'The history of the race,' says Mr Dowden, and the social medium in which we live and breathe, have created forces of good and evil, which are independent of the will of each individual man and woman. The sins of past centuries taint the atmosphere of to-day. We move through the world subject to accumulated forces of evil and of good outside ourselves.' The remaining characters of the play are comparatively insignificant. Banquo is the moral foil to Macbeth. He prays that any evil thoughts which visit his mind may be restrained, and have no power over him; and, though his life is sacrificed, his soul remains loyal and good.

7. The critics are agreed in ranking Macbeth among the greatest, if not as the very greatest, of Shakespeare's works. Mr Hallam says:

"The majority of readers, I believe, assign to Macbeth, which seems to have been written about 1606, the pre-eminence among the works of Shakespeare; many, however, would rather name Othello, and a few might prefer Lear to either. The great epic drama, as the first may be called, deserves, in my own judgment, the post it has attained, as being, in the language of Drake, "the greatest effort of our author's genius, the most sublime and impressive drama which the world has ever beheld.”

Schlegel has an excellent analysis of the play, from which the following extracts are made:

'Repentance immediately follows, nay, even precedes the deed, and the stings of conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now

fairly entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful it is to behold that same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he dreads the prospect of the life to come, clinging with growing anxiety to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly removing out of the way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems to threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we cannot altogether refuse to compassionate the state of his mind; we lament the ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defence we are compelled to admire the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly conscience. We might believe that we witness in this tragedy the overruling destiny of the ancients represented in perfect accordance with their ideas: the whole originates in a supernatural influence, to which the subsequent events seem inevitably linked. Moreover, we even find here the same ambiguous oracles which, by their literal fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them. Yet it may be easily shewn that the poet has, in his work, displayed more enlightened views. He wishes to shew that the conflict of good and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down on their heads into a blessing to others. In the pro

gress of the action, this piece is altogether the reverse of Hamlet; it strides forward with amazing rapidity, from the first catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the last. Thought and done! is the general motto; for as Macbeth says:

"The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it."

In every feature we see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North, which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained-years, perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much could ever have been compressed into so narrow a space; not merely external events—the very inmost recesses in the minds of the dramatic personages are laid open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from the wheels of time, and they rolled along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can equal this picture in its power to excite terror. We need only allude to the circumstances attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Banquo at the feast, the madness of Lady Macbeth; what can possibly be said on the subject that will not rather weaken the impression they naturally leave? Such scenes stand alone, and are to be found only in this poet; otherwise the tragic muse might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa.'

An attempt has been made in these new editions to interpret Shakespeare by the aid of Shakespeare himself. The Method of Comparison has been constantly employed; and the language used by him in one place has been compared with the language used in other places in similar circumstances-as well as with older English and with newer English. The text has been as carefully and as thoroughly annotated as the text of any Greek or Latin classic.

The first purpose in this elaborate annotation is of course the full working out of Shakespeare's meaning. The Editor has in all circumstances taken as much pains with this as if he had been making out the difficult and obscure terms of a will in which he himself was personally interested; and he submits that this thorough excavation of the meaning of a really profound thinker is one of the very best kinds of training that a boy or girl can receive at school. This is to read the very mind of Shakespeare, and to weave his thoughts into the fibre of one's own mental constitution. And always new rewards come to the careful reader-in the shape of new meanings, recognition of thoughts he had before missed, of relations between the characters that had hitherto escaped him. For reading Shakespeare is just like examining Nature; there are no hollownesses, there is no scamped work, for Shakespeare is as patiently exact and as first-hand as Nature herself.

Besides this thorough working-out of Shakespeare's meaning, advantage has been taken of the opportunity to teach his English-to make each play an introduction to the ENGLISH of Shakespeare. For this purpose, copious collections of similar phrases have been gathered from other plays; his idioms have been dwelt upon; his peculiar use of words; his style and his rhythm. Some teachers may consider that too many instances are given; but, in teaching, as in everything else, the old French saying is true: Assez n'y a, s'il trop n'y a. The teacher need not require each pupil to give him all the instances collected. If each gives one or two, it will probably be enough; and, among them all, it is certain that one or two will stick in the memory. It is probable that, for those pupils who do not study either Greek or Latin, this close examination of every word and phrase in the text of Shakespeare will be the best substitute that can be found for the study of the ancient classics.

It were much to be hoped that Shakespeare should become more and more of a national study; and that every boy and girl in England should have a thorough knowledge of at least one play of Shakespeare before they leave school. It would be one of the best lessons in human life-without the chance of a polluting or degrading experience. It would also have the effect of bringing back into the too pale and formal English of modern times a large number of pithy and vigorous phrases, which would help to develop as well as to reflect vigour in the characters of the readers. Shakespeare used the English language with more power than any writer that ever lived-he made it do more and say more than it had ever done-he made it speak in a more original way; and his combinations of words are perpetual provocations and invitations to originality and to newness of insight.

A more complete attempt has been made in Macbeth and in The Tempest than in the previous plays to work out the development of the passion and the tragic elements; but much has been still left to the Teacher.

J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN.

Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth, Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.

SCENE-IN THE END OF THE FOURTH ACT, IN ENGLAND; THROUGH THE REST OF THE PLAY, IN SCOTLAND.

АСТ І.

SCENE I.—An open Place. Thunder and Lightning.
Enter three Witches.

FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain ?

Second Witch. When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle 's lost and won.

Third Witch. That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch. Where the place?

Second Witch.

Upon the heath:

Third Witch. There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch. I come, Graymalkin !

Second Witch. Paddock calls :-anon.

5

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SCENE II.—A Camp near Forres. Alarum within.

Enter KING DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier.

Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report,

As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity.-Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.

Doubtful it stood;

5

?

Sold.
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together,
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonald
(Worthy to be a rebel-for, to that,

Doub

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The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him) from the western isles

Of kernes and gallowglasses is supplied:

And Fortune on his quarrel smil'd; but all 's too weak :

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),

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Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smok'd with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion,

Carv'd out his passage till he fac'd the slave;

And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;