conceives the idea of murdering his benefactor; immediately, however, he wrestles with that idea, and, for the moment, apparently resolves upon leaving it to chance to obtain for him the crown; in the following scene his design is again expressed in language the purport of which it is impossible to misunderstand, while, in the scene following that, he avoids any allusion to the project in which, but a short time before, his mind had been absorbed. We now see that the eloquence of his wife is ineffectual in inducing him to execute his purpose, for, it is immediately after his interview with her, that he utters the soliloquy at the conclusion of which, as Mrs. Siddons observes, "he wisely determines to proceed no further in the business." The discrepancy which is here apparent between Macbeth's conduct and his evident desire to obtain possession of the crown, admits of an explanation perfectly consistent with the view which we have expressed of the original remorsefulness of the hero's cha

racter.

Macbeth is, in a great measure, the sport of circumstances: his first determinations are

usually regulated by them; but he does not-at least he does not at the commencement of his career at once act upon the determinations he has formed, because he is not wholly without principle. But, although Macbeth is not utterly deficient in principle, he is totally destitute of any strength of principle; the virtuous resolutions and good intentions of one moment are not in him of sufficient strength to withstand the criminal suggestions of another. His conduct fully illustrates the truth of the foregoing observations. Through the influence of external circumstances through the presence of the Weird Sisters, Macbeth is induced to entertain the idea of assassination; but, when the visible presence of these supernatural beings is no longer exercising an immediate influence upon his thoughts, we see that principle intervenes, and that Macbeth half resolves to lay aside his purpose. Afterwards, when Duncan calls upon the nobles to recognise Malcolm as their future king, Macbeth's horrible design starts into life at once; the prediction of the Weird Sisters is again brought forcibly home to him by the emphatic

declaration of his Sovereign; the crown, which is the object of his ambitious thoughts, he hears solemnly bequeathed unto another; his halfformed virtuous resolutions of the preceding scene are powerless, under such circumstances, to restrain the unhallowed aspirations of his mind, eager to snatch at the only visible means of securing to himself the crown he covets, by the murder of the man who is his kinsman, his benefactor, and is about to become his guest. When, however, the immediate cause, or, perhaps, we should rather the immediate influence of the cause which has wrung from him his murderous declaration, is withdrawn, his better nature is again awakened;-selfish considerations are now scarcely the motives that make him shrink from the contemplated murder; it is because he is sensible of the enormous wickedness of the action which the Weird Sisters, in the first instance, had suggested-it is because feelings of remorse and shame come crowding on his brain and heart

say,

it is because of the burning sense of infamy in the thought that he who should protect—who "against the murderer should shut the door," is

about "to bear the knife himself,"-it is because he feels a genuine horror of the crime, a strong and heartfelt conviction of "the deep damnation of his taking off," that he determines to relinquish his design.

Let us now glance at the construction which the reviewer puts upon Macbeth's conduct, previous to his commission of the murder.

The reviewer, of course, considers, that his guilty purpose of obtaining possession of the crown by means of Duncan's assassination, was already formed at the time of his uttering the exclamation:

“Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black and deep desires;"

and maintains, that he never relents from that purpose, "however he may falter in its execution." Consequently, when he addresses Lady Macbeth, thus:—

"My dearest love,

Duncan comes here to-night;"

and answers her enquiry, "And when goes hence?" with the words "To-morrow, -as he purposes;" "It is not," the reviewer remarks, "that Macbeth

wavers either in the desire of his object, or in his liking for the means; but that the more imminent he feels the execution to be, the more he shrinks from the worldly responsibility that may follow, and the more he is driven to lean for support on the moral resolution of his wife." Again the reviewer considers that Mrs. Siddons was led by the critical oracles of the day erroneously to impute Macbeth's hesitation as evinced in the foregoing passage, to his virtuous repugnance to the scheme of assassination, instead of to his selfish fears. But is it not remarkable, if it be merely selfish fear and not virtuous repugnance which the lady is chiding in the scene alluded to, that, in the one immediately following, influenced by considerations of loyalty and justice, Macbeth should announce the determination he had formed of relinquishing his design? Is not the utterance by Macbeth of such sentiments as are contained in the soliloquy commencing "If it were done," altogether inconsistent with the idea that the cause of his previous hesitation lay in his selfish fears? We are aware that the reviewer denies that, in his subsequent refusal to proceed further in the